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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'

#251

Post by FeepingCreature »

radium3d wrote: post #69
vl wrote: post #61

They are going to do what movie industry is already doing: create shell company for release of each game. Then they will shut down the company when they want, and there will be nobody to come for.

These laws just complicate things, make it more expensive to run a game company and these government people don't get it. This will just result in making it more expensive to make games and keep them running. On top of that, it incentivises subscription based games. > 'it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. It also prohibi…

That's correct. This will make it more expensive to make games. However, the games will be better for it, and the games made the most expensive are those with exploitive business models such as lootboxes.

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

#252

Post by FeepingCreature »

Rapzid wrote: post #102
jnovek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they should just write games in a way where they can actually release server code when they it shuts down?

Perhaps "they" can write games however they want? If you don't like it, don't do business with them? This is a weird thing to be legislating on.

Perhaps "they" are in a country with laws, and the laws now include restrictions on "however they want"?

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

#253

Post by FeepingCreature »

agoodusername63 wrote: post #122
littlecranky67 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is something like that not considered when a law like that is passed?

Despite the good intentions of SKG, their efforts are being heavily shaped by the intense lobbying against them. This law has a lot of weird omissions and obvious loopholes because industry lobbyists want it that way for their clients. It's a very clever law in the studio and publisher's favor. It changes pretty much nothing. The worst GaaS plagues on the industry will be able to keep trucking along as usual and the…

Judges are in fact allowed to notice that someone is obviously fucking with them.

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

#254

Post by FeepingCreature »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #236
Ukv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's lots of proprietary middleware in use in online games If bills like this pass, there'd be financial pressure on middleware providers to allow distribution at end-of-life (or for their component to be easily severed) else they'd lose out on all customers selling games in California/EU/etc.

Yep, everything is negotiable. So is price.

It's not like the market for middleware changes by this. I honestly don't see it having much of an effect on price. They're gonna take their middleware and go where exactly?

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

#255

Post by tancop »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #247
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…

Now it becomes way more expensive for small studios to come out with games that have online features. This is a huge win for big studios who will suck up all that market share. Handing over a standalone server to the public is a massive engineering, financial, and legal headache. Modern multiplayer games rarely run on a single isolated program. They rely on a huge network of interconnected cloud micro services. A sin…

i mean its perfectly valid to create a new exception to copyright laws. in fact it might already exist because if you are legally required to release something that beats all the contracts you signed in any reasonable jurisdiction. weaker ip means giving a head start to new devs and bankrupting commercial engine vendors. and im all for making epic and unity go out of business

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

#256

Post by FeepingCreature »

Manuel_D wrote: post #172
stouset wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside for a moment whether or not this specific legislation is a good implementation of the idea, I cannot understand how people don’t comprehend that this only happens because there is currently no obligation to release their server binaries or code. The second that becomes a legal requirement with associated penalties, developers will stop licensing technology under those kinds of terms.

Right, they'll stop licensing proprietary sever code. But that in turn drives up the cost of game development since they'd have to either purchase redistributable licenses or develop their own networking software. I suspect companies will just scale down the servers to 1 instance with bare minimum support. Technically the online service is still active, thereby eliminating the requirements to distribute source code,…

I think if you have a market where you don't license distribution for your software mostly because "hey, you can sell that for more, maybe", then changing the market so that everybody has to buy distribution should actually force the middleware price down, if anything, because they're no longer able to segment their market on it.

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

#257

Post by FeepingCreature »

wilg wrote: post #100
tapoxi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you be entitled to infinite support? For a game with an online component? Why does the game's purchase price extend to infinity instead of "for as long as the developer supports the game"?

Increasingly it seems like the fact that the game needs support for online components was invented in order to give it an expiry time.

Gamers simply don't have the impression that they're getting value from the "support," rather than getting shafted come end of life.

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

#258

Post by tactlesscamel »

pibaker wrote: post #177
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…

What is irrational in pointing out that this particular law, as it is written, gives the game developers a perverse incentive to further embrace more exploitive revenue models such as free to play and subscription based services? The technical implementation is irrelevant. It is the business side of things that you should actually worry about. If anything, some people seem to have this weird faith in regulation that…

I'd like to see current regulations enforced for everyone before adding more. "Great news guys, millionaires can now sue billionaires for breaking their kid's toy," is all this ammounts to. They dont have enough bodies (physical or virtual) to uphold what's currently in place. Nor, do governing bodies care.

- It causes cancer? Make sure you add a warning label.

- they lost PII? Make sure we collect the fine. What's that; they can't afford it? Don't waste the resources, then. There's other opportunities out there.

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

#259

Post by rafram »

wsve wrote: post #220
rafram wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the law specifically exempts subscription-based revenue models, so they become more attractive than they currently are by definition.

> so they become more attractive than they currently are by definition. Please reread my comment. You're doing the exact same thing. You're saying this like it's a given, but it is not. WHY would it be more attractive?

Because the alternative now costs more.

That is just a basic function of human decision-making. If there are two options, and one becomes more expensive, it will become more common to pick the other. It very slightly tips the balance toward the option that hasn’t become more expensive.

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

#260

Post by riffruff24 »

xingped wrote: post #123
bayarearefugee wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. The industry already tried to make everything a live service game in the 2020-2022 period and it was financially disastrous because gamers rejected it. Gamers have made it clear that they don't want a market full of live service games unless they are free to play (and even then, very few will survive). They'll make rare exceptions for things like GTA6, but these will be unicorns.

That certainly won't stop out of touch CEOs from choosing to do just that anyways. CEOs and making the stupidest possible decisions are also a match made in heaven.

sony already cancelled like 5 in development live service games now since concord bombed? Certainly a lesson that is hard to learn.
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