CA: Protect Our Games Act

I'd originally posted this in the "politics & religion" forum, but I'm told that place is more or less dead (and judging by what I found already there, good riddance).

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921

There's more at the above link, but I've pulled out these bits that seem most pertinent:


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Anyway, this is proposed legislature in California - so if you're a constituent and would like to see games like FFXI included, please reach out to your representatives to amend 20664(b)(1).

I don't think it's fair to include games that require substantial server infrastructure in a provision like that. If the monthly payment covers the server, you can't reasonably expect a company to keep that server online forever (a middling number of players may lead to an outcome where the game costs a company money but they're forced to bail out the remaining players to stop it). It might also dissuade companies from releasing new games on that model.

On the other hand, the exception might lead to more games being sold under a subscription or freemium model than would otherwise be. Freemium games could provide a refund(of nothing), presumably. Turning something that needs to be occasionally online for DRM into a subscription sounds like exactly the kind of ***game companies might do to get around it. The incentive structure matters as much or more than the intent of the law.

As much as I would like it to apply to games like FFXI, WoW, FFXIV etc there is very little chance of them changing that.

How would it handle gacha games?

I amn't about to read the whole thing but they are digital without subscription.

Yeah, entirely behind Stop Killing Games or whatever this version is called, but sub games are tricky.

Maybe some kind of provision that if official service ever ends, private servers could not be asked to shutdown legally, but that is beyond my knowledge of existing laws.

The problem with private servers is that people assume they are always run with good intentions, but that isn't the case. Lots of shysters run them, since the people who run them very often don't actually make them. They just download it all and set it up and pretend they did it all, scammers, bad people, hackers, people looking to make money so they can quit their dayjob in bestbuy by selling gil etc can all do this.

All the private servers for XI were not made by the people who are running them for instance.

So the only way it would work is if they paid for a license or something as a private server, and could only run one if they had that. That way the company can protect the brand from bad actors that may harm their brand by doing shady things.

I disagree. If they willingly and officially shut down all service, that removes their concern about brand protection in my mind. If the service is still live, that is obviously not the case.

You don't get to profit off something just because the official author is no longer offering it. Private servers, particularly XI ones, have an abysmal incentive structure. I don't think there's any defensible reason to protect them legislatively.

Not protecting the retards who run the ones we've all come to hate, protecting the option to preserve some online playable form of the game without requiring a sub to the company in the event they decide to pull the plug.

Think about the amount of time and money the average FFXIAH poster has invested into their accounts. We take it for granted (or at least reasonable certainty) that service will continue indefinitely. But what if everything just shut down, even with some kind of warning? You have zero recourse. Some would happily move on, some might want any version they can get to approximate what they lost.

It doesn't matter where you post this thread, it isn't going to have any impact on reality. This is a terrible website to try to push a political agenda. Especially on a state level, lol.

Never play gacha games, they will get you.


Mega man dive is a good example of game preservation
The gacha game after shutdown was converted into a fully offline version with progress intact

I like the versions of this request that implies asking for a way to continue without the publisher. Such as private server frame work being released in the case of an mmo.

Its literally a bill in California legislature you *** nonce, so yes they are attempting to do something that will have an impact on reality. Whether it passes and anything happens is another story, but its probably the only good thing that California has attempted in the last decade.

lolyou. Try reading the OP, and them my post? Here, I will help.


Posting this thread on FFXIAH is a joke. How many Californians are going to actually see it? 10? Less? The average American has no idea who their state level representative is, much less how to get in contact with them.

No need for the pessimism. Those 10 pairs of eyes may have 10 friends who have 10 friends etc.

It is directly or indirectly going to affect the entire game industry, just being aware of the proposed law even if you can't vote on it is important.

lol, affect the entire industry huh? You guys do know the law is already on the books, right? Well, probably not, given the audience. This is just an amendment to it. They aren't going to add paid MMOs to the law because there is no chance that a game like that is just going to be removed from your library. That's the purpose of the law, to warn consumers that the digital product could be removed at any time. It can't even prevent the removal, it just says there has to be a warning. FFXI does not need to be covered. And won't be.

Copyright law says go to jail, do not pass go, you owe the IP holder more money than you can afford.

That's really cool.

Makes sense. I guess they could always restart service any time they wanted to. And I agree the likelihood of getting games with sub fees amended to this is next to none, but it doesn't hurt to consider the implications and options.

Does anyone have example of a sub fee game that ended? Just to see what kind of precedent there is. Nothing coming to mind atm

Counting fan preservations? Ill assume no based on the contrxt of this thread.

I found a site that lists this, but I saw FFXI as “fan preserved” and now I doubt its validity. “Fan preserved” is a stretch considering the game is still live (should be “at risk”), and the “fan preserved” is based on a ~17 year old version of the gamez

https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_game_list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inactive_massively_multiplayer_online_games

241 pages of them.

Thanks, couldn't find anything listed here as dead and also with a sub fee, but I scrolled quickly. Will look closer later.

The indefinite nature of the refund seems unreasonable, as much as I'd like to see them preserved, expecting them to provide a refund indefinitely if service shuts down is unreasonable. It just isn't technically possible in a lot of cases.

I get the intent and it seems feasible in cases where DRM ceases to function or someone posts a game then pulls the plug 2-3 years later (or less), but expecting this to go on indefinitely is a little absurd for MMOs.

Seems more likely that companies unwilling to abide by this law will refuse sales in California than actually agree to abide by the terms of it

I think the intent there is to push companies towards the other options. Refunds are the worst choice for everyone involved, but the liability of that potential cost makes for a very effective stick.

The language of this proposal seems focused on games like Ubisoft's The Crew, but in principle I don't see why any game that offers digital goods(freemium) or services(subs) for money should be exempt from similar legislation. The minimum requirement could be complete interoperability documentation where actual backend code cannot be provided due to 3rd party licensing or other legal issues.

I agree there will be an arms race of sorts as companies try to find loopholes or otherwise find ways to get around any such legislation, but that's going to happen with ANY change to the status quo, and I'd prefer a future filled with legislative whack-a-mole to one where companies have free reign to remove the ability for customers to play their games at will.

Gonna need a bigger stick.

If the only risk is customer may sue you if you don't make the game available offline then a lot of companies are just going to take the risk, knowing full well that only a class action law suit will get anyone to budge.

No way is any individual going to take on legal costs to prove the law works in court for the first time.

What needs to happen is any company that does not make digital product available to use offline is fined 50k a day per copy sold for every day the digital product remains unavailable to the buyer, or along those lines.

For sure. On top of outright exempting subscription based games, this proposed legislation has a big fat loophole in that it only prohibits sales, specifically - not rental or licensing, as long as that fact is clearly spelled out at checkout.

It's a step in the right direction, though. Sanity checking legislation to make sure it doesn't have adverse affects is one thing, but waiting for perfect solutions is a great way to never make any progress.