Believes that sufficient rights already exist
Updated 14.23 | Published 14.19
Now the EU Commission is responding to the demands to keep games alive.
With the rights already in place.
“They’re not doing their job,” counters Stop killing games Ross Scott.
Stop killing games requires games to be playable even after the official servers are shut down and has collected over a million signatures to The European Commission would raise the issue.
Now replies the commissionand believes that a legal requirement would not be proportionate as copyright, licenses and technical risks could make it unreasonably expensive. They also believe that the risks surrounding allowing private servers to continue operating could mean risks for both the players and the developers.
From the EU Commission’s response
“The Commission considers that at this stage it cannot propose a legal obligation to continue playing video games after they are no longer commercially available. This also depends on existing intellectual property rights. Under EU copyright law, rights holders have exclusive rights to their creations. In addition to copyright, other intellectual property rights may also be relevant as they can protect various visual and technical aspects of a video game.”
“Current EU consumer law already provides for important safeguards to protect consumers’ financial interests.”
Source: The European Commission
Means rights already exist
They thus follow the same lines as the developers trade association Video games Europe responded a year ago after the appeal started.
EU-the commission also believes that today’s consumer protection laws already give certain rights, such as that the developers must inform the game buyers in good time before games are closed, if a game is closed earlier than the consumer could reasonably expect, it can in some cases be considered a breach of contract.
The answer: “They are not doing their job”
The EU Commission will hold a dialogue with the developers about a voluntary code of conduct for how games should be phased out and investigate opportunities for better information for consumers, which does not solve the problems that games that customers have in some cases paid full price for may become unplayable over time, which previously happened with games such as “The crew”, “Anthem” and “Splatoon”.
The initiator of stop killing games, Ross Scottreplies that the commission’s statement that it “surprises no one”, that the commission is “not doing its job” in securing consumers’ rights and that “the fight continues”.
