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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'

#31

Post by paradox460 »

meatmanek wrote: post #28
RobotToaster wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see them adding a $1 per year subscription at the very least.

At least that somewhat aligns incentives between players and the game studio. If an old game has a long-lasting player base, then a modest subscription makes it more likely that the studio would keep the servers up and running, if not actively patching the game. With a game that you pay for up-front, a long-lived player base can be a liability for the company (ongoing costs without many new purchases.)

Why is this a problem? Quake 3 came out a quarter century ago, yet there are still community host servers available

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#32

Post by duskwuff »

circuit10 wrote: post #20
duskwuff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The server binaries will almost always include other proprietary information that the studio will not want to release. Or even information that they are contractually forbidden from releasing. A typical scenario would be a game developed as a fork of a proprietary codebase which was licensed from another company. Forcing the licensee to release material would infringe on the rights of the licensor.

It would at least be reasonable to expect this for future games, just treat the server binary the same way as the client in terms of what code you include (there way be some more involved if they have to migrate off a reusable codebase but I think it’s worth it)

I don't think it's reasonable for a law to dictate how software must be developed. If a developer wants to create some software by taking some licensed code and modifying it, that's their prerogative - it seems rather overreaching for the law to mandate that any licensed code must be structured as a library. (And in practice it'd be rather limiting for that to be the case.)

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#34

Post by circuit10 »

duskwuff wrote: post #32
circuit10 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would at least be reasonable to expect this for future games, just treat the server binary the same way as the client in terms of what code you include (there way be some more involved if they have to migrate off a reusable codebase but I think it’s worth it)

I don't think it's reasonable for a law to dictate how software must be developed. If a developer wants to create some software by taking some licensed code and modifying it, that's their prerogative - it seems rather overreaching for the law to mandate that any licensed code must be structured as a library. (And in practice it'd be rather limiting for that to be the case.)

It is of course reasonable to restrict what you can do with a product you’re selling for money. There are plenty of laws and regulations that already do this. Without these kinds of laws intellectual property wouldn’t even exist - copyright was only created to benefit society by providing an incentive for people to create and invent things

It’s no different from mandating that the software can’t be malware that puts a ransom on your data, contain other people’s copyrighted content without permission, or just not work despite you claiming that it does when you sold it

And it’s not mandating that anything is structured in a particular way, just that the game works as the buyer would expect and how they achieve that is up to them

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#36

Post by arikrahman »

bob1029 wrote: post #9
wagwang wrote: post #3

The 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 alwa…

The binaries can be obfuscated.

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#37

Post by tapoxi »

kahrl wrote: post #22

So instead of whole products sold at a one time price, there will be more and more subscription based services micro-transaction slop. 10/10 California. Never change.

But right now we have games that you have purchased for a one-time price, the developer revokes your ability to play it years later, and you have no recourse.

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#38

Post by ocdtrekkie »

phreack wrote: post #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 tho…

So this only really applies to games you have to purchase once but are online-only? That's... an incredibly narrow law, that only covers a class of games which are particularly stupid by design. (Continuous cost without continuous revenue.)

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#39

Post by mschuster91 »

duskwuff wrote: post #16
bob1029 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alwa…

> The server binaries will almost always include other proprietary information that the studio will not want to release. Or even information that they are contractually forbidden from releasing. A typical scenario would be a game developed as a fork of a proprietary codebase which was licensed from another company. Forcing the licensee to release material would infringe on the rights of the licensor.

> Or even information that they are contractually forbidden from releasing.

Laws trump contracts.

Re: The California state assembly has passed the 'Protect Our Games Act'

#40

Post by mschuster91 »

TylerE wrote: post #12
wagwang wrote: post #3

The reasonable compromise should be to force devs to release server binaries if they are not willing to run the servers themselves.

What if, as a very high number do, the server uses something like a proprietary SQL database?

So what, dedicated hackers will find a way around that. There's bigger fish to fry.
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