The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
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Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#2> 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.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#3The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#4> 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 tho…
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.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#5The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
i don't know, do game developers have a right to sell a Remastered Multiplayer Edition later? in my opinion, yes.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#6The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
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.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#7I 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.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#8The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
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.
There's always someone willing to blame the victim.
The answer to companies committing fraud is not "buyer beware".
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#9The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.
I don't think forcing a person or business to divulge their intellectual property, simply because they no longer wish to provide downstream products or services, is reasonable. That said, as a consumer I really don't like when something goes away. Overwatch 1 was probably the most brutal experience for me. In the end, I don't think anyone has any kind of special entitlements here.
The server binaries will almost always include other proprietary information that the studio will not want to release. Any sanitation of this binary further condemns this as a silly idea because now you are also compelling the individual or business to do additional (presumably unpaid) work so that arbitrary consumers can use their products or services indefinitely.
Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There's always someone willing to blame the victim. The answer to companies committing fraud is not "buyer beware".
What are you proposing then? The government is not allowed to compel speech for good reason.