Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California | Publishers would have to offer “independent” play patch or refunds after server shutdowns.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/05/bill-to-keep-online-games-playable-clears-key-hurdle-in-california/
22 Comments
Please yes this is my wet dream.
This is right. Can we make it the law of the land?
lol refunds after shutdown isn’t happening under capitalism.
This will never pass. You can’t force staff to work for free. It’s not just developers that are needed to keep content going, server infrastructure, customer service, people, it’s all needed to maintain the service. And then to punish devs for moving on because a project is no longer making revenue? That’s absolutely insane.
“As currently amended, the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered “solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or after January 1, 2027, would be subject to the law if it passes.”
So not subscription or free games, but the games where you buy the game and then are forced online? Am I understanding that correctly?
if this gets passed in full across the country I will cut my hair bald 🥺
Yes, keep going
I understand this for games like The Crew and Anthem. Are we also saying the Destiny 1 needs to be updated to a state that can be played offline in the future?
Holy consumer protection, batman!!
I wonder how this would handle games that utilize server-side generated content (eg like a ai generated dungeon layout or npc personality). Seems like a good idea on paper, but not sure how future-compatible the law would be
Does the bill contain provisions where if the game vendor doesn’t already have the mechanism to allow the players to play independently of the operator, that the vendor would be required to put into escrow the funds necessary to give the refunds? Otherwise, as someone else has mentioned, the game just gets published by some subsidiary which immediately goes bankrupt when they need to end the game, and that subsidiary has no money to do refunds.
Such a bad idea. It would absolutely reduce the types of games that can be made.
I can only imagine games like Earth and Beyond being playable still.
What about games where the vast majority of the data is on online servers, like MMORPGS?
And let’s say the publisher is in China, Korea, or Japan.
how the hell would California be able to enforce anything?
refunds ? even I don’t agree with that. That’s pretty extreme for an online game that may be years old
Lol. California doing stupid shit. It’s a day that ends in “y”.
Honestly we should reform the US copyright laws to allow an infinite copyright provided the work is available for consumption by the average user. If the company doesn’t have that ability, it reverts to the public domain. That way the general public gets to consume the content and when the monetary value disappears, the preservationists and hobbyists can keep the content alive.
It’s not even that hard, they basically just need to dump all the patches online and remove any “always online” or “login” requirements, then people can just make their own servers or play offline.
This is exactly the kind of consumer protection games need. If a company sells a game, then later deletes the conditions required to play it, “sorry, servers” should not be a magic legal spell. Patch it for independent play or stop pretending people bought a product.
The monkeys paw begins to tremble.
this will make every online game require a subscription
Related(ish?); The Entertainment Software Association had opinions about this bill and Ross Scott had his own comments about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjUaH1NK8uA