Stop Killing Games Heads to EU Parliament Hearing in April 2026

When Ubisoft shut down The Crew's servers on March 31, 2024, players who had paid full price for the open-world racer discovered something buried in the fine print: their "purchase" had always been a revocable license to use a product the company could switch off at will. Most of them had no idea. Two years later, that same clause is at the center of a French lawsuit and an EU parliamentary hearing that could legally redefine what buying a game actually means.

On April 16, 2026, the European Parliament convenes a public hearing in Brussels at 11:00 AM local time, organized jointly by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), and the Committee on Petitions (PETI). Ross Scott, the Accursed Farms creator who has been the public face of Stop Killing Games since the campaign's launch, will appear as a speaker after receiving a direct invitation. Scott admitted in a recent video update that he hadn't initially expected to address Parliament. "Now, as I understand it, we already have Parliament majority support, but this is going to boost it even more," he said.

The European Citizens' Initiative "Stop Destroying Videogames" finished verification with 1,294,188 confirmed signatures, clearing the EU's one-million threshold. The ECI was successfully submitted to the European Commission in February 2026. The Commission has until July 27, 2026 to discuss the initiative in detail and present an official reply, "outlining the actions it intends to take, if any." The April 16 parliamentary hearing is one of the procedural steps inside that window.

Feeding directly into that momentum: on March 31, 2026, exactly two years after The Crew went dark, French consumer association UFC-Que Choisir filed suit against Ubisoft in the Créteil court. Backed by Stop Killing Games, the lawsuit accuses Ubisoft of misleading consumers about the permanence of their purchase and imposing abusive contractual clauses that stripped players of ownership rights. The goal isn't to force Ubisoft to bring back The Crew, but rather to keep this sort of thing from happening again "by obtaining a pioneering decision essential to clarifying the obligations incumbent upon videogame publishers."

What SKG is actually pressing for maps to four concrete policy changes: a legal requirement to release offline patches before servers are retired; server code held in escrow so third-party operators can keep games running after a shutdown; minimum guaranteed service periods disclosed at point of sale; and clear labeling at checkout whenever a purchase is structured as a time-limited license rather than permanent ownership. EU Parliamentary question E-10-2026-000981 reflects that elected representatives are actively probing whether existing consumer-protection rules cover these scenarios or whether new legislation is required.

The April 16 session is scheduled to be livestreamed through the European Parliament's official channels. If you are in an EU country, the most direct action is contacting an MEP on the IMCO committee and asking them to support the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative; the Stop Killing Games website lists country-specific contact resources for reaching Parliament members. UK players have a separate parliamentary petition in progress; the recommended path is a direct message to your MP, specifically noting that the initial response from the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport has not addressed the campaign's core ask. Wherever you are, screenshots of terms of service from games you currently own, alongside purchase receipts, form the kind of paper trail consumer advocates say could matter as legal proceedings develop.

The Commission's July 27 deadline means whatever emerges from the April 16 hearing feeds directly into a formal response with binding procedural weight. For the first time since the game-shutdown debate became impossible to ignore, a regulatory clock is actually running.