Stop Killing Games has come a long way in the two years since YouTuber Ross Scott got mad about Ubisoft’s destruction of The Crew in 2024. The short version is, he won: 1.3 million people signed the group’s petition, mandating its consideration by the European Union, and while Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reminded us all that nothing is forever, his company promised to never do something like that again. But it looks like even bigger things are in store, as Scott announced today that Stop Killing Games is launching two official NGOs, one in the EU and the other in the US.
An NGO—that’s non-governmental organization—is, very generally speaking, an organization that pursues particular goals, typically but not exclusively political, and that may be funded partially or fully by governments, but is not actually part of any government. It’s a big tent: Well-known NGOs include Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and CARE International.
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“In my opinion, he’s been doing as much for the movement in the political sphere as I did on the issue on everything prior to that,” Scott says. “And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. That could be why he tends to not sleep. I’ve told him he should sleep, but whatever. Edgar Allan Poe didn’t like sleep either.”
While Katzner is heading things up on the EU side, he’s also advising the Stop Killing Games NGO that’s being set up in the US. Scott reiterated his skepticism of the NGOs leading to major changes in how the industry works, particularly in the US, “but I would love to have my cynicism proven wrong,” he said. “At the very least, it won’t hurt anything and could raise more attention on solving the problem.”
He has more hope that all of this will give the game industry a reason to reconsider its actions. “I get why the industry fights so hard against regulating predatory monetization. If the videogame industry can’t push microtransactions on kids and gambling addicts easily, that could literally cost them billions. So, while I’m not a fan of that, I at least understand why they spend a lot fighting that,” he says.
“But our issue, having bare-bones end-of-life plans, that’s peanuts. They are absolutely spending more money on lobbyists to fight this than it would take to fix their development process. And then the cost would be almost nothing afterwards. And as a bonus, then their customers would like them more.”
Scott told PC Gamer that he’s happy to have others building on top of the Stop Killing Games movement, and said his involvement will likely be limited to giving endorsements for various initiatives that come up. “I kind of look at it like a relay race where I’m handing off a baton. My only focus is trying to get the problem of game destruction addressed and since people helping have the expertise and connections, I’m all for them launching the NGO, which could give us more agency in that collectively.”
All of this may be just the beginning: Scott said in the video that he doesn’t have details, but the two NGOs are reportedly looking at establishing a “global movement” to give Stop Killing Games a presence in other regions.
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