Right, how about a little Stop Killing Games progress update? Earlier today, a public hearing was held today that included three European parliament committees, IMCO, JURI and PETI, discussing the European Citizens Initiative Stop Destroying Videogames. Both Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and group organiser Moritz Katzner made an appearance at the hearing, which you can watch in full here, with the pair hosting a press conference (or as Katzner put it a “fancy Twitch stream”) to discuss how it went. Bottom line: in their eyes, good!
“I think absolutely incredible,” Katzner shared when asked by Scott on his feelings of the hearing, going on to say, “I think that everyone that watched it might have noticed that there was no MEP that wasn’t responding positively. Even the [European] Commission was pretty positive I’d say.” Scott expanded upon this noting that even when it came to more negative comments, members were “just thinking of additional factors that went into it. Like we didn’t bring up microtransactions specifically, but then someone else brought that, which really is a part of the initiative.”
When it comes to what Katzner wants followers of the movement to take away from this hearing, it’s that this is the first step in the legislation process, if it comes to that. The European Commission is currently still reviewing the case, and haven’t provided an answer as to where they land, though they only have until July to provide one. Katzner also explained that MEPs could go on to form a resolution, which is “kind of saying ‘yeah we support that, we like that, EU Commission do something on that.’ I think we’re going to see a lot of that. And I’d say mission achieved for this one.”
It’s the second big move for and from Stop Killing Games this week alone, as it was only just the other day that they put their support behind a Californian bill that would require developers to either make sure they update games to be playable independently after shutting down online servers, or offer full refunds to those that bought them.