Video Games: Consumer Law

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Goldsborough]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. What is it to own a video game? What is it to keep the background services running? Is it an interactive process going forward with multiple users, or is it just a single-access game?

When a game shuts down, it is not just a consumer issue but a cultural one. This debate is not just about keeping games playable; it is about preserving our cultural heritage. The National Videogame Museum in Sheffield already does fantastic work to document, curate and celebrate this history, but we need to support institutions like it further. I urge the Government to explore funding, partnerships and sector support to ensure that we maintain a library full of significant games—not necessarily the full playable versions, but assets, scripts, soundtracks and design documents. We would never dream of pulping every copy of Shakespeare, and we should not think any differently about video games.

We have seen what is possible when communities are empowered. When “Doom” was released decades ago, it sparked an entire ecosystem of mods, creativity and eventually genre-defining innovation. We also see it with ROM-hacking communities, especially around older titles such as “Super Mario World”. I am the first to admit that I cannot play “Kaizo Mario World” for toffee—those levels are punishing. But I do enjoy watching streamers such as BarbarousKing both creating the “Grand Poo World Trilogy”—this is the first time that Hansard has had to write that down—and playing it live. That highlights yet another modern element of gaming culture—streaming. Platforms such as Twitch have turned gameplay into performance art, commentary and community. People gather to cheer, learn, laugh and share. This, too, is culture, and it deserves to be safeguarded.

I want to be absolutely clear that this debate is not anti-industry. Running online games costs real money. Servers, hardware, maintenance contracts, security and teams of engineers all cost money. Requiring developers to define end-of-life strategies up front could stifle innovation and create unintended risks. But gamers deserve clarity. If a game is likely to go offline, they should be told that.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

In my constituency, as in many other areas, increasingly residents are finding that the video games that they thought they owned simply stop working when the online support ends, or that ownership is limited by the terms and conditions of the licence, which is deeply frustrating for consumers who have paid money in good faith. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government should ensure that existing consumer protections keep pace with these changes, so that people are not left out of pocket when the digital services that they rely on are switched off, often without warning?

[Ben Goldsborough]

When we look at consumer law, we have to take into account the vast progress that has been made in some sectors. It would be helpful if the Minister was able to look into that issue in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Sewards]

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.

[Manuela Perteghella]

One of my constituents has written to me about feeling misled when the industry uses the word “buy” for video games that can later disappear from their digital library. Does the hon. Member agree that we need transparency, so that consumers know exactly what they are paying for at the point of purchase? We need clarity that “buy” means “buy”, and not “borrow until it is revoked”.

[Mark Sewards]

I could not agree more. That goes back to my earlier point: the fix in this area could be as simple as there being more transparency. When a consumer purchases a game, it should be crystal clear that the publisher could deactivate it at any point. However, I want to go further—we need to retain something and ensure that publishers make the game playable for consumers long after they have pulled support from it.

Going back to “The Crew”, the game did not need to be shut down. Ubisoft could have patched in offline play or allowed private servers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) said earlier. Going forward, the ask from many consumers is simple: if the industry plans to kill a game, it should ensure that consumers have a reasonable option to continue using their products for a single-player experience or on private servers.

I promised one of my Leeds South West and Morley constituents that I would raise the fact that they, like other gamers, have waited years for certain games, including the remake of “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”, which I am told is one of the greatest games of all time. Saber Interactive plans to release the final version of that game at some point in the future, but let us imagine how devastated those gamers would be if Saber released it only to pull it a year later.

We are not talking about a small, powerless industry; we are talking about publishers that generated a combined total of $455 billion in revenue last year accounting for all types of gaming. By most industry measures, the global video games sector is now larger than the film and music industries combined. Analysts at Forbes say that gaming is now the dominant entertainment industry, so the costs of ensuring long-term playability are negligible when compared with the budgets of these major publishers. We are talking about tens of thousands of pounds—or sometimes nothing at all—set against budgets in the tens and hundreds of millions, and revenue in the billions.

To be clear: this is not just about video games. Our greatest fan across the Atlantic, Elon Musk, has already shown us with Tesla that features in cars can be remotely disabled even after the original buyer has paid for them. The technology already exists to remotely modify products in a way that the consumer may not have been reliably informed about at purchase. What is stopping the progression of those modifications to render purchases totally and utterly unusable? Do we really want to wait until our phones, fridges and cars are affected before we act in this small way, in what is a relatively small area?

My ask today is simple: I urge the Government to revisit this issue and meaningfully engage with the asks of the petition. It is not too late to change the law or issue guidance in some way on what should happen with games that go offline. If we fail to act, the future consequences for consumers, especially in the age of digital ownership, could be significant. This is about putting people first—a proud tradition of the Labour party, of which I am a proud member—and ensuring that consumer rights are protected not just today, but in the future. It is very clear that when consumers buy something, it should be theirs to keep, not just until the seller decides otherwise.