EU Declines Video Game Playability Mandate

When Ubisoft shut down the servers for its 2014 racing game, The Crew, in early 2024, players who had paid for the title found they could no longer access it.

This reality became the impetus for a European‑wide consumer campaign and, on 16 June 2026, the subject of a formal European Commission (Commission) response with which every business selling digital content or services to consumers should familiarise themselves carefully.

The ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ initiative reached the Commission as a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), a participation-led mechanism that allows citizens to place an issue directly on the EU policy agenda once it gathers at least one million verified signatures. This initiative gathered close to 1.3 million signatures. Its main driver was that publishers, the entities that control a game’s commercial, technical and contractual lifecycle, should be required to leave games in a playable state once they stop supporting them commercially, without any ongoing involvement from the publisher.

The campaign was framed around consumer protection and cultural arguments, namely that:

• EU consumer law sets no minimum duration for the supply of online games or a guarantee of continued access after commercial supply ends;
• disabling a game after sale deprives buyers of products they paid for, engaging Article 17(1) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; and
• the loss of discontinued games destroys unique cultural and creative works.

What the Commission actually decided

On 16 June 2026, the Commission published its response. It concluded that it cannot, at this stage, propose a legal obligation requiring publishers to keep games playable after commercial support ends, citing the disproportionate burden such a rule would impose and the intellectual property rights of rightsholders.

Crucially, the Commission did not treat the matter as closed. It made two commitments that matter more to businesses than the headline ‘no’:

1. By the end of 2026, the Commission will open a dialogue with the games industry and consumer representatives to agree on an industry code of conduct for managing the ‘end of life’ of video games. This code would aim to promote more transparent labelling, indicating the possible discontinuation of the video game and may also suggest partnerships between publishers and cultural heritage institutions to promote video game preservation; and
2. The Commission will work with consumer organisations and national authorities to raise awareness of the consumer rights that already apply. It is also committed to reporting on the application of the Digital Content and Digital Services Directive by the end of the year.

‘No mandate’ is not ‘no obligation’

The most important takeaway for businesses is the Commission’s stated position about existing law. Rather than create a new obligation, it took the view that current EU consumer protection already provides meaningful safeguards and that the better route is enforcement. It pointed to the Consumer Rights Directive, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, the Unfair Contract Terms Directive and the Digital Content Directive. In practical terms, this means digital sellers must give clear pre‑contract information about the duration and termination of a service; unfair contract terms are not binding on consumers; and where discontinuation renders digital content non‑conforming with the contract, consumers may be entitled to remedies, including a proportionate refund.

Intellectual property: one reason among several

Intellectual property is one of several reasons the Commission gave for treating a mandate as disproportionate. Other reasons it gave included the confidential business information that a game may contain, the cost to publishers of keeping titles running, and the cybersecurity and safety risks posed by unsupported software. On the IP point specifically, video games are protected by copyright law and typically bundle multiple rights (copyright, trade marks, designs, trade secrets, and third-party-licensed content). This means that a blanket obligation to keep them running could cut across publishers’ rights over that protected content and any confidential technology involved.

The Crew litigation: a live warning on ‘ownership’

The risks are not merely theoretical. In March 2026, French consumer association UFC‑Que Choisir filed proceedings against Ubisoft over the shutdown of The Crew, alleging that buyers were misled about the permanence of their purchase and subjected to unfair terms. Ubisoft’s position is that customers acquired only a limited, revocable licence to access the game rather than ownership, consistent with its End User Licence Agreement (EULA), and it did not refund buyers when the game closed. The dispute squarely tests how far ‘you are buying a licence, not the game’ terms, which are standard across the industry, can be reconciled with EU consumer law. How that argument fares, and whether a decade of availability tempers any finding of consumer detriment, will be watched closely.

What this means for your business

The decision is best read not as a reprieve for digital sellers but as a signal that regulators will rely on existing consumer law (reinforced by a new industry code and, potentially, the Digital Fairness Act) to police how digital products are sold and retired. Practical priority actions include:

• Licence terms and EULAs: review contractual terms for fairness under the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, and ensure they clearly set out a product’s expected lifespan, the conditions for discontinuation, and what happens to access at the end of life.
• Marketing and storefront language: describing a limited, revocable licence as a product that consumers ‘buy’ or ‘own’ may constitute a misleading practice under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Purchase‑flow wording and advertising claims should align with legal reality.
• Refund and non‑conformity exposure: under the Digital Content Directive, discontinuation can render digital content non‑conforming and trigger remedies. This risk should be built into product‑lifecycle and reserving decisions, not treated as a remote contingency.
• The forthcoming code of conduct: games‑sector businesses should engage with the end‑of‑life dialogue beginning before the end of 2026. Early participants can help shape the standard and demonstrate compliance ahead of competitors.
• The Digital Fairness Act: within hours of the Commission’s decision, the campaigners announced that they would pivot from the ECI mechanisms to lobbying the European Parliament to fold their game preservation demands into the Digital Fairness Act instead. The issue is therefore unlikely to disappear. For our analysis of the policy direction of travel, see our article World Consumer Rights Day (Part 1): Digital Fairness Act.

A wider direction of travel

Although the Commission has stopped short of new legislation, the outcome shows that the video games industry remains firmly on the radar of EU consumer authorities, and some commentators have already voiced discontent that the response did not go further. The development does not run against the regulatory current so much as add to it. Only last year, the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network of national consumer authorities published key principles on in-game virtual currencies and digital assets, pressing publishers for greater transparency in how such items are priced and sold. The response to this initiative is another step in the same direction.

Much will depend on the code of conduct that follows: a voluntary, industry‑negotiated standard is a lighter‑touch instrument than the binding obligation the campaign sought. Its impact on the more than one million people who signed will turn on how ambitious and how widely adopted it proves to be.

While the initiative was specific to video games, its implications are not. The questions it raises about digital ownership, product longevity, and the product/service a consumer actually acquires when paying for digital content resonate across the wider consumer technology sector, from apps and SaaS to streaming services and connected devices. Businesses well beyond the video games sector should treat the outcome as relevant to them.

Businesses offering digital content or services to consumers in Ireland and across the EU should review their licence terms, pre‑contract disclosures, refund policies and marketing claims now, ahead of the code of conduct and the Digital Fairness Act. For further advice on how these developments affect your business, please contact Rachel Hayes, Laura Casey or your usual William Fry contact.

Contributed by: Isaac Kelly