9 ms·

The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

261 points by TechTechTech 4mo ago

phreack 4mo ago
> The bill applies to digitally sold games. However, it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination. I believe this is the key paragraph. I wonder if this will be an incentive towards making more games qualify for those exceptions. I think the previous cases where this act would apply are few but good thing they wouldn't increase under this act.
- pibaker 4mo ago
  California and meaningless feel good legislation with massive loopholes? A match made in heaven! If this is how the bill ends up being enacted, it will only push more big game developers into making their titles subscription only. A win for gamers' rights, I suppose.
  - RobotToaster 4mo ago
    I can see them adding a $1 per year subscription at the very least.
    - fragmede 4mo ago
      Why not $0?
      - greenavocado 4mo ago
        $1 refundable subscription
    - meatmanek 4mo ago
      At least that somewhat aligns incentives between players and the game studio. If an old game has a long-lasting player base, then a modest subscription makes it more likely that the studio would keep the servers up and running, if not actively patching the game. With a game that you pay for up-front, a long-lived player base can be a liability for the company (ongoing costs without many new purchases.)
      - paradox460 4mo ago
        Why is this a problem? Quake 3 came out a quarter century ago, yet there are still community host servers available
        tadfisher 4mo ago
        Quake 3 can also be played fully offline, for various measures of "play" and "fully".
        hadlock 4mo ago
        After about 2010 companies stopped providing the server binary. Games like Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield 2, etc could be played by communities in perpetuity on private servers. If the next game (MW3, BF3) were terrible, you didn't have to buy the sequel, what you had was "good enough" and you could wait for the next version to be released in 2-3 years. With the current "closed server" model, you can't get a copy of the server code, can't host truly private servers, and when the sequel MW4, BF4 comes out, those private servers won't survive and it forces everyone to move to the sequel regardless of the quality of the game. You can technically still hire a private server for games like BF3 (circa 2012) but very few people are going to pay the $70/month to host an official one via whatever terms EA has come up with, and you absolutely can't run it with plugins, mods, and especially custom maps or game modes, you have to play it "vanilla". Quake 3 the server is included with the game, anyone can run it, modify it and it's very plugin friendly, which is largely why it is still around today. Closed servers you can't directly access is a deliberate decision to kill the game when the sequel is released, by not allowing users to extend what they "bought". Otherwise we would still all be playing Battlefield 3 on custom maps with CTF and 128 v 128 player servers and everything else. You can modify a handful of things on the paid private servers but it's extremely limited and there's no community feedback on any of this.
  - cosmojg 4mo ago
    I think it's more likely that the big studios will start rolling out trivial offline modes (less risky) rather than overhaul their revenue models (more risky).
  - gwerbin 4mo ago
    It's not meaningless feel-good legislation, it's actively harmful by disincentivizing a bad thing, in favor of an even worse thing. See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs.
    - NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
      > See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs. by the way, why wasn't this bug fixed long ago?
    - jnovek 4mo ago
      What will the negative impact of this law be, exactly? Hurting live service games which are already cancer?
      - wilg 4mo ago
        No it will make everything a live service game
        bayarearefugee 4mo ago
        Good luck with that. The industry already tried to make everything a live service game in the 2020-2022 period and it was financially disastrous because gamers rejected it. Gamers have made it clear that they don't want a market full of live service games unless they are free to play (and even then, very few will survive). They'll make rare exceptions for things like GTA6, but these will be unicorns.
        xingped 4mo ago
        That certainly won't stop out of touch CEOs from choosing to do just that anyways. CEOs and making the stupidest possible decisions are also a match made in heaven.
        4mo ago
  - Akronymus 4mo ago
    Subscription only games get way less revenue than pay once for the most part. So I don't think moving to subscriptions isn't gonna be as attractive to publishers as you think. Also, with a subscription the customer has VERY different expectations, compared to a one time purchase. As in, they expect the access to go away once they no longer pay.
- MadnessASAP 4mo ago
  Of course its an incentive, however the disincentives to purchasing (subscribing/spending), and thus producing, such games still exist.
- ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
  So this only really applies to games you have to purchase once but are online-only? That's... an incredibly narrow law, that only covers a class of games which are particularly stupid by design. (Continuous cost without continuous revenue.)
  - Akronymus 4mo ago
    It also covers games with any form of MTX, even if the base game is free. So most live service games.
    - ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
      I don't read it that way. "Free-to-play" games generally include games with microtransactions, and the bill text does nothing to disagree with that: > (b) This section does not apply to any of the following: > (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. This solely refers to the game being available for free, not for any additional powerups or cosmetics being available for free.
      - Akronymus 4mo ago
        > > (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. I'd argue buying any form of MTX creates a monetary consideration. Though, I guess it is kind of a gray area that's gonna have to be ruled on. > This solely refers to the game being available for free, not for any additional powerups or cosmetics being available for free. I didn't intend to mean additional stuff being free. I meant additional stuff you can buy, resulting in the no monetary considerations carveout not applying.
        throwaway85825 4mo ago
        This is absolutely not a gray area. MTX are monetary consideration. Free games in this case are more likely advergames.
- nine_k 4mo ago
  incentive towards making more games qualify for those exceptions Yes, please, produce more "games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely".
  - agoodusername63 4mo ago
    > However, it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. How is that incentivizing offline games? Half of the service game focused industry would be exempt
    - acters 4mo ago
      They will also prefer subscription or free-to-play than actual offline gaming. This is going to be a disaster
      - agoodusername63 4mo ago
        I don't think it's going to be a disaster, doing nothing is not quite a disaster when the AAA games sector has been ticking over like this for the past 10 years or so. The law is worded so that this does extremely little even if fully passed by CA's legal system due to the very broad exceptions. Exactly as lobbyists want it. Makes great headlines for SKG while doing pretty much nothing material for them though.
- lucb1e 4mo ago
  >> It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination. Does anyone know how this should be interpreted? Maybe to have a concrete example, let's take Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (RCT2), with OpenRCT2 as a sort-of mod for it, but imagine that RCT2 was originally a subscription game where you paid per month to play it and that it terminated before OpenRCT2 started. Existing copyright laws already prohibit continued distribution, which OpenRCT2 doesn't do, so does this change anything? Does this law move what used to be civil (copyright) cases into criminal law (so there needs not exist a rights-holder to file suit; the state can just push cases as they see fit)? Could the OpenRCT2 devs still (as I believe they hitherto can) release a 'donation version' with bonus gimmicks if they so wanted, or would that be classified as a sale of something that enables playing the original RCT2 and so illegal?
- jayd16 4mo ago
  You'll just get subscription games with a free year subscription code in the box. If anything I bet it will accelerate the death of free multiplayer.
wagwang 4mo ago
The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
- doctorpangloss 4mo ago
  i don't know, do game developers have a right to sell a Remastered Multiplayer Edition later? in my opinion, yes.
- kgwxd 4mo ago
  Government forced speech is never reasonable. If you don't like the arrangement, just don't buy the game. Tell them why you didn't buy the game. Hope for a better future where more of the industry is built on open source. That's all anyone can do. That's all anyone should be able to do.
  - wredcoll 4mo ago
    There's always someone willing to blame the victim. The answer to companies committing fraud is not "buyer beware".
    - ethin 4mo ago
      What are you proposing then? The government is not allowed to compel speech for good reason.
      - Y-bar 4mo ago
        That’s not a Carte Blanche that forbids the government from everything. The government can compel speech from food and other producers to print content and nutritional labels on their products. The government can compel speech on a yearly basis when we file taxes. The can compel speech such as guidance maps and websites to be accessible to the blind (ADA). They can compel vehicle owners to provide insurance and ownership information, which is a kind of speech.
phendrenad2 4mo ago
I think this will cause a big schism in the Stop Killing Games movement. Game devs who were sympathetic to the movement will expect that this is enough, but a lot of people in the movement will be unsatisfied with the carveouts for MMORPGs and XBOX Game Pass and the like.
- ronsor 4mo ago
  A lot of people in the movement think game companies are the root problem when what they actually have a problem with is current copyright law.
- redsocksfan45 4mo ago
  [dead]
- Akronymus 4mo ago
  As someone in the movement since basically the beginning, this bill is enough in a lot of areas. Subscription games already always had a "no pay, no play" expectation, so I don't see any problem with that carveout. The only real problem I can see is that in-game purchases in free to play games are not additionally explicitly named. (Though, "no monetary considerations" shouldn't include ftp + mtx) Also, most gamepass games are available for purchase as well, so I don't see the problem there either, except the possibility that a game is removed from gamepass so you lose access despite paying, but that's something for the courts to figure out.
  - phendrenad2 4mo ago
    Right, well, the courts will figure it out, and if they decide on something you disagree with, and someone else in SKG agrees with it, is that not exactly what I predict?
kahrl 4mo ago
So instead of whole products sold at a one time price, there will be more and more subscription based services micro-transaction slop. 10/10 California. Never change.
- tapoxi 4mo ago
  But right now we have games that you have purchased for a one-time price, the developer revokes your ability to play it years later, and you have no recourse.
  - wilg 4mo ago
    Why would you be entitled to infinite support? For a game with an online component? Why does the game's purchase price extend to infinity instead of "for as long as the developer supports the game"?
    - vitally3643 4mo ago
      You aren't entitled to infinite support. You are entitled to keep using the thing you paid money for. If the publisher can't support the online service, they're obliged to make the game still playable by either releasing server code or offline modes. If you sell a product for money, you don't then get to later take the product away and keep the money.
    - Akronymus 4mo ago
      It's not endless support but more "Don't stop me from playing the game". For example, win xp is no longer supported. You can still use it. For a lot of games the current situation is essentially the same as "The OS is no longer profitable enough, so the developer prevents you from using it"
    - Ukv 4mo ago
      You still can sell X months access, if that's what you plainly state is being bought. I don't think you could sell "for as long as the developer supports the game" specifically, since that'd be an illusory promise (no actual obligation if the product can be revoked immediately), making the contract unenforceable and the customer entitled to restitution (a refund). "infinite support" is pretty much just "leave the customer with the product they bought working". There doesn't need to be any ongoing costs.
charcircuit 4mo ago
So just make every game free to play and then require a paying to unlock the actual game.
- Akronymus 4mo ago
  That'd IMO count as a monetary consideration, and thus not be excempt.
  - kodt 4mo ago
    I wonder if making the game free to play before shut down would allow them to skirt the law?
    - Akronymus 4mo ago
      I doubt it, as that'd not nullify the contract established by people who bought the game before it went FTP.
- idle_zealot 4mo ago
  As ever it will come down to judicial discretion whether trivial word games are allowed to nullify the law or not.
okdood64 4mo ago
[flagged]
- thinkingtoilet 4mo ago
  What's important is you came here, didn't address the article at all, and rambled off some talking points.
- ww520 4mo ago
  The California state budget for 2026-27 is at $248 billions. Life is good for the state politicians.
Manuel_D 4mo ago
Releasing server-side code would be a non-starter for lots of companies. For one, many of them don't actually own all of the code they use to implement the game server. There's lots of proprietary middleware in use in online games. Perhaps a workaround is to just have 1 server online indefinitely. Technically the online services are still functional - the match queue times would just be very, very large.
- jnovek 4mo ago
  Release a spec. Release a binary distribution. I’m sure they could find a way to make it happen if it was in the studios’ interest.
- Ukv 4mo ago
  > There's lots of proprietary middleware in use in online games If bills like this pass, there'd be financial pressure on middleware providers to allow distribution at end-of-life (or for their component to be easily severed) else they'd lose out on all customers selling games in California/EU/etc.
  - phendrenad2 4mo ago
    Yep, everything is negotiable. So is price.
    - FeepingCreature 4mo ago
      It's not like the market for middleware changes by this. I honestly don't see it having much of an effect on price. They're gonna take their middleware and go where exactly?
- XorNot 4mo ago
  Its not pressure to release the source code. Its that they need to release the server so anyone can run it. From Day 1 any Doom client could be a multiplayer server and this is how it worked for almost all games - Descent, Quake, C&C etc...
vl 4mo ago
They are going to do what movie industry is already doing: create shell company for release of each game. Then they will shut down the company when they want, and there will be nobody to come for.
- tyleo 4mo ago
  I mentioned this in a separate thread. It seems like a huge risk to release an online game if you don't do this now. A single bad game can take down a studio. Now there's even more risk because a previously successful game may come with a big bill in the future if you have to do refunds or some late architecture change when you instead want to take a product down to save money.
  - jnovek 4mo ago
    Perhaps they should just write games in a way where they can actually release server code when they it shuts down?
    - Rapzid 4mo ago
      Perhaps "they" can write games however they want? If you don't like it, don't do business with them? This is a weird thing to be legislating on.
      - jnovek 4mo ago
        I think it’s a great thing to be legislating on. I would like to see it on the federal level, myself.
      - wsve 4mo ago
        Consumer protection laws are "weird"? I'd hate to live in your world...
      - unleaded 4mo ago
        It's too late to decide not to do business with them once they've stopped you from using a product you already bought.
gib444 4mo ago
It looks less like a ban on killing games, and more like a road-map for how publishers could change products/marketing/T&Cs to avoid flak and liability. (Not an ideal source btw: "This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of NC AI." The Bill is tiny can be read at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... )
jonhohle 4mo ago
I’ve thought about how to introduce a bill and find sponsors for extending first sale and related rights to digital goods. I understand the current terms and licensing, but we’ve lost too much to non-transferable contracts and millennials and later will likely have no books, music, or games that can be inherited by their children. It’s crazy that after thousands of years of sharing copies of writings, hundreds of years of sharing recordings, and decades of sharing games, we’re going to give it all up because it’s a license now. The problem is, where to even start? I would think EFF would be spearheading something like this, but I haven’t come across anything. There have been attempts in the past, but they don’t seem to have ongoing support.
wilg 4mo ago
This is such a terrible solution to a literal non-problem. You should be able to make software that has a limited lifespan if you want. I just think that's fine. Games should not be special.
- vitally3643 4mo ago
  You should be able to sell something and then take it away when you're tired of it. Would you feel the same if your phone permanently bricked itself because the vendor decided it was out of date and they just don't feel like supporting it anymore? If you sell a product for money, you don't have the right to take that product away and keep the money.
  - wilg 4mo ago
    Well, they're not selling you the game. They're licensing you the ability to play their game. And yes, I think it should be legal for a hardware product (like Spotify's "Car Thing" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Thing) to stop working because they don't want to support the online component. It's fine to get mad at the company, but I think it should be legal to do.
    - BeetleB 4mo ago
      > They're licensing you the ability to play their game. And Apple will no longer sell you a phone, but a license to use it. And it will brick itself when they decide (or when you try to open/repair it).
    - wsve 4mo ago
      > Well, they're not selling you the game. They're licensing you the ability to play their game. I don't think that's a reasonable reading of what it means to "buy a game", by most people's interpretation of the word "buy". Regardless of that, the neat thing about regulation is that we don't have to settle for that interpretation, and instead force the one that's better for the consumer!
- Akronymus 4mo ago
ChoGGi 4mo ago
Be interesting to see what this does to the online aspect of GTA 6. I do wish this had been around when Firefall [1] shutdown, haven't really bothered with live service games since then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game)
- eukara 4mo ago
  GTA 6 isn't going to release on PC for a while. Consoles are still dependent on other services that aren't affected by this legislation anyway...
amazingamazing 4mo ago
Writing is on the wall for more subscriptions. California will never learn - killed hollywood with most production being moved overseas, and now gaming. I wonder if they will do something similar for software
wsve 4mo ago
I'm always shocked by how irrationally anti-regulation this site is. I have yet to see any explanation why this regulation would be, in practice, cost/legally prohibitive in any way. This seems like a consumer protections slam dunk. Yes, you would have to make sure your server application adheres to software licenses before release, just like you do with the client application, or any other piece of software a company may use or release. What popular libraries are we concerned about no longer being usable because of this? Remember, this is server architecture. Networking libraries? ENet is distributable, so is Valve's GameNetworkingSockets. Yes, it'd ask developers to write their servers with this possible/inevitable transition in mind. Developers will plan ahead for that, and I have a very hard time imagining the server architecture would change much at all. A dedicated company-owned server is just a beefier home computer with load balancers and matchmaking. Drop those two, slap a server list on the client, and you're golden. This is great news!
- ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
  Its because people are brainwashed by techno capitalists propganada and think they're going be in the "startup" founder position one day and thus defend the people currently in those positions no matter what, thinking their protecting their own interests (and its almost always the opposite). There's nothing wrong with having an ambitious attitude, but why not be ambitious seek to build a better tech-biz ecosystem that is actually pro consumer and pro human.. People seem to think there's only one way, and that way is letting capital owners behave however they want incase they're also in that position one day.
  - ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago
    >think they're going be in the "startup" founder position Can't wait for the posts 10 years from now asking what happened to indie devs. This bill alone won't do it, but as you pass regulations it gets harder and harder for a regular person to participate. The worst rendition I've seen of this bill for Europe requires basically a development bond/retainer to 'ensure' there's dev time available to develop offline features. I.e, extra costs for devs who already by the numbers lose money releasing a game.
crackercrews 4mo ago
Seeing this headline I thought it was about AB Hernandez. Guess I should have realized the assembly would not have passed such a bill.
Telaneo 4mo ago
I wish subscription games could be preserved too, but this is probably about as good as it's going to get. I doubt companies are going to go all in on subscription games, since that's more or less been tried and failed, and only WoW and a few others are left standing from that. Or maybe they'll try and fail, since the temptation is just too great (think Sony and Concord trying their luck with hero shooters, even though everyone with threw or more brain cells knew it would never make back what it cost).
frankdlc222 4mo ago
This isn't really about ownership in the abstract, it's about honest labeling. Owning a copy has never meant you can duplicate it. You can't run off copies of a book you bought, but nobody thinks that means the publisher can take it off your shelf when they stop printing it. The ESA conflates the copyright they keep with the copy you bought. The real difference with live-service games is server dependency, and that's where the dishonesty lives. If a game can't run without an online service the publisher controls, people deserve that caveat before they pay. Don't sell it with the word "Buy" and a one-time price and then treat it like a subscription you can end. This bill just forces that honesty: notice, an offline patch, or a refund.
- ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago
  >This bill just forces that honesty: notice, an offline patch, or a refund. According to the bill text I can find, notice does not matter. The exceptions are subscriptions, f2p, or simply already offline games.
  - hananova 4mo ago
    Notice in this case means replacing “buy” with “rent.”
thegrim33 4mo ago
So if I'm a game dev that lives in the US outside of California, do I have to care about this? Or do I have to explicitly block Californians from buying my game if I don't want to be affected by it?
braiamp 4mo ago
Wow, this comment section is terrible, lets cut through the noise. The "you're buying a license, not a game" argument is the industry writing its own rules and then citing those rules as if they came from somewhere neutral. EULAs are not negotiated contracts; you cannot counter-offer, you cannot opt out, and there is no competing storefront with better terms. The moment you frame a unilateral "take it or leave it" clause as a legal shield against consumer protection law, you've already lost the moral argument. More importantly, that same "license" framework is what justifies their copyright protection, their anti-piracy enforcement, their DMCA claims. You don't get to invoke ownership-level legal protections against consumers while delivering zero ownership to them. Pick a lane. Also, also, for "technically impossible to preserve", the bill doesn't ask for eternal servers. It asks for an offline patch or a refund. Fan communities do the patch part for free, on weekends with no legal team, for Pete's sake! If a volunteer modder can strip authentication from a dead MMO, a company with actual engineers can do it too. And if they truly can't? Then refund the customer. The "complexity" argument was always a misdirection, the bill already hands them an exit door for genuine edge cases. They're not opposing it because it's unworkable. They're opposing it because it closes a very profitable loophole.
anonymousiam 4mo ago
[flagged]
- jrmg 4mo ago
  I'd love to read the details of the bill It’s all public - you can just look it up: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
  - anonymousiam 4mo ago
    Thanks. The article was lacking in details. Here's the relevant part of the bill, which is quite terse: 20664. (a) The following shall apply only to a digital game first available for purchase or rereleased for purchase on or after January 1, 2027: (1) (A) 60 days before a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall communicate all of the following information to purchasers and prospective purchasers of the digital game: (i) The date on which services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game will cease. (ii) Any services that will no longer be provided by the operator. (iii) Any game features that will no longer be available to the purchaser. (iv) Any known security risks that may result from the cessation of services. (v) How the purchaser can continue to use the digital game, or obtain a refund, pursuant to paragraph (2). (B) A digital game operator shall communicate the information required by subparagraph (A) by doing both of the following: (i) Notifying purchasers directly through the operator’s digital game. (ii) Posting the information publicly on the operator’s internet website. (2) Beginning on the date a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall provide the purchaser with one or more of the following: (A) A version of the digital game that can be used by the purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator. (B) A patch or update to the purchaser’s version of the digital game that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator. (C) A refund in an amount equal to the full purchase price paid for the digital game by the purchaser. (3) Beginning on the date a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall not sell, lease, or otherwise distribute a version of the game that cannot be used by a purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator. (b) This section does not apply to any of the following: (1) Any subscription-based service that advertises or offers for sale access to any digital game solely for the duration of the subscription. (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. (3) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital game available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.
jrmg 4mo ago
The details direct from the legislature: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
stevenalowe 4mo ago
Are they going to pay for the servers and support techs and bandwidth? I know it sucks but running online games costs money Edit: If this was just about local games it’d be simple
drewbeck 4mo ago
It seems like one reasonable response from game companies is to include a service agreement with all games that explicitly limits the guaranteed server uptime. Ie “buying this game only guarantees operation until Dec 31 2028” No clue if the market will go for that but it would meet the issue head on. “Companies will provide server binaries” on the other hand feels like pure fantasy. Overall I’m glad folks are trying to do something about this.
- kbenson 4mo ago
  If they did that, people would notice, it would be talked about, and it would be factored into (some) people's decisions on whether the game was worth the price. That's the market figuring out how to appropriately price a good based on information about it, which I think would be good. Even if that's the only thing this legislation changes I think it would be a good change, by forcing what was an ambiguous aspect of the good you purchased into a well understood and legally enforced aspect.
misswaterfairy 4mo ago
The key bit: > 'AB 1921' is one of the first instances of bringing these demands into the institutional fold. Under the bill, companies selling digital games released or resold after January 1, 2027, must provide at least 60 days' notice before terminating service. Furthermore, they must ensure that purchasers can continue to access the game—such as by providing an alternative version or a patch—and must offer refunds if doing so is not possible. I get that some developers are going to be irked by this, and I get that there will now be some perverse incentive to move to a 'subscription-only' model. Now that the Stop Killing Games movement has overcome the major hurdle of landing actual legislative change from zero, its not much of a step from this point to extend these protections to anti-consumer practices around subscription-based games too, if they prove abusive. It's not just about consumer rights, it is also about preserving and promoting arts and culture that can and are passed down through the next generation, which, ironically, helps keep growing and sustaining the industry. Imagine what arts and culture might be like, seemingly everlasting copyright lifetimes notwithstanding, if Nintendo yanked Super Mario World from everyone because the online services to keep running the game simply costed too much or because the Mario franchise wasn't 'meeting profit expectations'. [Yes, I realise Super Mario World didn't have an 'online' component in the 90s, but imagine if it did...] Remember that not too long ago it was very common place to self-host servers for games, and for quite a few this is still possible (such as DayZ and Minecraft). Thanks to community efforts, it is also still possible to play long abandoned online games that were once locked behind authentication and server listing providers, such as Battlefield 2 (previously fronted by GameSpy) that has been revived with BF2Hub (bf2hub.com). Some games[1][2] even have a resurgence after long being forgotten. The revival of Dark Ages wouldn't have happened, and old friendships rekindled, if it was switched off because 'profit'. Yes, Battlefield 2 had an offline component and could be still played sans GameSpy and BF2Hub, though a big part of the experience and culture around the game was the online community and gameplay against other real humans that made it so successful. Relatively speaking (and legal/licencing complications aside) it is really not that difficult, especially for games publishers that cash in multiple millions of dollars in raw profits, to patch out authentication server mechanisms controlled by the publisher, and/or release the authentication/game server software binaries or source freely but unsupported after their deprecation date. The legislation is designed to make these pro-consumer ethics at the forefront of game design. Video games are a big contributor to culture and human connection, and permitting companies to both freely yank a product that someone rightly paid for without compensation - you will own nothing and be happy about it - and kill off parts of our culture, is a horrible place to be as a society. [1] https://youtu.be/FIFty-O4rOE https://youtu.be/FIFty-O4rOE [2] https://youtu.be/0zNtATsb5eg https://youtu.be/0zNtATsb5eg
unixhero 4mo ago
Thank you so much Ross and friends
evanjrowley 4mo ago
Under the bill, companies selling digital games released or resold after January 1, 2027, must provide at least 60 days' notice before terminating service. Furthermore, they must ensure that purchasers can continue to access the game—such as by providing an alternative version or a patch—and must offer refunds if doing so is not possible. I'm excited about what this could mean for Bethesda games like ESO and Fallout. These franchises have historically been single player. The single-player focus is directly connected to the rich modding communities behind these games. When online-only ESO and Fallout 76 were released, many longtime players were frustrated at the total lack of control they've enjoyed with prior titles. On top of this, the games are practically impossible to complete when attempting to play them like a single-player game. It makes these games far less immersive compared to their older single-player counterparts. Looking forward to the far away day when these alternate/patched versions allow Elder Scrolls / Fallout fans the opportunity to fix mistakes made by Bethesda/Zenimax.
boisterousness 4mo ago
60 days before shutdown, a game company just needs to transition their game to subscription-required. That gets them out from under this law. Then if enough players subscribe, the company could decide to keep the servers going longer than planned.

261 points by TechTechTech 4mo ago

> The bill applies to digitally sold games. However, it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination. I believe this is the key paragraph. I wonder if this will be an incentive towards making more games qualify for those exceptions. I think the previous cases where this act would apply are few but good thing they wouldn't increase under this act.

pibaker 4mo ago
California and meaningless feel good legislation with massive loopholes? A match made in heaven! If this is how the bill ends up being enacted, it will only push more big game developers into making their titles subscription only. A win for gamers' rights, I suppose.
- RobotToaster 4mo ago
  I can see them adding a $1 per year subscription at the very least.
  - fragmede 4mo ago
    Why not $0?
    - greenavocado 4mo ago
      $1 refundable subscription
  - meatmanek 4mo ago
    At least that somewhat aligns incentives between players and the game studio. If an old game has a long-lasting player base, then a modest subscription makes it more likely that the studio would keep the servers up and running, if not actively patching the game. With a game that you pay for up-front, a long-lived player base can be a liability for the company (ongoing costs without many new purchases.)
    - paradox460 4mo ago
      Why is this a problem? Quake 3 came out a quarter century ago, yet there are still community host servers available
      - tadfisher 4mo ago
        Quake 3 can also be played fully offline, for various measures of "play" and "fully".
      - hadlock 4mo ago
        After about 2010 companies stopped providing the server binary. Games like Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield 2, etc could be played by communities in perpetuity on private servers. If the next game (MW3, BF3) were terrible, you didn't have to buy the sequel, what you had was "good enough" and you could wait for the next version to be released in 2-3 years. With the current "closed server" model, you can't get a copy of the server code, can't host truly private servers, and when the sequel MW4, BF4 comes out, those private servers won't survive and it forces everyone to move to the sequel regardless of the quality of the game. You can technically still hire a private server for games like BF3 (circa 2012) but very few people are going to pay the $70/month to host an official one via whatever terms EA has come up with, and you absolutely can't run it with plugins, mods, and especially custom maps or game modes, you have to play it "vanilla". Quake 3 the server is included with the game, anyone can run it, modify it and it's very plugin friendly, which is largely why it is still around today. Closed servers you can't directly access is a deliberate decision to kill the game when the sequel is released, by not allowing users to extend what they "bought". Otherwise we would still all be playing Battlefield 3 on custom maps with CTF and 128 v 128 player servers and everything else. You can modify a handful of things on the paid private servers but it's extremely limited and there's no community feedback on any of this.
- cosmojg 4mo ago
  I think it's more likely that the big studios will start rolling out trivial offline modes (less risky) rather than overhaul their revenue models (more risky).
- gwerbin 4mo ago
  It's not meaningless feel-good legislation, it's actively harmful by disincentivizing a bad thing, in favor of an even worse thing. See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs.
  - NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
    > See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs. by the way, why wasn't this bug fixed long ago?
  - jnovek 4mo ago
    What will the negative impact of this law be, exactly? Hurting live service games which are already cancer?
    - wilg 4mo ago
      No it will make everything a live service game
      - bayarearefugee 4mo ago
        Good luck with that. The industry already tried to make everything a live service game in the 2020-2022 period and it was financially disastrous because gamers rejected it. Gamers have made it clear that they don't want a market full of live service games unless they are free to play (and even then, very few will survive). They'll make rare exceptions for things like GTA6, but these will be unicorns.
        xingped 4mo ago
        That certainly won't stop out of touch CEOs from choosing to do just that anyways. CEOs and making the stupidest possible decisions are also a match made in heaven.
        4mo ago
- Akronymus 4mo ago
  Subscription only games get way less revenue than pay once for the most part. So I don't think moving to subscriptions isn't gonna be as attractive to publishers as you think. Also, with a subscription the customer has VERY different expectations, compared to a one time purchase. As in, they expect the access to go away once they no longer pay.
MadnessASAP 4mo ago
Of course its an incentive, however the disincentives to purchasing (subscribing/spending), and thus producing, such games still exist.
ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
So this only really applies to games you have to purchase once but are online-only? That's... an incredibly narrow law, that only covers a class of games which are particularly stupid by design. (Continuous cost without continuous revenue.)
- Akronymus 4mo ago
  It also covers games with any form of MTX, even if the base game is free. So most live service games.
  - ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
    I don't read it that way. "Free-to-play" games generally include games with microtransactions, and the bill text does nothing to disagree with that: > (b) This section does not apply to any of the following: > (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. This solely refers to the game being available for free, not for any additional powerups or cosmetics being available for free.
    - Akronymus 4mo ago
      > > (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. I'd argue buying any form of MTX creates a monetary consideration. Though, I guess it is kind of a gray area that's gonna have to be ruled on. > This solely refers to the game being available for free, not for any additional powerups or cosmetics being available for free. I didn't intend to mean additional stuff being free. I meant additional stuff you can buy, resulting in the no monetary considerations carveout not applying.
      - throwaway85825 4mo ago
        This is absolutely not a gray area. MTX are monetary consideration. Free games in this case are more likely advergames.
nine_k 4mo ago
incentive towards making more games qualify for those exceptions Yes, please, produce more "games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely".
- agoodusername63 4mo ago
  > However, it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. How is that incentivizing offline games? Half of the service game focused industry would be exempt
  - acters 4mo ago
    They will also prefer subscription or free-to-play than actual offline gaming. This is going to be a disaster
    - agoodusername63 4mo ago
      I don't think it's going to be a disaster, doing nothing is not quite a disaster when the AAA games sector has been ticking over like this for the past 10 years or so. The law is worded so that this does extremely little even if fully passed by CA's legal system due to the very broad exceptions. Exactly as lobbyists want it. Makes great headlines for SKG while doing pretty much nothing material for them though.
lucb1e 4mo ago
>> It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination. Does anyone know how this should be interpreted? Maybe to have a concrete example, let's take Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (RCT2), with OpenRCT2 as a sort-of mod for it, but imagine that RCT2 was originally a subscription game where you paid per month to play it and that it terminated before OpenRCT2 started. Existing copyright laws already prohibit continued distribution, which OpenRCT2 doesn't do, so does this change anything? Does this law move what used to be civil (copyright) cases into criminal law (so there needs not exist a rights-holder to file suit; the state can just push cases as they see fit)? Could the OpenRCT2 devs still (as I believe they hitherto can) release a 'donation version' with bonus gimmicks if they so wanted, or would that be classified as a sale of something that enables playing the original RCT2 and so illegal?
jayd16 4mo ago
You'll just get subscription games with a free year subscription code in the box. If anything I bet it will accelerate the death of free multiplayer.

wagwang 4mo ago

The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.

doctorpangloss 4mo ago
i don't know, do game developers have a right to sell a Remastered Multiplayer Edition later? in my opinion, yes.
kgwxd 4mo ago
Government forced speech is never reasonable. If you don't like the arrangement, just don't buy the game. Tell them why you didn't buy the game. Hope for a better future where more of the industry is built on open source. That's all anyone can do. That's all anyone should be able to do.
- wredcoll 4mo ago
  There's always someone willing to blame the victim. The answer to companies committing fraud is not "buyer beware".
  - ethin 4mo ago
    What are you proposing then? The government is not allowed to compel speech for good reason.
    - Y-bar 4mo ago
      That’s not a Carte Blanche that forbids the government from everything. The government can compel speech from food and other producers to print content and nutritional labels on their products. The government can compel speech on a yearly basis when we file taxes. The can compel speech such as guidance maps and websites to be accessible to the blind (ADA). They can compel vehicle owners to provide insurance and ownership information, which is a kind of speech.

phendrenad2 4mo ago

I think this will cause a big schism in the Stop Killing Games movement. Game devs who were sympathetic to the movement will expect that this is enough, but a lot of people in the movement will be unsatisfied with the carveouts for MMORPGs and XBOX Game Pass and the like.

ronsor 4mo ago
A lot of people in the movement think game companies are the root problem when what they actually have a problem with is current copyright law.
redsocksfan45 4mo ago
[dead]
Akronymus 4mo ago
As someone in the movement since basically the beginning, this bill is enough in a lot of areas. Subscription games already always had a "no pay, no play" expectation, so I don't see any problem with that carveout. The only real problem I can see is that in-game purchases in free to play games are not additionally explicitly named. (Though, "no monetary considerations" shouldn't include ftp + mtx) Also, most gamepass games are available for purchase as well, so I don't see the problem there either, except the possibility that a game is removed from gamepass so you lose access despite paying, but that's something for the courts to figure out.
- phendrenad2 4mo ago
  Right, well, the courts will figure it out, and if they decide on something you disagree with, and someone else in SKG agrees with it, is that not exactly what I predict?

kahrl 4mo ago

So instead of whole products sold at a one time price, there will be more and more subscription based services micro-transaction slop. 10/10 California. Never change.

tapoxi 4mo ago
But right now we have games that you have purchased for a one-time price, the developer revokes your ability to play it years later, and you have no recourse.
- wilg 4mo ago
  Why would you be entitled to infinite support? For a game with an online component? Why does the game's purchase price extend to infinity instead of "for as long as the developer supports the game"?
  - vitally3643 4mo ago
    You aren't entitled to infinite support. You are entitled to keep using the thing you paid money for. If the publisher can't support the online service, they're obliged to make the game still playable by either releasing server code or offline modes. If you sell a product for money, you don't then get to later take the product away and keep the money.
  - Akronymus 4mo ago
    It's not endless support but more "Don't stop me from playing the game". For example, win xp is no longer supported. You can still use it. For a lot of games the current situation is essentially the same as "The OS is no longer profitable enough, so the developer prevents you from using it"
  - Ukv 4mo ago
    You still can sell X months access, if that's what you plainly state is being bought. I don't think you could sell "for as long as the developer supports the game" specifically, since that'd be an illusory promise (no actual obligation if the product can be revoked immediately), making the contract unenforceable and the customer entitled to restitution (a refund). "infinite support" is pretty much just "leave the customer with the product they bought working". There doesn't need to be any ongoing costs.

charcircuit 4mo ago

So just make every game free to play and then require a paying to unlock the actual game.

Akronymus 4mo ago
That'd IMO count as a monetary consideration, and thus not be excempt.
- kodt 4mo ago
  I wonder if making the game free to play before shut down would allow them to skirt the law?
  - Akronymus 4mo ago
    I doubt it, as that'd not nullify the contract established by people who bought the game before it went FTP.
idle_zealot 4mo ago
As ever it will come down to judicial discretion whether trivial word games are allowed to nullify the law or not.

okdood64 4mo ago

[flagged]

thinkingtoilet 4mo ago
What's important is you came here, didn't address the article at all, and rambled off some talking points.
ww520 4mo ago
The California state budget for 2026-27 is at $248 billions. Life is good for the state politicians.

Manuel_D 4mo ago

Releasing server-side code would be a non-starter for lots of companies. For one, many of them don't actually own all of the code they use to implement the game server. There's lots of proprietary middleware in use in online games. Perhaps a workaround is to just have 1 server online indefinitely. Technically the online services are still functional - the match queue times would just be very, very large.

jnovek 4mo ago
Release a spec. Release a binary distribution. I’m sure they could find a way to make it happen if it was in the studios’ interest.
Ukv 4mo ago
> There's lots of proprietary middleware in use in online games If bills like this pass, there'd be financial pressure on middleware providers to allow distribution at end-of-life (or for their component to be easily severed) else they'd lose out on all customers selling games in California/EU/etc.
- phendrenad2 4mo ago
  Yep, everything is negotiable. So is price.
  - FeepingCreature 4mo ago
    It's not like the market for middleware changes by this. I honestly don't see it having much of an effect on price. They're gonna take their middleware and go where exactly?
XorNot 4mo ago
Its not pressure to release the source code. Its that they need to release the server so anyone can run it. From Day 1 any Doom client could be a multiplayer server and this is how it worked for almost all games - Descent, Quake, C&C etc...

vl 4mo ago

They are going to do what movie industry is already doing: create shell company for release of each game. Then they will shut down the company when they want, and there will be nobody to come for.

tyleo 4mo ago
I mentioned this in a separate thread. It seems like a huge risk to release an online game if you don't do this now. A single bad game can take down a studio. Now there's even more risk because a previously successful game may come with a big bill in the future if you have to do refunds or some late architecture change when you instead want to take a product down to save money.
- jnovek 4mo ago
  Perhaps they should just write games in a way where they can actually release server code when they it shuts down?
  - Rapzid 4mo ago
    Perhaps "they" can write games however they want? If you don't like it, don't do business with them? This is a weird thing to be legislating on.
    - jnovek 4mo ago
      I think it’s a great thing to be legislating on. I would like to see it on the federal level, myself.
    - wsve 4mo ago
      Consumer protection laws are "weird"? I'd hate to live in your world...
    - unleaded 4mo ago
      It's too late to decide not to do business with them once they've stopped you from using a product you already bought.

gib444 4mo ago

It looks less like a ban on killing games, and more like a road-map for how publishers could change products/marketing/T&Cs to avoid flak and liability. (Not an ideal source btw: "This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of NC AI." The Bill is tiny can be read at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... )

jonhohle 4mo ago

I’ve thought about how to introduce a bill and find sponsors for extending first sale and related rights to digital goods. I understand the current terms and licensing, but we’ve lost too much to non-transferable contracts and millennials and later will likely have no books, music, or games that can be inherited by their children. It’s crazy that after thousands of years of sharing copies of writings, hundreds of years of sharing recordings, and decades of sharing games, we’re going to give it all up because it’s a license now. The problem is, where to even start? I would think EFF would be spearheading something like this, but I haven’t come across anything. There have been attempts in the past, but they don’t seem to have ongoing support.

wilg 4mo ago

This is such a terrible solution to a literal non-problem. You should be able to make software that has a limited lifespan if you want. I just think that's fine. Games should not be special.

vitally3643 4mo ago
You should be able to sell something and then take it away when you're tired of it. Would you feel the same if your phone permanently bricked itself because the vendor decided it was out of date and they just don't feel like supporting it anymore? If you sell a product for money, you don't have the right to take that product away and keep the money.
- wilg 4mo ago
  Well, they're not selling you the game. They're licensing you the ability to play their game. And yes, I think it should be legal for a hardware product (like Spotify's "Car Thing" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Thing) to stop working because they don't want to support the online component. It's fine to get mad at the company, but I think it should be legal to do.
  - BeetleB 4mo ago
    > They're licensing you the ability to play their game. And Apple will no longer sell you a phone, but a license to use it. And it will brick itself when they decide (or when you try to open/repair it).
  - wsve 4mo ago
    > Well, they're not selling you the game. They're licensing you the ability to play their game. I don't think that's a reasonable reading of what it means to "buy a game", by most people's interpretation of the word "buy". Regardless of that, the neat thing about regulation is that we don't have to settle for that interpretation, and instead force the one that's better for the consumer!
Akronymus 4mo ago

ChoGGi 4mo ago

Be interesting to see what this does to the online aspect of GTA 6. I do wish this had been around when Firefall [1] shutdown, haven't really bothered with live service games since then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game)

eukara 4mo ago
GTA 6 isn't going to release on PC for a while. Consoles are still dependent on other services that aren't affected by this legislation anyway...

amazingamazing 4mo ago

Writing is on the wall for more subscriptions. California will never learn - killed hollywood with most production being moved overseas, and now gaming. I wonder if they will do something similar for software

wsve 4mo ago

I'm always shocked by how irrationally anti-regulation this site is. I have yet to see any explanation why this regulation would be, in practice, cost/legally prohibitive in any way. This seems like a consumer protections slam dunk. Yes, you would have to make sure your server application adheres to software licenses before release, just like you do with the client application, or any other piece of software a company may use or release. What popular libraries are we concerned about no longer being usable because of this? Remember, this is server architecture. Networking libraries? ENet is distributable, so is Valve's GameNetworkingSockets. Yes, it'd ask developers to write their servers with this possible/inevitable transition in mind. Developers will plan ahead for that, and I have a very hard time imagining the server architecture would change much at all. A dedicated company-owned server is just a beefier home computer with load balancers and matchmaking. Drop those two, slap a server list on the client, and you're golden. This is great news!

ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
Its because people are brainwashed by techno capitalists propganada and think they're going be in the "startup" founder position one day and thus defend the people currently in those positions no matter what, thinking their protecting their own interests (and its almost always the opposite). There's nothing wrong with having an ambitious attitude, but why not be ambitious seek to build a better tech-biz ecosystem that is actually pro consumer and pro human.. People seem to think there's only one way, and that way is letting capital owners behave however they want incase they're also in that position one day.
- ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago
  >think they're going be in the "startup" founder position Can't wait for the posts 10 years from now asking what happened to indie devs. This bill alone won't do it, but as you pass regulations it gets harder and harder for a regular person to participate. The worst rendition I've seen of this bill for Europe requires basically a development bond/retainer to 'ensure' there's dev time available to develop offline features. I.e, extra costs for devs who already by the numbers lose money releasing a game.

crackercrews 4mo ago

Seeing this headline I thought it was about AB Hernandez. Guess I should have realized the assembly would not have passed such a bill.

Telaneo 4mo ago

I wish subscription games could be preserved too, but this is probably about as good as it's going to get. I doubt companies are going to go all in on subscription games, since that's more or less been tried and failed, and only WoW and a few others are left standing from that. Or maybe they'll try and fail, since the temptation is just too great (think Sony and Concord trying their luck with hero shooters, even though everyone with threw or more brain cells knew it would never make back what it cost).

frankdlc222 4mo ago

This isn't really about ownership in the abstract, it's about honest labeling. Owning a copy has never meant you can duplicate it. You can't run off copies of a book you bought, but nobody thinks that means the publisher can take it off your shelf when they stop printing it. The ESA conflates the copyright they keep with the copy you bought. The real difference with live-service games is server dependency, and that's where the dishonesty lives. If a game can't run without an online service the publisher controls, people deserve that caveat before they pay. Don't sell it with the word "Buy" and a one-time price and then treat it like a subscription you can end. This bill just forces that honesty: notice, an offline patch, or a refund.

ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago
>This bill just forces that honesty: notice, an offline patch, or a refund. According to the bill text I can find, notice does not matter. The exceptions are subscriptions, f2p, or simply already offline games.
- hananova 4mo ago
  Notice in this case means replacing “buy” with “rent.”

thegrim33 4mo ago

So if I'm a game dev that lives in the US outside of California, do I have to care about this? Or do I have to explicitly block Californians from buying my game if I don't want to be affected by it?

braiamp 4mo ago

Wow, this comment section is terrible, lets cut through the noise. The "you're buying a license, not a game" argument is the industry writing its own rules and then citing those rules as if they came from somewhere neutral. EULAs are not negotiated contracts; you cannot counter-offer, you cannot opt out, and there is no competing storefront with better terms. The moment you frame a unilateral "take it or leave it" clause as a legal shield against consumer protection law, you've already lost the moral argument. More importantly, that same "license" framework is what justifies their copyright protection, their anti-piracy enforcement, their DMCA claims. You don't get to invoke ownership-level legal protections against consumers while delivering zero ownership to them. Pick a lane. Also, also, for "technically impossible to preserve", the bill doesn't ask for eternal servers. It asks for an offline patch or a refund. Fan communities do the patch part for free, on weekends with no legal team, for Pete's sake! If a volunteer modder can strip authentication from a dead MMO, a company with actual engineers can do it too. And if they truly can't? Then refund the customer. The "complexity" argument was always a misdirection, the bill already hands them an exit door for genuine edge cases. They're not opposing it because it's unworkable. They're opposing it because it closes a very profitable loophole.

anonymousiam 4mo ago

[flagged]

jrmg 4mo ago
I'd love to read the details of the bill It’s all public - you can just look it up: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
- anonymousiam 4mo ago
  Thanks. The article was lacking in details. Here's the relevant part of the bill, which is quite terse: 20664. (a) The following shall apply only to a digital game first available for purchase or rereleased for purchase on or after January 1, 2027: (1) (A) 60 days before a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall communicate all of the following information to purchasers and prospective purchasers of the digital game: (i) The date on which services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game will cease. (ii) Any services that will no longer be provided by the operator. (iii) Any game features that will no longer be available to the purchaser. (iv) Any known security risks that may result from the cessation of services. (v) How the purchaser can continue to use the digital game, or obtain a refund, pursuant to paragraph (2). (B) A digital game operator shall communicate the information required by subparagraph (A) by doing both of the following: (i) Notifying purchasers directly through the operator’s digital game. (ii) Posting the information publicly on the operator’s internet website. (2) Beginning on the date a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall provide the purchaser with one or more of the following: (A) A version of the digital game that can be used by the purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator. (B) A patch or update to the purchaser’s version of the digital game that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator. (C) A refund in an amount equal to the full purchase price paid for the digital game by the purchaser. (3) Beginning on the date a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall not sell, lease, or otherwise distribute a version of the game that cannot be used by a purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator. (b) This section does not apply to any of the following: (1) Any subscription-based service that advertises or offers for sale access to any digital game solely for the duration of the subscription. (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration. (3) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital game available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.

jrmg 4mo ago

The details direct from the legislature: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

stevenalowe 4mo ago

Are they going to pay for the servers and support techs and bandwidth? I know it sucks but running online games costs money Edit: If this was just about local games it’d be simple

drewbeck 4mo ago

It seems like one reasonable response from game companies is to include a service agreement with all games that explicitly limits the guaranteed server uptime. Ie “buying this game only guarantees operation until Dec 31 2028” No clue if the market will go for that but it would meet the issue head on. “Companies will provide server binaries” on the other hand feels like pure fantasy. Overall I’m glad folks are trying to do something about this.

kbenson 4mo ago
If they did that, people would notice, it would be talked about, and it would be factored into (some) people's decisions on whether the game was worth the price. That's the market figuring out how to appropriately price a good based on information about it, which I think would be good. Even if that's the only thing this legislation changes I think it would be a good change, by forcing what was an ambiguous aspect of the good you purchased into a well understood and legally enforced aspect.

misswaterfairy 4mo ago

The key bit: > 'AB 1921' is one of the first instances of bringing these demands into the institutional fold. Under the bill, companies selling digital games released or resold after January 1, 2027, must provide at least 60 days' notice before terminating service. Furthermore, they must ensure that purchasers can continue to access the game—such as by providing an alternative version or a patch—and must offer refunds if doing so is not possible. I get that some developers are going to be irked by this, and I get that there will now be some perverse incentive to move to a 'subscription-only' model. Now that the Stop Killing Games movement has overcome the major hurdle of landing actual legislative change from zero, its not much of a step from this point to extend these protections to anti-consumer practices around subscription-based games too, if they prove abusive. It's not just about consumer rights, it is also about preserving and promoting arts and culture that can and are passed down through the next generation, which, ironically, helps keep growing and sustaining the industry. Imagine what arts and culture might be like, seemingly everlasting copyright lifetimes notwithstanding, if Nintendo yanked Super Mario World from everyone because the online services to keep running the game simply costed too much or because the Mario franchise wasn't 'meeting profit expectations'. [Yes, I realise Super Mario World didn't have an 'online' component in the 90s, but imagine if it did...] Remember that not too long ago it was very common place to self-host servers for games, and for quite a few this is still possible (such as DayZ and Minecraft). Thanks to community efforts, it is also still possible to play long abandoned online games that were once locked behind authentication and server listing providers, such as Battlefield 2 (previously fronted by GameSpy) that has been revived with BF2Hub (bf2hub.com). Some games[1][2] even have a resurgence after long being forgotten. The revival of Dark Ages wouldn't have happened, and old friendships rekindled, if it was switched off because 'profit'. Yes, Battlefield 2 had an offline component and could be still played sans GameSpy and BF2Hub, though a big part of the experience and culture around the game was the online community and gameplay against other real humans that made it so successful. Relatively speaking (and legal/licencing complications aside) it is really not that difficult, especially for games publishers that cash in multiple millions of dollars in raw profits, to patch out authentication server mechanisms controlled by the publisher, and/or release the authentication/game server software binaries or source freely but unsupported after their deprecation date. The legislation is designed to make these pro-consumer ethics at the forefront of game design. Video games are a big contributor to culture and human connection, and permitting companies to both freely yank a product that someone rightly paid for without compensation - you will own nothing and be happy about it - and kill off parts of our culture, is a horrible place to be as a society. [1] https://youtu.be/FIFty-O4rOE https://youtu.be/FIFty-O4rOE [2] https://youtu.be/0zNtATsb5eg https://youtu.be/0zNtATsb5eg

unixhero 4mo ago

Thank you so much Ross and friends

evanjrowley 4mo ago

Under the bill, companies selling digital games released or resold after January 1, 2027, must provide at least 60 days' notice before terminating service. Furthermore, they must ensure that purchasers can continue to access the game—such as by providing an alternative version or a patch—and must offer refunds if doing so is not possible. I'm excited about what this could mean for Bethesda games like ESO and Fallout. These franchises have historically been single player. The single-player focus is directly connected to the rich modding communities behind these games. When online-only ESO and Fallout 76 were released, many longtime players were frustrated at the total lack of control they've enjoyed with prior titles. On top of this, the games are practically impossible to complete when attempting to play them like a single-player game. It makes these games far less immersive compared to their older single-player counterparts. Looking forward to the far away day when these alternate/patched versions allow Elder Scrolls / Fallout fans the opportunity to fix mistakes made by Bethesda/Zenimax.

boisterousness 4mo ago

60 days before shutdown, a game company just needs to transition their game to subscription-required. That gets them out from under this law. Then if enough players subscribe, the company could decide to keep the servers going longer than planned.