Prominent European politician agrees that "a game, once sold, belongs to the customer, not the company" as Stop Killing Games faces resistance from European publishing group saying its demands aren't "proportionate"

An orange car in The Crew.

The Stop Killing Games movement just got support from a notable European politician, who's not only signed the initiative, but says he'll "continue to help" the cause, too.

The initiative seeks to stop game publishers from being able to make games totally unplayable when support has ended for them. "This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible," Stop Killing Games says. "Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries."

However, the movement recently faced some resistance. Video Games Europe – which has a board of members from companies including Warner Bros. Games, Microsoft, Activision, and more – stated that the initiative appears to be asking for a "combination of a requirement to provide online services for as long as a consumer wants them, regardless of price paid, and/or a requirement to provide a very specific form of end-of-life plan where the game is altered to enable private servers to operate." It added: "We do not believe these are proportionate demands."

Now though, as spotted by Dexerto, Nicolae Ștefănuță – a Romanian politician who serves as one of the vice presidents of the European Parliament – has given Stop Killing Games a shoutout on his Instagram page, sharing his support.

"I stand with the people who started this citizen initiative," he writes, in a comment translated by Stop Killing Games (and verified using machine translation). "I signed and will continue to help them. A game, once sold, belongs to the customer, not the company."

"I stand with the people who started this citizen initiative. I signed and will continue to help them. A game, once sold, belongs to the customer, not the company." Thank you @nicustefanuta !https://t.co/Bh4KKIqN8j https://t.co/8gHEaMfsxa pic.twitter.com/crM7xb6cgCJuly 12, 2025

Hopefully, some real good will come of all this. The initiative is already past its original goal of one million signatures, but those behind it previously warned that it could really do with "at least 1.2-1.3 million, and ever more buffer to account for invalid signatures!" Individuals have until July 31 to add their signature.

In case you missed it, Stop Killing Games began after Ubisoft announced the shutdown of racing game The Crew.