Contribution
When the boundary review took place a few years ago, I was very disappointed that Rockstar Leeds was not drawn into my constituency, so I am very jealous of that. However, I do have constituents who work there and I agree entirely with my hon. Friend’s point—it is as though he has read on a few pages in my speech. People absolutely can have private servers that take care of the issue. It does not require the developer to keep things running or to put their own resources endlessly into a game to keep it alive. Consumers can do that themselves.
As I was saying, the publisher should have a duty to ensure that a game purchased and owned by a consumer remains playable in some way. That is not about burdening publishers or Government overreach. It is about ensuring that publishers do not have the right deliberately to disable products that people have already paid for. I suspect that if we were talking about mobile phones or any of the other things I listed earlier, this debate would resonate even more strongly, but the principle is the same. If we do not act now, the use of this model and the erosion of ownership rights may spread to other areas. History is littered with examples of Governments acting too late and finding out that what could have been fixed early, with minimal effort, has grown into a much larger problem. The warning signs are there in this industry and to act now would be far less painful than to wait until the practice has become entrenched.
As we know, consumers are noticing. Campaigns have started. We are here today because nearly 200,000 people in the UK signed a petition demanding action on this specific issue. The Stop Killing Games campaign, a consumer movement started by YouTuber Ross Scott, has shone a light on this issue, not just here in the UK but across Europe and beyond. The European citizens’ initiative on the issue received more than 1.4 million signatures. This is not a niche concern among a few people; a growing movement of consumers feel that their rights are being undermined.
My office has corresponded with Ross, and I am very grateful for the information he gave me ahead of the debate. He really is a champion of these issues. I have also done my own research, and would like to go through some examples, the first of which is “The Crew”. The game was released in 2014 and on average cost consumers between 40 and 60 quid. It sold about 12 million copies, but in 2024 it was shut down, with no way for people to play it. To its credit, Ubisoft offered refunds to recent purchasers, but certainly not to the original ones. Although largely an online game, it had a single-player component that was unplayable when the servers went down.
Another example, which Ross gave me, is “LawBreakers” —a game that I imagine would have been popular with certain Members of the previous Parliament. It survived for a year before it was shut down in 2018. In the case of “Babylon’s Fall”, there were no refunds, despite the game being unplayable less than a year after launch. It may not have been the best game, but the principle still stands. It was made, sold and then pulled, with no refunds.
Just this summer, it was announced that “Anthem” will no longer be playable from January next year—only a few months away. As of December 2023, it had sold 5 million copies and made more than $100 million in digital revenue. An additional $3.5 million had been spent on in-game purchases. All that money is now gone. Meanwhile, other games, such as “Guild Wars”, have been running for more than 20 years and are still going strong. The point is clear, even though the industry is not. There is no standard, no transparency, and no certainty for consumers.
In response to the petition, the Government have said that they have
“no plans to amend…consumer law”.
Although I respect the Government’s position, I cannot help but observe that what is happening in this space could be perceived as a breach of consumer protection under unfair trading regulations. Those regulations prohibit traders from hiding information that consumers need in order to make an informed choice, yet when consumers buy a game today, they are almost never told how long it will remain functional. Consumers are sold a one-time purchase, but the publisher reserves the right to terminate it at any time for any reason.