State regulators and consumer advocates are increasingly challenging the language and practices surrounding digital game sales, amid legal battles, preservation concerns, and market shifts away from physical discs.
State regulators are paying closer attention to the language used to sell digital goods, particularly where a consumer clicks “buy” but receives only a licence with limits attached. That concern is becoming especially acute in video games, where publishers are moving further away from discs and towards download codes, online storefronts and always-connected services. Sony has already said it will end physical disc production for new PlayStation games in January 2028, underlining how quickly the market is shifting.
The backlash is no longer just a matter of collector frustration. The Stop Killing Games campaign emerged after Ubisoft shut down the servers for The Crew, a 2014 racing title that became unplayable once official support ended in March 2024. The movement argues that publishers should not be able to leave customers with a product that stops functioning entirely, and wants games to remain reasonably playable through offline modes, community-hosted servers or other end-of-life arrangements. Ubisoft chief executive Yves Guillemot has defended the company’s approach, saying game support cannot continue indefinitely, although the publisher has since said it will add an offline mode for The Crew 2.
The dispute has begun to spill into litigation and consumer enforcement. French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir has filed a lawsuit backed by Stop Killing Games, alleging that Ubisoft misled players about the durability of access they were being sold. A class action in California was withdrawn last year, but the broader campaign has continued to gather momentum, including more than 1.29 million verified signatures for the European citizens’ initiative Stop Destroying Videogames. The European Commission stopped short of requiring mandatory preservation, but it did commit to discussions with industry and consumer groups on end-of-life practices.
Preservation advocates say the issue is not theoretical. A 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network found that only around 13% of classic games released in the United States before 2010 remain commercially available in any form, with the rest classed as critically endangered. That has strengthened the argument that digital ownership is often more fragile than consumers assume, especially when access depends on servers, platform policies and licence terms that can change without much notice.
That is why lawmakers in several states are moving towards clearer disclosure rules. California’s digital-goods law focuses on whether marketing language such as “buy” or “purchase” accurately reflects what the customer receives. Maryland adopted a similar approach in 2025, while proposals in New York, Illinois and Arizona would further restrict the use of ownership language where the consumer is actually receiving a limited digital right. For publishers, platform operators and online marketplaces, the practical message is becoming harder to ignore: if the transaction behaves like a licence, it should not be sold as if it were outright ownership.
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