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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'

#181

Post by stubish »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #175
wsve wrote: post #142

I'm always shocked by how irrationally anti-regulation this site is. I have yet to see any explanation why this regulation would be, in practice, cost/legally prohibitive in any way. This seems like a consumer protections slam dunk. Yes, you would have to make sure your server application adheres to software licenses before release, just like you do with the client application, or any other piece of software a compan…

There's so many renditions of these style bills that it's hard to keep track what's in this specific one. From what I can tell this one doesn't include provisions to protect indie shops/solo devs. The entire time spent developing a game is a net loss until release (and probability wise, probably still a loss then). So this is adding more upfront cost to devs. The bill text I found is also one of the more generic vers…

It adds costs if you built it that way. I don't think many games are built that way. Developers need to be able to test their games in isolation, and it takes effort to remove that scaffolding from release versions (so people can't use it and bypass your monetization).

The real reasons to not just toss your backend over to the community and make it their problem are business reasons like 'it will dilute our brand' or 'it is a violation of licensed IP'. Or embarrassing reasons like 'we have lost the source code' or 'we can no longer build new executables'.

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

#182

Post by toraway »

wilg wrote: post #96
wredcoll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always someone willing to blame the victim. The answer to companies committing fraud is not "buyer beware".

Except shutting down a game is not fraud.

How is selling something and then removing the ability to use what was paid for not fraud? (setting aside the EULAs companies currently get away with using to sidestep the question)

There's even a specific term for scams where you pay money based on a specific description for an item being sold that is then changed after the time of sale known as a "bait and switch".

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

#183

Post by zdragnar »

wsve wrote: post #174
zdragnar wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about as relevant as reminding your friends that some restaurants are not very good when you're picking a place to eat Interestingly, restaurant food is typically less healthy, more expensive and less tasty than what you can make at home. Eating out should be the exception, not the rule, which plays directly plays into the anti regulation argument.

That is very far from the point, not only because what I meant was that some restaurants are not as good compared to others, but also because the connection between eating out vs eating at home and regulations is basically non-existent? I don't really understand what you're saying. The point is saying "some regulations have downsides" is meaningless in conversation about a particular regulation, just like saying "som…

I suspect that's because you wrongly assume the other side is saying "some regulations have downsides". It's more likely they're saying "all regulations have unintended consequences" and thus deserve extra scrutiny when considering them.

If that is the case, then the analogy is fitting again; even "good" restaurants are often a poor substitute for eating at home, and so shouldn't be a first line of consideration.

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

gopher_space wrote: post #143
wagwang wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they dont want to release the source then just keep running the servers! I think its ridiculous that people can buy games and the games just stop working and its ok because of some legalese that literally no one reads. Alternatively, why not just align your incentives with the user and charge subscriptions. Games are interesting because players will sink a lot of time and sometimes money in and so it goes beyond a…

> I think its ridiculous that people can buy games and the games just stop working and its ok because of some legalese that literally no one reads. It's entertainment. It's ok for entertainment to end, especially when it's this cheap. There aren't any situations where I haven't gotten my money's worth out of a title I've played for 1000+ hours. > Alternatively, why not just align your incentives with the user and cha…

[deleted]

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

#186

Post by agoodusername63 »

acters wrote: post #171
agoodusername63 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. How is that incentivizing offline games? Half of the service game focused industry would be exempt

They will also prefer subscription or free-to-play than actual offline gaming. This is going to be a disaster

I don't think it's going to be a disaster, doing nothing is not quite a disaster when the AAA games sector has been ticking over like this for the past 10 years or so.

The law is worded so that this does extremely little even if fully passed by CA's legal system due to the very broad exceptions. Exactly as lobbyists want it.

Makes great headlines for SKG while doing pretty much nothing material for them though.

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

#188

Post by infinite_spin »

Telaneo wrote: post #155
Dig1t wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not irrational, the comments literally explain in great detail the downsides of the regulation. For example one commenter in this thread said: >See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs. This is an objectively true and prove-able statement. What is irrational about that? WRT regulation the only thing that matters is the incentives that it crea…

Bad regulation should't be reperesentaive or regulation as a whole. If you don't get it right the first time, you're allowed to try again, and that's what should be done with regulations providing bad incentives. Gaming has already gone though a period of pushing subscription games, and most died, since people generally didn't want to pay a fee per game they played. That only left the big players in that space, while…

The legal system is kind of like an evolutionary process. We try things, see if they work, and adjust over time. So far I think this has indeed led to a better legal system, but I can see why the set backs and injustices of the world make that difficult to assess.

Regulation also creates jobs, even bad regulation, so there's almost a Keynesian argument to be had about its relationship to our economic system.

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

#189

Post by wsve »

zdragnar wrote: post #183
wsve wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is very far from the point, not only because what I meant was that some restaurants are not as good compared to others, but also because the connection between eating out vs eating at home and regulations is basically non-existent? I don't really understand what you're saying. The point is saying "some regulations have downsides" is meaningless in conversation about a particular regulation, just like saying "som…

I suspect that's because you wrongly assume the other side is saying "some regulations have downsides". It's more likely they're saying "all regulations have unintended consequences" and thus deserve extra scrutiny when considering them. If that is the case, then the analogy is fitting again; even "good" restaurants are often a poor substitute for eating at home, and so shouldn't be a first line of consideration.

Agreed that's what they were likely trying to do with that comment, and I'd argue the problem with it is that it fear-mongers about regulations while failing to actually scrutinize what the negative effects are.

Also, we should really drop this restaurant analogy, it's ill-fitting and clearly distracting from the main point.

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

#190

Post by eclipticplane »

markstos wrote: post #121
ryandrake wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, CA should get rid of those loopholes, too! We need to culturally accept things like "zero day law patches" for loopholes and unintended consequences. Legislators, don't just pass a law, see it incentivizing something unintended, and then throw up your hands crying "Well, we tried!" Patch the law as soon as the bad behavior starts!

And how you would craft a law to prevent a company from forming sub-companies for specific games to isolate risk? Or make it illegal for a company to go bankrupt? Creating sub-companies is common business practice that even small businesses use. Like if a small company wants to buy a building, they may form an LLC to hold the property to isolate that risk from the rest of their business.

Sub-companies are owned by companies. Don't cap liabilities to the limited assets of a sub-company that actively violates the law.

Or cap them to a reasonable standard: 100% of revenues derived from the game.

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