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.

How would it handle gacha games?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

FFXIV, aside from the server communication, can really be played solo for the majority of content. Yes, they haven't made a way to play the 24 man raids solo, but nearly everything else can be. Hell, I pretty much ignore everyone else I see in the game and keep to myself.

I think what I'd like to see other than standalone versions or refunds would be some combination of falling into the public domain and publishing information about the server so that the public can emulate as best they can.

It may be too burdensome, especially in the case of a company going out of business, to ask a company to publish information indefinitely. If we want the government to protect the public's access to games they've paid for, we may need the government to step up to do some hosting. Sounds a bit outlandish, but our government already hosts a bunch of information about products, licensing, recalls, all that kind of thing. And if you want to expand video games into the realm of art, we've got the Library of Congress and various taxpayer subsidized museums.

I happen to think preserving video games is a worthwhile endeavor - whether they have a subscription component or not. I don't think I'm alone in this. The point of me posting this here is to let everyone know that this is a new thing that's happening, it's not set in stone and can yet be improved or replicated elsewhere. This doesn't have to be just a California or even American thing - indeed, most of the interesting user-focused tech policy these days seems to be coming from Europe.

I think there's a pretty large distinction between paying customers retaining the ability to use digital goods or services they paid for, and companies being forced to make their product free for everyone.

Ideally, if a game relies on a backend service, in the event the operator shuts down said backend service, purchasers should have the legal right to download and run their own copy of said software(or access the full details needed for a community created alternative), without an explicit license beyond proof of purchase.

Companies could even continue to sell their game and make money without the cost of operating said service. It's a fair compromise, and the only companies it really harms are ones pulling blatantly anti-consumer shenanigans.

An attempt to fix things is a lot better than people sitting with their thumbs up your *** going “well it will never change so accept the status quo”