As of July 4, 2025, more than 1.1 million European citizens have signed the European citizens’ initiative Stop Destroying Videogames - most of them within just a few days, thanks to volunteer enthusiasm, massive mobilisation within the gaming community and support from well-known gamers and influencers. With the signature collection period open until July 31, the numbers are still climbing.
One of the key campaigners behind the Initiative is Pavel Zálešák, a 25-year-old software engineering student at Unicorn University in Prague. Alongside a small group of volunteers, he is urging the European Commission to address their growing concern: the removal of access to videogames that players have paid for.
For them, this is not just a question of entertainment. It is a fight to protect digital ownership, preserve cultural heritage, and assert the rights of consumers in a rapidly changing digital world.
New to the European Citizens’ Initiative? Learn the basics here.
In this interview, Pavel reflects on how a shared sense of urgency and a clear, relatable issue helped their campaign take off. His experience offers valuable lessons for anyone considering launching their own initiative, especially those wondering how to build momentum and connect with a broad public quickly.
Pavel: Imagine if every copy of a film or of a music album were suddenly destroyed—barbaric, right? Yet that’s exactly what’s happening in another corner of the entertainment world: the video game industry. When you buy a movie or a piece of music, you own it and you can keep it for as long as you like. But video games don’t come with the same guarantees. Once a publisher decides to take a game off the market, players can lose access entirely. What you paid for simply disappears, and you are left with nothing. And the gaming industry is bigger than the movies or the music ones together!
Our initiative is about protecting consumer rights in the gaming industry. We want to prevent publishers from disabling games that people have already purchased. We also want to preserve games as cultural and digital heritage for future generations. Games are a form of art, and we don’t want them to be erased from history.
(Tron is a 1982 sci-fi film where a heroic program defends the rights of real-world users inside a totalitarian computer system.)
An increasing number of publishers are selling video games that rely on constant internet connections to the publisher’s servers to function. While this model isn’t inherently problematic, the real issue begins when support ends: publishers shut down the servers, rendering the games unplayable and effectively devaluing every copy ever sold.
This practice not only deprives consumers of products they’ve paid for, but in our view also breaches EU Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts, which requires digital companies to act in good faith and offer fair, transparent terms of use to their users.
Unlike other media, games can be erased completely. We are simply asking that consumers retain access to the licensed copies they’ve paid for, in a playable form.
There are so many games we want to preserve for future generations—like Sea of Thieves, Valorant, World of Warcraft, and so many more.
As of May 2025, the Stop destroying videogames initiative has gathered more than 440,000 signatures, with numbers continuing to rise daily – a clear signal that European gamers are demanding lasting change.
Remarkably, in just the first month, the campaign reached over 300,000 signatures. Merely ten days later, the major publisher Ubisoft announced it would address these very concerns by introducing offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. The offline mode for The Crew 2 was officially launched for testing in April 2025, marking a tangible early success for the movement.
From friends to parties: how we campaign
We’ve already reached the required minimum numbers of signatures in seven EU member states - Finland, Poland, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland. In Belgium, Spain and France, we’re getting close to hitting those targets as well. The campaign is also gaining traction in Central Europe.
It’s important to highlight that we are working without a budget—our campaign is powered almost entirely by volunteers.
We have about 5,000 volunteers, and we coordinate everything through our Discord server. [Discord is an online platform used by communities to chat using text, voice, and video in organised channels - popular among gamers and activists alike.] When someone joins our Discord, it means they care about the issue enough to be part of the community. It’s not like following an account on Instagram - you actually have to join the space, accept the custom terms, and get involved. Once they're in, the server notifies us that a new person has joined, and we can reach out directly, welcome them, and guide them to the right channels. It creates real contact. Volunteers can talk to each other, respond to updates, and help with different tasks depending on what they’re interested in. It’s really the best tool we could use for something like this.
Content creators and media are helping us get the message out, and we’re also relying on our personal networks and friends to spread the word. We now have around 4,500 volunteers across all EU Member States, and beyond. We’re doing everything we can, on all fronts, to get this done. We've also received support from the European Pirate Party and GOG, the game preservation programme. We even have supporters in the USA, Canada and the UK who are also helping us reach as many people as possible.
I am hopeful about reaching the one million signatures (N.B. Signature collection ends on 31 July 2025). At the beginning, it felt like we might reach a million signatures in just two or three months. We lost some momentum along the way, but we are building it back. We have over 5,000 people in our Discord server—if each one brings in ten more, and those ten bring in ten more, we can absolutely get there. It’s a chain reaction. And that’s what gives me hope.
Read next:
- How to succeed with the European Citizens’ Initiative: Strategic planning, cross-border collaboration and targeted campaigns
- Watch Pavel Zalesak and Daniel Ondruska from Stop Destroying Videogames in the webinar, 'Unlock the power of the European Citizens’ Initiative: Real Stories and Practical Tips'
- Amid global chaos ECI activism is important as ever, says Commissioner Šefčovič
- Free sharing of protected works while compensating creators [an ECI on a related subject]
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The opinions expressed on the ECI Forum reflect solely the point of view of their authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the position of the European Commission or of the European Union.
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