California Assembly Vote Gives New Momentum to the Stop Killing Games Campaign

Stop Killing Games isn't about violence in video games. It's about whether the games you buy still belong to you after the publisher turns off the lights. In 2026, that fight reached a real legislature for the first time - and the result was messier and more instructive than either side expected.

If you're building games for a living, or training to, this campaign matters more than most industry news cycles. It's a live test of how "games as a service" collides with basic consumer ownership, and the outcome shapes what "shipping a game" will mean for your generation of developers.

Key Facts at a Glance 

What Stop Killing Games Actually Wants

The campaign started in 2024, founded by YouTuber Ross Scott after Ubisoft permanently shut down The Crew - a game people had paid for outright, rendered completely unplayable once the servers went dark. Scott's ask was simple: publishers shouldn't be allowed to sell something and then remotely delete it.

The campaign's core demands:

• Games sold to consumers must be left in a functional state when support ends

• Games shouldn't require an ongoing connection to the publisher just to run

• These protections should apply even when microtransactions were involved

• An end-user license agreement shouldn't be able to override any of the above

That's it. No content ratings, no violence angle, no parental controls. It's a preservation and ownership argument - closer to right-to-repair than to anything about game content.

Quick Glossary

• Stop Killing Games: Global consumer campaign (2024–present) demanding publishers leave purchased games in a functional state after official support ends.

• AB 1921 / Protect Our Games Act: California State Assembly bill requiring 60 days' shutdown notice and a functional fallback (offline mode, private servers, or refund) for affected games.

• Stop Destroying Videogames: The campaign's official European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) name, used in EU documentation.

• European Citizens' Initiative (ECI): An EU mechanism letting citizens petition the European Commission directly once a proposal collects 1 million+ verified signatures across at least 7 member states.

• Game preservation: The practice of keeping older or discontinued games playable long-term, through emulation, offline modes, or community server support.

California's AB 1921: A Real Win, Then a Real Loss

In May 2026, California Assembly Member Chris Ward introduced AB 1921, the "Protect Our Games Act." The bill would have required publishers to give at least 60 days' notice before shutting down servers or making a change that breaks a game, and to leave buyers with some way to keep using what they paid for - an offline mode, a private server option, or a refund.

It passed the Assembly floor by a wide 43–16 margin on May 29, 2026, drawing support from both parties. That made it the first time a U.S. legislative chamber had formally advanced a game-preservation bill of this kind.

Then the momentum stalled. On June 29, 2026, AB 1921 hit a Senate committee vote and came up short - 4 in favor, 3 opposed, 4 abstentions, missing the majority it needed to move forward. The bill wasn't killed outright; it was granted reconsideration, but procedural rules mean it can't come back for another vote before the 2027 session at the earliest.

The Entertainment Software Association, the industry's main U.S. trade group, had lobbied against the bill, arguing it would force studios to spend limited resources keeping old systems alive instead of building new ones. Stop Killing Games' response was blunt: this is the same fight already playing out in Europe - a consumer movement asking for baseline end-of-life protections, against an industry trying to preserve the right to sell something it can later disable at will.

The EU Said No Too - But Not a Full No

While California's bill was moving, the campaign's original push in Europe was reaching its own deadline. The EU version, "Stop Destroying Videogames," collected over 1.29 million verified signatures as a European Citizens' Initiative, clearing the threshold for the European Commission to formally respond by July 27, 2026.

That response came early, on June 16, 2026. The Commission declined to propose new legislation. Instead, it committed to two things: launching a dialogue between the games industry and consumer groups by the end of 2026 to work toward a voluntary code of conduct, and working with consumer protection authorities to better enforce the rights players already have under existing law.

For a campaign that started as a single YouTube video, getting a formal reply from the European Commission - even a "no, but" - is still a milestone most grassroots gaming campaigns never reach. Organizers have said they plan to keep pushing through other channels, including the EU's upcoming Digital Fairness Act.

Full Timeline: How We Got Here

• 2024: Ubisoft shuts down The Crew; Ross Scott launches Stop Killing Games in response.

• October 2025: Early discussions explore folding game-preservation protections into the EU's Digital Fairness Act.

• January 26, 2026: "Stop Destroying Videogames" ECI submitted to the European Commission with 1,294,188 verified signatures.

• April 16, 2026: Public hearing at the European Parliament, jointly organized by the IMCO, JURI, and PETI committees.

• May 21, 2026: European Parliament plenary session debates the initiative.

• May 29, 2026: California's AB 1921 passes the State Assembly, 43–16.

• June 16, 2026: European Commission delivers its formal Communication, declining new legislation.

• June 29, 2026: AB 1921 fails its California Senate committee vote, 4–3, with 4 abstentions; granted reconsideration.

• End of 2026 (planned): EU industry–consumer dialogue begins, targeting a voluntary code of conduct.

• 2027 session (earliest): AB 1921 becomes eligible for another Senate vote.

This timeline draws on reporting from PC Gamer, GamesRadar+, and the European Commission's own Citizens' Initiative portal — cross-checked here rather than repeated from any single outlet, since dates and vote counts are exactly the kind of detail worth verifying against more than one source before you cite them elsewhere.

Why This Should Matter to You as a Developer

Whether you're studying Unity, Unreal, or game art at EXR, this campaign is a preview of a design constraint you'll likely face in your career: end-of-life planning.

• Live-service and online-dependent games carry real long-term risk. If regulation like AB 1921 eventually passes somewhere with global reach, studios will need to design for an eventual offline or server-independent fallback from day one — not bolt it on after a shutdown decision.

• "Always online" isn't a free architectural choice anymore. Even without a law forcing the issue, the public conversation is shifting how players evaluate games before buying - especially anything with meaningful microtransactions.

• Preservation is becoming a portfolio-worthy design consideration. Understanding how to architect a game so it can gracefully degrade to offline play, rather than hard-failing when servers go down, is a genuinely useful skill to be able to speak to in interviews.

• Industry pushback is a business reality, not just noise. The ESA's objections reflect real cost tradeoffs studios weigh. Knowing both sides of this argument - player rights versus live-ops economics - will make you a sharper collaborator with production and business teams later on.

What Happens Next

AB 1921 is paused, not dead - it's eligible for another Senate vote starting in the 2027 session. The EU's industry dialogue is set to run through the end of 2026, and its outcome could shape whether the Digital Fairness Act picks up preservation language where the Citizens' Initiative left off. Watch both threads if you're tracking where "games as a service" is headed as a business model.

FAQ

Is Stop Killing Games about violent video games?

 No. It's a consumer-protection and preservation campaign focused on whether publishers can permanently disable games that people already paid for. It has nothing to do with game content or ratings.

Did California actually pass a new law?

 Not yet. AB 1921 passed the State Assembly but failed to clear a Senate committee vote in June 2026. It's paused with a chance at reconsideration in 2027, not enacted.

What did the EU decide? 

The European Commission declined to propose new legislation in response to the "Stop Destroying Videogames" initiative, opting instead for a voluntary industry dialogue and better enforcement of existing consumer law.

Why do publishers oppose these rules? I

ndustry groups like the ESA argue that mandating offline fallbacks or extended support diverts resources from new development and can be costly to implement retroactively across older titles.

What should aspiring game developers take from this?

 That designing for a game's eventual end-of-life - offline modes, data ownership, server independence - is becoming a real, discussed part of production planning, not just an edge case.

Who started Stop Killing Games, and why?

 Ross Scott, a YouTuber behind the channel Accursed Farms, founded the campaign in 2024 after Ubisoft shut down The Crew, permanently disabling a game people had bought outright.

Which games have already been affected by this issue? 

High-profile shutdowns cited by the campaign include Ubisoft's The Crew and EA's Anthem, both of which stopped working once their servers were switched off, even for players who owned them outright.

Would AB 1921 have applied to every game, everywhere?

 No. As written, it would only have covered games released on or after January 1, 2027, and it excluded free-to-play titles. But because of California's market size, many studios would likely have applied its standards globally rather than build a California-only version.

Is AB 1921 completely dead now?

 Not permanently. It has reconsideration status, meaning it's paused rather than rejected outright. Procedural rules mean it can't return for another Senate vote until the 2027 legislative session at the earliest.

Does this affect indie developers the same way it affects big publishers?

 The core obligations - notice periods, offline fallbacks - would apply regardless of studio size, but the compliance burden hits differently. Larger publishers with legacy live-service catalogs have more retrofitting to do, while indie and solo developers building new projects can plan for end-of-life support from the start at much lower cost.

Conclusion

Stop Killing Games didn't win in California, and it didn't get new EU law either. But in one year, it went from a niche petition to a bill that cleared a state Assembly and a formal European Commission response - a trajectory almost no consumer gaming campaign has matched. For anyone training to build games, it's worth watching not because of who wins, but because of the design question it forces onto every studio: what happens to your game, and the people who paid for it, the day you turn off the servers?

At EXR Games & Academy, we make sure students aren't just learning Unity, Unreal, or game art in isolation - we build in an understanding of the industry realities shaping how games get made, shipped, and supported long after launch. Conversations like Stop Killing Games are exactly the kind of real-world context we bring into the classroom, so our graduates walk into studios already thinking like working developers, not just technically skilled ones.