the movement “stop killing games” is highly against age verification laws and restrictions on the internet
A Reddit post goes over their fight against age verification
“Stop Killing Games has signed a joint statement with groups including Mozilla, EFF, Open Rights Group, Tor Project, Proton, Big Brother Watch, Internet Society, and others about the risks of current UK online safety policy.”
“We wanted to explain why this matters to SKG specifically.
SKG is about making sure games are not destroyed when official support ends. That does not just mean “publishers should keep servers on forever.” It means players and communities need practical ways to keep games working after publishers move on.
That often depends on things like:
private servers
modding communities
fan patches
community launchers
forums, wikis, and Discords
open-source tools
independent hosting
preservation projects”
Age verification and other laws like this puts this ecosystem at risk
An example of this is a old 2005 game called urban dead
It was shut down “ after nearly 20 years, citing requirements created by the UK Online Safety Act.
Whatever your view of that specific case, it shows the problem clearly: small, old, community-run games can become too legally risky or too difficult to operate.”
“That is directly relevant to game preservation.
If laws are written in a way that assumes every online service is a giant platform with lawyers, compliance teams, ID-verification systems, app-store integration, and moderation infrastructure, then small communities get squeezed out.
The result is not just inconvenience. It can mean servers shut down, tools disappear, mods become harder to distribute, and fan projects become legally unsafe to run.”
“We are also worried about similar trends elsewhere, including California’s Digital Age Assurance Act / AB 1043, which pushes age assurance into operating systems, app stores, and software distribution.
That could make independent software, Linux-based ecosystems, community launchers, modding tools, and private server hosting harder to maintain.”
The group see the point of keeping kids safe, but they disagree with the methods
“But it is frustrating to see policymakers suddenly claim everything is “for our safety” while young people are often left to deal with bigger problems on their own elsewhere.
And even when the goal is reasonable, this approach goes far beyond what is normal or proportionate.
Mission creep is real and some actors dont just creep.
The issue is that blunt access bans and mandatory age checks do not fix the root causes of online harm.
They often create new gatekeepers, collect more sensitive data, and make the open web harder to use.
They also risk punishing the small community projects that are least able to comply, while the largest platforms adapt and become even more entrenched.”
Accursed farms, the leader of this movement, admits that they can’t take this on directly due to its size and what’s on their plate already
They heavily support push back against these laws
