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Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

arstechnica.com

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Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#151

Post by keyringlight »

michaelmrose wrote: post #124
jayd16 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game engines/code aren't all open source. The game developer might not have the legal rights to release the source. Also, does this stop at games? Why not any online service ever? Why not any program at all?

An online service requires the continual investment in the costs required to run the service and comes with the expectation that the service happening on someone else's computer could cease to exist the second you stop paying or at the end of the current contract cycle. A game although specified as a license is treated and described as a purchase that is expected to work forever on the end users device so long as it…

I wonder where the 'extents' of the game product/service you buy can be defined. I could foresee a game client/server/toolkit like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights being released but as a barebones legally compliant framework that lets you play. Then on the other side of the line they have an optional online service that provides a scenario to play in (running the same server the public has), if that service goes away the game still works, just as buying a load of D&D kits doesn't give you a DM to run games in perpetuity. As another example, there's a lot of servers for games like Counter-strike where the experience and how it runs the gameplay is modded server-side only.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#152

Post by hparadiz »

fluoridation wrote: post #148
hparadiz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This a mandate in law that requires a company to do work in order to comply. Studios will spin out LLCs for a game so that if it fails it doesn't end up as a liability. Unintended consequence: more dead games.

It's impossible for the law to cause more games to die, because already the default fate of online games is for them to die. If, with the law, a studio chooses to use an LLC to create the game to conditionally release sources once it shuts down, that was a game that without the law would have died anyway because the studio wouldn't have chosen of its own volition to release sources.

If a studio on it's last legs is required to service a failing product instead of working on a new one the studio will simply close and not comply. That's what tends to happen with forced regulations like this.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#153

Post by throwawayk7h »

whartung wrote: post #113
notJim wrote: post #64

The article is really vague and a bit misleading, but the bill text appears to be surprisingly readable, and honestly not much longer than the article. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

The solution here is for publishers to give away the client, and simply charge a subscription. Keypoint: > would require a digital game operator to communicate specified information to purchasers and prospective purchasers of a digital game 60 days before the operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the game, and, beginning on the date an operator ceases to provide services necessary for…

the bill explicitly doesn't apply to games that are free or are on a subscription system. (I assume free-to-play with microtransactions would be covered by this bill though, unless those microtransactions are subscription-based or time-limited.)

I am indeed worried that this will push games to be subscription-based, so I would advocate making the bill apply even to subscription-based games. Though that would require some thought, of course, as it's not obvious how it should apply to such a game.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#155

Post by skullone »

pests wrote: post #114
Terr_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an improvement over nothing, but closed-source means that the game is still going to die as soon as someone finds a security vulnerability (or even just a gameplay glitch) that can't be feasibly patched. Imagine an MMO where special text in the chat causes viewers' clients to crash, or a glitch exists to duplicate items or money, or where anybody can crash the server to run arbitrary commands.

I play SubSpace (a MMO spaceship game released in the 90s) to this day. It was shut down soon after release. The original server binaries were left on the original CDROM by a programmer. Then PriitK, a creator of Kazaa and then Skype and Joost!, went on to re-create the client due to cheating/hacking, naming it Continuum. Years later the server is reimplemented as A Small Subspace Server (ASSS), making it a complete…

Props for bringing up Subspace! What a fun game that deserves more players! (And a new client ui)

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#156

Post by tyleo »

I happen to be shutting down an online game right now.

https://www.tyleo.com/blog/sunsetting-rec-room-how-to-give-a...

The sad truth is that these things have high operating costs, especially if they need moderation. I would guess this bill just makes it more risky to make the games in the first place. It’s already brutally hard to make money on games.

I feel like the effect of this might just be that shutting an online game makes it more likely to take a whole company down if you have to issue refunds. Alternatively, it might push multiplayer games towards other business models like ads, free-to-play, or subscription.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#157

Post by system2 »

Reason077 wrote: post #111

This happened to me back in 2024 when Supercell abruptly shut down the game “Clash Mini”. Lost $100+ in in-game purchases. They did offer to transfer things to other Supercell games, but that had no value to me as I didn’t play those. I complained to the App Store, but Apple refused to refund purchases made more than 60 days ago (IIRC). I know things don’t necessarily last forever , especially digital assets, but to…

[flagged]

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#158

Post by steelbrain »

tyleo wrote: post #156

I happen to be shutting down an online game right now. https://www.tyleo.com/blog/sunsetting-rec-room-how-to-give-a... The sad truth is that these things have high operating costs, especially if they need moderation. I would guess this bill just makes it more risky to make the games in the first place. It’s already brutally hard to make money on games. I feel like the effect of this might just be that shutting an onl…

Sorry to hear about your situation. For the game you're shutting down online services for, forgive my nieve question but how much work is it to expose an environment variable called `GAME_SERVER_URL` and then document the API contract it expects on the other end?

Servers have a real cost, nobody is denying that, but I think the people who bought the game should have an option/alternative in case the servers are down.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#159

Post by michaelmrose »

keyringlight wrote: post #151
michaelmrose wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An online service requires the continual investment in the costs required to run the service and comes with the expectation that the service happening on someone else's computer could cease to exist the second you stop paying or at the end of the current contract cycle. A game although specified as a license is treated and described as a purchase that is expected to work forever on the end users device so long as it…

I wonder where the 'extents' of the game product/service you buy can be defined. I could foresee a game client/server/toolkit like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights being released but as a barebones legally compliant framework that lets you play. Then on the other side of the line they have an optional online service that provides a scenario to play in (running the same server the public has), if that service goes away th…

The public responds to complexity and ambiguity by not giving you any money whereby you get to make money making french fries. Logically the most trivial thing people are going to do is make a minimalist multiplayer mode which allows users to join each others games like we did in 1995.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#160

Post by pointlessone »

tyleo wrote: post #156

I happen to be shutting down an online game right now. https://www.tyleo.com/blog/sunsetting-rec-room-how-to-give-a... The sad truth is that these things have high operating costs, especially if they need moderation. I would guess this bill just makes it more risky to make the games in the first place. It’s already brutally hard to make money on games. I feel like the effect of this might just be that shutting an onl…

What are the insurmountable obstacles to releasing the server code for the community to run?
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