Game industry lobby group that argued against preservation efforts from libraries is now pushing back on Stop Killing Games, saying it could prevent ‘new games, features, and technology’

Stop Killing Games has come a long way in a very short period of time, from longshot consumer campaign just two years ago to European Parliament presentation and international NGOs in 2026. Despite those successes, it’s still facing pushback from the game industry itself, which is once again warning consumers—in dire tones, I’m sure—that they should be careful what they wish for.

In April, Stop Killing Games endorsed the Protect Our Games Act—formally known as AB 1921—which if adopted (it’s still working its way through the California legislature) would compel game makers to notify owners in advance of coming server shutdowns, and either provide a version of the game that can be used without online services, patch the existing game so servers are no longer required, or provide a full refund.

That bill provoked a strong response from the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying group that represents the game industry in the US. “Many games depend on evolving technology, licensed content, and online systems that change over time,” the ESA told ABC10 (via RPS) last week.

“Assembly Bill 1921 could force developers to spend limited time and resources keeping old systems running instead of creating new games, features, and technology. In the end, this policy doesn’t reflect how games actually work today. This bill sets strict rules that could ultimately mean fewer new and innovative experiences for players.”

I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate: In the case of The Crew, for instance—the game that started all of this—fans were able to bring it back to life despite Ubisoft’s concerted efforts to bury it deep. There are also already examples of game studios, most of them without the resources of the big publishers represented by the ESA, ensuring their games live beyond their servers.

Islands of Insight developer Lunarch Studios made its multiplayer puzzle game (which I quite liked) offline-capable in 2024, so fans could continue playing after the servers were taken down; in 2025, 1047 Games brought peer-to-peer support to the original Splitgate after it decided to take the servers offline. Even Ubisoft found a way to make it happen, bringing an offline mode to The Crew 2, earning a rare “W” from gamers in the process. Such efforts obviously require resources, but enough to torpedo the creation of new games and technologies? Perhaps not.

The ESA’s statement prompted a response from Stop Killing Games on Reddit, where organizer Moritz Katzner pointed out that the bill does not call for game servers to be maintained forever, but simply that publishers not be allowed to sell and then disable games, “with no real remedy” for consumers.

“AB 1921 is narrow. It applies to paid games going forward and gives companies options: preserve ordinary use, patch the game, or refund the purchaser,” Katzner wrote. “The industry wants people to think this is a demand for eternal server support, with endless costs and complications. It isn’t. It’s much simpler: If a company sells people a paid game, it should not be able to destroy the game’s ordinary use later without notice or remedy.”

In the past the ESA has also lobbied hard against other efforts to preserve access to games. In 2024, the organization’s lawyers argued against a DMCA allowance for libraries and museums to provide remote access to games. “I don’t think there is at the moment any combination of limitations that ESA members would support to provide remote access,” an ESA spokesperson said at a US Copyright Office hearing, citing the risk that too many people could request access to play the games for fun, rather than research. The Copyright Office ultimately sided with the ESA over the Software Preservation Network representatives advocating for the exception.

The ESA’s statement on Stop Killing Games, while overwrought, is not unprecedented, or even limited to American lobbying groups. In 2025, Video Games Europe, essentially the EU version of the ESA, issued basically the same warning, saying that Stop Killing Games’ demands could expose gamers to “unsafe community content” and “would curtail developer choice by making these videogames prohibitively expensive to create.”