A game gets shut down. So how are you actually supposed to complain?

In July 2025, more than 189,000 people in the UK signed a petition calling for action against publishers disabling games they had already sold.

That level of support helped demonstrate why the Stop Killing Games campaign has struck such a chord. Gamers are clearly concerned about buying games that can later be rendered permanently unplayable at the decision of a publisher.

But when the Government responded to the petition, it said it had no plans to change consumer law. Instead, it pointed to existing protections under consumer legislation and said complaints could be dealt with through Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

So we decided to find out whether that system was actually working.

And we discovered something surprising.

Since 2015, the CMA appears to have received just three complaints relating to games being shut down.

Where are gamers supposed to complain?

Our first problem was simply working out where a gamer is supposed to go.

Much of consumer protection enforcement through Trading Standards still operates at local-authority level. That may make sense when dealing with a faulty washing machine bought from a shop down the road. It makes rather less sense when dealing with digital products sold nationally — or globally — through platforms such as Steam, PlayStation and Xbox.

We contacted National Trading Standards. Although it is not itself subject to the Freedom of Information Act in the same way as a public authority they were pretty nice and helpful. They took the time to reply to us and suggested that the Competition and Markets Authority might be able to help with our questions.

National Trading Standards also told us that consumers concerned about the shutdown of a game or online service can contact the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133. Welsh-speaking consumers can call 0808 223 1144.

Citizens Advice can then pass information about potential breaches of consumer law to local Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority. 

That may be the official route. But we suspect relatively few gamers know it exists.

189,000 petition signatures. Three CMA complaints.

Armed with that information, Gamers’ Voice submitted a Freedom of Information request to the CMA.You can look at our request and the response we got on the excellent ‘What do they know’ website. 

We wanted to know how many complaints it had received about publishers shutting down games and online services, how many had been investigated, and whether any enforcement action had resulted.

The answer was striking.

The CMA identified just three complaints since 2015 concerning games being shut down.

Compare that with the 189,000 people who felt strongly enough about the issue to sign a parliamentary petition.

Something clearly does not add up.

Why are the numbers so low?

There are several possible explanations.

The first, and what we think is the most obvious. Most gamers simply do not know that they can make a formal consumer complaint when a game they have bought is shut down.

People complain on Reddit, Discord, Steam forums and social media. They leave negative reviews. They sign petitions, or make videos complaining about it.  But how many know that the official route potentially involves contacting a Citizens Advice telephone line so that the complaint can eventually reach the relevant enforcement body? I mean how many gamers even use phone lines these days?

If the Government’s position is that existing consumer law already provides adequate protection, it is reasonable to ask where the evidence is that those protections are actually being enforced. It could simply be that many of the regulators and watchdogs enforcing consumer laws have lagged behind the reality of modern digital services, and unfair consumer practices. With more people in local authorities working on regulating local market stalls than online markets. 

Maybe gamers need to start using the system

There is another possibility worth testing.

Gamers are exceptionally good at making noise online. We might be considerably less good at turning that anger into formal complaints that regulators are required to consider.

That presents an interesting opportunity for consumer campaigning.

The next time a significant game or online service is permanently shut down, Gamers’ Voice and Stop Killing Games could organise a coordinated effort encouraging affected consumers to use the official complaints process.

Thousands of legitimate consumer complaints from people who actually bought the affected product. 

That would allow us to test the Government’s argument in the real world. If hundreds or thousands of consumers complain and regulators take action, then perhaps the existing system has more teeth than its record currently suggests.

But if large numbers of consumers complain and still nothing happens, that would provide powerful evidence that the protections the Government says already exist are simply not an effective remedy.

Either outcome would tell us something important and help improve our consumer rights. 

Because when 189,000 people can sign a petition about a consumer problem but only three complaints appear to have reached the UK’s competition regulator in more than a decade, the current system is clearly not connecting concerned consumers with the institutions that are supposed to protect them.

---

How you can help