A new proposed bill that would stop paid games from being rendered unplayable after server shutdowns has passed its initial vote by the California State Assembly. Called the “Protect Our Games” act, the bill was proposed by California Assemblyman Chris Ward and was recently put to a vote at the CSA. It won with 43-16, meaning it will now be passed onto the State Senate for another round of voting to see if it will then be presented to the president for final consideration.
As you likely guessed from the name, the bill is aimed at paid video games which require an online connection to remain playable. Recently, a grassroots campaign called “Stop Killing Games” was started in response to Ubisoft shutting down The Crew, which is now completely unplayable in any form despite physical discs existing. This act, if made law, would require publishers to provide an exact shutdown date at least 60 days in advance, explain which features will stop working on shutdown, list what security risks might happen because of said shutdown, and provide a method for the player to either continue to use the game or receive a refund.
The law will also require the following three things from publishers:
- Provide an alternate version of the game that “can be used by the purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator” (i.e. a version that no longer needs to connect to the server),
- Patch or update the existing game so it can continue to be playable “independent of services controlled by the operator” after the servers have been shut down, or
- Refund the player the full cost they originally paid for the game.
While this is a great first step, there is one caveat to the bill: it will only apply to games released after January 1st, 2027, should it become law. It will also not apply to subscription-based games or free-to-play titles. I suppose different laws could be proposed regarding those, but this is still a big enough deal to matter to most people. It’s a little ridiculous that games become totally unplayable for reasons beyond hardware incompatibility, so I certainly welcome this bill passing into law.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
