Stop Killing Games amassed over 1.3 million verified signatures earlier this year, making it eligible for discussion in the EU parliament. While most speakers have expressed sympathy for the campaign, Milan Uhrík, a Slovak MEP (member of the European Parliament) and leader of the far-right Republic Movement, which was described by popular media organization Denník N as a "party of poorly masked neo-Nazis," quickly dragged the conversation into the bowels of an unmoderated internet forum.
As reported by PC Gamer, the MEP acknowledged that publishers killing games is a problem, but veered completely off course in a tangent about Assassin's Creed Shadows and Yasuke, dredging up last year's culture war.
"Wokeness and the aggressive monetization is destroying video games," Uhrík said. "You wanted to talk about what's destroying video games here in parliament, alright, I will say it loud. One thing that is definitely destroying video games is the crazy woke ideology and political correctness, which is being forced into the games. For example, if you want to play as a samurai, obviously we want to play as a Japanese warrior and not to be forced to play as a Black person warrior or female warrior, as it happened recently. Or to play as a queer character without any other choice. This is an issue really for players."
Stop Killing Games Says That Uhrík Is "Missing The Point"
The idea that 'wokeness' is destroying the video game industry has been disproven again and again: just look at the unanimous success of Baldur's Gate 3, which propelled Larian Studios to stardom. Not to mention that Assassin's Creed has always been a diverse and varied series, beginning in the Holy Land, which encompasses modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, western Jordan, and southwestern Syria, and later following the Iroquoian-speaking Connor Kenway, a Kanien'kehá:ka (or Mohawk).
It's also worth noting that Uhrík's party, the Republic Movement, are anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ+ rights, anti-vax, and pro-Russia.
Stop Killing Games isn't interested in wading into the anti-woke waters, however, as they only distract from the real issue of publishers shutting down games and rendering them completely inaccessible. On the movement's subreddit, SKG director general Moritz Katzner explained that Uhrík "was supportive in tone, but in my view somewhat missed the point."
Otherwise, support "without major reservations" was voiced by several representatives, while numerous MEPs expressed their own personal support, as detailed in the aforementioned Reddit post. With that being said, Polish MEP Piotr Müller warned that "we need to be cautious now to over-regulate the market. The games market in Europe still needs to be able to develop so that the European sector can continue to grow."
Concord Becomes One Of The Few Games Ever Mentioned In The European Parliament
The game has a legacy after all.