Stop Killing Games: Ross Scott on why publishers shouldn't be able to delete your games

Ross Scott joined Ars Technica Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland for a live discussion this week about the Stop Killing Games movement — the ongoing campaign pushing back against publishers who shut down online servers and render purchased games completely unplayable.

Scott was candid about how he ended up leading the charge. He said the situation around long-term game access was already "intolerable a decade and a half ago" and that he kept waiting for someone more experienced or better connected to step up. When nobody did, he described it as drawing "the short straw on this, essentially." He also pointed out how normalized the practice has become — publishers can kill access to a game at any time, for any reason, with minimal notice, and the industry treats it as routine. Scott argued that the same behavior in almost any other consumer context would be considered outrageous.

Stop Killing Games has been building momentum as a consumer rights issue, particularly in Europe where regulatory frameworks around digital ownership are more developed. The movement argues that when a publisher shuts down the servers required to run a game, buyers are left with nothing — no refund, no offline mode, no archive. High-profile shutdowns of live-service titles over the past few years have kept the issue in the public eye, and Scott's campaign has pushed for legislation that would require publishers to leave games in a playable state after server closure, whether through patches, emulation support, or other means.

The full conversation is available to watch via Ars Technica. With the movement still pushing for legislative traction, Scott's core argument remains simple: if you bought a game, you should be able to play it.