Video Games: Consumer Law

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Goldsborough]

This is the one time that I am quite jealous of the hon. Member’s constituency because, as he suggested, it is the constituency that has laid the golden egg. The cultural relevance of GTA is never-ending: when the next title in the series is released it will be bigger than any movie that has been released in the United Kingdom, if not the world, for many years.

I ask the Minister to work with studios and consumer groups to establish clear expectations around shutdowns and access, to support cultural institutions such as the National Videogame Museum and to help develop an industry-led framework to preserve our gaming heritage for future generations.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows he cannot intervene, having not been here at the start of Mr Goldsborough’s contribution. That is a House rule.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) on opening the debate so aptly.

When I was elected last July, I did not imagine that one of my contributions in Westminster Hall would be on the subject of video games. It was not on my bingo card—or, more aptly, it was not in my inventory—but here we are. I am glad we are here, because although video games may not often feature in parliamentary debate, the issues raised affect far more than the gaming industry, juggernaut though it is. They go to the heart of consumer law, ownership rights and the path we are on in a digital age.

It is worth noting that I speak as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on consumer protection, so my arguments will primarily focus on that dimension. It is also worth saying that video games in their own right have been part of the public discourse many times since their widespread adoption as an entertainment medium. Like everyone, I have heard the common questions about their merits, their impact on young people and whether they cause brain rot or inspire violence. Although I would argue that they do not do those things—certainly not the last two—this debate is not about whether video games are good or bad. It is about something much more fundamental. It is about whether, when someone buys something, they should have the right to keep it.

I will be clear about my ask here. I am not demanding that publishers keep servers running forever. Campaigners are not asking for indefinite technical support. We are not asking companies to keep pouring resources into a game that they have finished with. What we are asking is fairly simple: that publishers should not be able to deliberately disable every copy of a game that consumers have already purchased, leaving them with nothing. I will talk first about the end of support, and what that means in this context.

Normally, end of support means that if something goes wrong, the customer is on their own. That is fair enough—it is perfectly reasonable depending on the context. An iPhone that someone bought 14 years ago no longer receives updates from Apple, but can still be unlocked and take calls. An old toaster can still toast bread, even if it does not have smart sensors and a touchscreen. A decades-old printer no longer receives updates from the company that made it, but it still prints documents.

What we are seeing with games is different. It is as if someone bought that printer, and then one day the manufacturer sent out a signal that deliberately stopped it from working at all, claiming it had reached the end of support. That is not support ending; it is obsolescence, which has an entirely different meaning.

[Alex Sobel]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for mentioning “Grand Theft Auto”; the main developer for the new version, “Grand Theft Auto VI”, is Rockstar Leeds. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) and I both have many constituents who work there.

On obsolescence, many people create private servers and play the games there. I am a big fan of “Assassin’s Creed”, and many of its versions have been made obsolete by Ubisoft, but the people involved can keep the private servers going if there is an end-of-service patch that allows it to carry on, so in effect there is not that built-in obsolescence. It is a very simple thing to do and should be part of consumer protection.

[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.