1.3 MILLION PEOPLE ASKED THE EU TO STOP COMPANIES FROM DELETING GAMES THEY PAID FOR.
THE ANSWER WAS NO.
The "Stop Killing Games" initiative wanted one thing: when publishers pull the plug, don't let them remotely destroy copies people already bought.
The European Commission's official response:
- It will not require publishers to keep games playable - says forcing them would go too far
- Reason given: publishers' copyright and IP rights come first. Your purchase comes second.
- The solution: a voluntary code of conduct, developed together with the same industry that kills games
- Plus an awareness campaign reminding you of the consumer rights you supposedly already have
1.3 million signatures. Years of work. Multiple hearings.
And the part that says everything: according to the campaign, Ubisoft got a seat at a closed-door meeting with the Commission before the decision. The 1.3 million people who signed did not.
Publishers can still brick your purchase whenever they feel like it.
If buying still isn't owning, then at least now it's official.
In America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called.
I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years.
"Nobunaga."
He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly.
"Perfect. Banana, party of one."
Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now.
Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands.
I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready.
It woke.
It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master.
He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room.
"BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!"
A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me.
All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!"
So tell me honestly.
For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came.
When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana?
Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.
> be Bowie Knife99
> just a guy with an Xbox
> buy Forza Horizon 6 on launch day
> drive like you always do - like a lunatic
> ram, swerve, and pit-maneuver strangers into walls
> the Drivatar system silently records every felony
> uploads an AI clone of your driving to the cloud
> deploys hundreds of you into other people's races, 24/7
> within days, thousands cry about you on Reddit, X, and Steam
> the community calls you "the Herobrine of Forza"
> official Xbox UK tweets "Happy Bank Holiday Monday to everyone except bowie knife99"
> a fan opens a fake X account in your name to taunt your victims
thousands of players are at war with hundreds of clones of you. you don't know any of this is happening. happy bank holiday.
do you understand what Google's AI just did to an artist..
His entire Google account got permanently banned. Not just Drive. Gmail.. YouTube.. Every single service..
His appeal was rejected. No human reviewed it. An algorithm decided his life's work was a violation.
He never shared the files publicly. It was a private backup of his own creations. The AI flagged it anyway - probably the filename or art style - and that was enough.
- Google banned a developer's 14-year-old Gmail account over a research dataset that contained no illegal content
- Google expanded its automated ban policy in October 2025 - violations now trigger immediate termination with zero warning period
- No lawsuit against Google for wrongful account termination has ever succeeded in US courts
Your Google account is not yours. You are renting access to your own digital life from a company whose AI can end it in seconds - with no appeal, no human, and no recourse.