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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'

#91

Post by agoodusername63 »

nine_k wrote: post #50
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…

incentive towards making more games qualify for those exceptions Yes, please, produce more " games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely ".

> 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

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

#93

Post by Akronymus »

kodt wrote: post #88
Akronymus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd IMO count as a monetary consideration, and thus not be excempt.

I wonder if making the game free to play before shut down would allow them to skirt the law?

I doubt it, as that'd not nullify the contract established by people who bought the game before it went FTP.

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

#94

Post by hadlock »

paradox460 wrote: post #31
meatmanek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

After about 2010 companies stopped providing the server binary. Games like Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield 2, etc could be played by communities in perpetuity on private servers. If the next game (MW3, BF3) were terrible, you didn't have to buy the sequel, what you had was "good enough" and you could wait for the next version to be released in 2-3 years.

With the current "closed server" model, you can't get a copy of the server code, can't host truly private servers, and when the sequel MW4, BF4 comes out, those private servers won't survive and it forces everyone to move to the sequel regardless of the quality of the game. You can technically still hire a private server for games like BF3 (circa 2012) but very few people are going to pay the $70/month to host an official one via whatever terms EA has come up with, and you absolutely can't run it with plugins, mods, and especially custom maps or game modes, you have to play it "vanilla".

Quake 3 the server is included with the game, anyone can run it, modify it and it's very plugin friendly, which is largely why it is still around today. Closed servers you can't directly access is a deliberate decision to kill the game when the sequel is released, by not allowing users to extend what they "bought". Otherwise we would still all be playing Battlefield 3 on custom maps with CTF and 128 v 128 player servers and everything else. You can modify a handful of things on the paid private servers but it's extremely limited and there's no community feedback on any of this.

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

#95

Post by mh- »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #85
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.

So nobody to come after you for copyright violation if you run a community-patched (a.k.a. cracked) version of the game?

Well, no. Just like other purpose-built vehicles (like the ones for motion picture productions), they will transfer rights to other entities before shutting down.

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

#96

Post by wilg »

wredcoll wrote: post #8
kgwxd wrote: post #6

Earlier 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".

Except shutting down a game is not fraud.

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

#97

Post by lucb1e »

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…

>> It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination.

Does anyone know how this should be interpreted?

Maybe to have a concrete example, let's take Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (RCT2), with OpenRCT2 as a sort-of mod for it, but imagine that RCT2 was originally a subscription game where you paid per month to play it and that it terminated before OpenRCT2 started. Existing copyright laws already prohibit continued distribution, which OpenRCT2 doesn't do, so does this change anything? Does this law move what used to be civil (copyright) cases into criminal law (so there needs not exist a rights-holder to file suit; the state can just push cases as they see fit)? Could the OpenRCT2 devs still (as I believe they hitherto can) release a 'donation version' with bonus gimmicks if they so wanted, or would that be classified as a sale of something that enables playing the original RCT2 and so illegal?

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

#98

Post by bayarearefugee »

wilg wrote: post #83
jnovek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will the negative impact of this law be, exactly? Hurting live service games which are already cancer?

No it will make everything a live service game

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.

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

#99

Post by BeetleB »

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…

Disagree. I can see the challenges for games that are really only meant to be played on a centralized server, but what about games that need to connect to a server just to play locally? Demanding consumers be able to do that is not making things particularly hard on the company.

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

#100

Post by wilg »

tapoxi wrote: post #37
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.

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"?
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