Stop Killing Games
initiative against unplayability of video games with purchased licenses (partly linked to servers)
Stop Killing Games (SKG), also known as Stop Destroying Videogames (SDVG), is a consumer movement that seeks to preserve video games after they are taken offline. It was started in 2024 by Ross Scott in response to the shutdown of Ubisoft's The Crew, a 2014 racing game that required a constant internet connection despite being mainly single-player. It uses various legal avenues to push for requiring video game publishers to keep games playable and in a reasonably functioning state even after their discontinuation, challenging the industry trend of selling games as a revocable license or service that can at any moment be rendered obsolete by the publisher.
Stop Killing Games quickly garnered popularity, being covered by various YouTubers and news outlets. It was praised by various celebrities, politicians and game developers for tackling a long-lasting problem in the video game industry, though some were sceptical, citing issues with licensed and proprietary content as well as increased development costs due to preservation efforts.
Stop Killing Games has launched multiple government petitions, of which the most prominent is a European Citizens' Initiative named Stop Destroying Videogames, which received around 1.3 million valid signatures. Additionally, a UK Parliament petition managed to amass enough votes for an official debate, though it was ultimately decided that no amendments to existing law would be made.
Background
The Crew was a 2014 racing game developed by Ubisoft Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft. The game was designed to require a constant internet connection to Ubisoft's online servers to play, including for play in single-player. By December 14, 2023, Ubisoft delisted the game and its expansions from digital platforms, suspended sales of microtransactions, and announced that the game's servers would be shut down on March 31, 2024, citing "upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints".
The public source identifies “Stop Killing Games” as initiative against unplayability of video games with purchased licenses (partly linked to servers). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stop, Killing and Games.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131379199. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2014 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stop Killing Games” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.