Video Games: Consumer Law

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the 236 constituents from my constituency for signing this petition and, in particular, Haydn Shaw for spending quite a lot of time with me last month to explain the impact that this situation has on him and other gamers. I have to admit that it is not my specialist subject.

Video games are a vital part of modern British culture. Many parents think that their sons and daughters are locked away in their bedrooms playing alone, but for me, it turned out that my son Isaac was having great fun with people all around the world. Every time I heard a noise, it was him jumping off the sofa as he experienced the immersive video games he was playing. He was maintaining friendships after he went off to university, proving that video games can bring people together even when they are a long distance apart.

The artists, coders and designers who create such life-like images and develop such intricate stories for us to enjoy through our phones, computers and games consoles bring joy to millions and allow many of us to experience places, times through history—I recommend Colchester, as the original Roman capital of Britain, in “Age of Empires”—and alternative realities. My local college is now offering e-sports as a technical course, and Bournemouth University offers a degree in games design, which provides routes into other specialist fields that can unlock cutting-edge technology for the military. Virtual reality is providing new ways for medics to learn, and in Bournemouth children have been taught road safety skills through gaming headsets, thanks to the creativity and imagination of those in the sector.

When a game shuts down, it can feel like losing a favourite book or film forever. When a business is gobbled up, like a scene out of “Pac-Man”—that probably gives away a little about my early gaming experience—the purchaser’s rights should be maintained. A purchaser should expect transparency and fairness when making their purchase: clear, accessible information about whether a game requires online connectivity, relies on servers or is time-limited. As Alex told me, it is important that buyers know what the end of life looks like, or even whether there is going to be an end of life. The law already requires that such material information should not be hidden or omitted, but in reality, according to players like Haydn, it is very difficult to find this information, and many are led to feel misled or short-changed.

The UK already has strong consumer protections, which require that products, including digital products, are as described, that products are of satisfactory quality and that sellers must not omit material information. However, those protections are not well understood or well enforced, and they need to be kept under constant review as technology evolves so that consumers can exercise their rights.

We all understand that the ongoing support for titles that are no longer popular or have been superseded will eventually need to end, but to stop those that have been purchased being playable feels like the pages of a book that was once bought but is now out of print going blank after a period of time—sort of like writing in invisible ink—or the sound of a song that is no longer sold in record shops going silent.

There is an additional concern in relation to the creativity behind games—the creativity of the designers and coders for whom those games are their CV. Although control over the intellectual property has moved from designer to owner, creatives are concerned that content disappearing means not only that their work is being lost, but that it never existed in the first place.

Another issue to which my constituents have alerted me is the action of console operators in disabling their devices when counterfeit games are used, often innocently. Let us imagine that someone buys a second-hand game from a specialist retailer, charity shop or online marketplace only to find out that it is not genuine. They might expect the game to be disabled when they play it, and they would be within their rights to take that up with the seller, but the console companies are locking down the whole console so that it cannot be used for anything else. Unless they get permission from that console company, their games console, which might have cost them £500, is completely unplayable.

As we move to digital systems for music, games, literature, film and photos, it must be time to consider the risks to intellectual property in other sectors. The best way forward is not heavy-handed regulation but constructive dialogue between Government, players and developers to strengthen clarity for consumers, encourage responsible preservation and respect intellectual property. The goal needs to be a balance of protecting consumers and creators while sustaining an industry that contributes so much.

My constituent Philip said that he has an old gaming PC running Windows 7, which is now unsupported but still functioning. He asks what would happen if that issue was to extend to other types of software. As has just been mentioned, what would happen if future software companies decided to end support for something we use on a wider scale, whether in our companies or homes, or even in Government?

I ask the Minister not only to provide clarity for Members and our constituents, but to think about the issues of consumer protection, intellectual property, obsolescence and the classic David and Goliath battle so beautifully captured in the video game “DvG: Conquering Giants”. The individual must be buying something that they are buying.