21
May
2026
Watch
European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Stop destroying videogames’ (debate)
Madam President, dear colleagues, when you buy, let's say, a toaster and it breaks, you often can't repair it. Spare parts are not available, manuals are not accessible and necessary updates, software updates, are not provided. The result? Consumers are forced to throw away a product that they could have easily been using longer. That is so annoying, and a lot of citizens complain to us. I'm so proud that we found a legislative solution to it – the right to repair, which obliges producers to repair their own products and that gives consumers several tools to repair their purchases themselves. But this logic of extending the lifetime of physical products doesn't apply to video games. This is the core of the European Citizens' Initiative we are talking about today. When you buy a video game that is connected to the publisher online, you actually purchase a license for using it, a license defined by the publisher that potentially can end at any time for any reason, just that you are not aware of it. If the publisher then disconnects a video game, after notification, not only the support ends – it is literally dead and non repairable for you, no longer playable for the consumer. Over 1.2 million Europeans demand us to put an end to this forced and untimely death of video games. I congratulate all the citizens who were so active and also the organisers of this great European Citizens' Initiative. As the Internal Market Committee, we are working hard to ban a practice from the single market that forces consumers to buy new products to the detriment of their wallets and the planet – planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is defined as the deliberate design of a product with an artificially limited useful life. This logic also needs to apply to video games in EU consumer law. I sincerely hope and urge the European Commission to come up with a solution on how the specific situation of a licensing model can ensure the same level of consumer protection for gamers. A solution to avoid the unknown, arbitrary end of gaming fun and a long life to what has long become a part of our culture.