California lawmakers explore ways to preserve access to online games

California lawmakers are deliberating a proposed bill, known as the “Protect Our Games Act,” that would require publishers to continue offering access to online games even after developers stop supporting them, according to Ars Technica. 

The bill is part of a wider initiative by the Stop Killing Games preservation movement, which has been active in Europe for some time now. Their mission statement describes them as a “global coalition of gamers, consumer advocates, and developers” seeking to “end the intentional destruction of our digital media” through a combination of class-action lawsuits, formal petitions, and engagement with lawmakers, and they make their stance very clear: “Games are art and have grown into a huge influence for our society. Deliberately rendering them unplayable is the destruction of cultural heritage.”

But as currently written, the Protect Our Games Act would place some serious requirements on game publishers and “digital game operators,” including offering a 60-day advanced warning when “services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game will cease,” and even to compensate gamers with either a full refund or a software patch that would continue to make the game accessible in some form. If passed, however, the laws would only apply to game titles released after January 1, 2027, so existing online games would be exempt. 

This question is part of a broader discussion consumers are having about ownership rights in the age of digital media, as both games and movies are increasingly sold not in hard-copy formats (the cartridges, cassettes, and DVDs of the past) but as files downloadable from servers. The problem is especially acute in online gaming, since if the infrastructure supporting it (the servers and software that enable it) is compromised, its functionality might also be compromised. 

Put differently, the question might be posed this way: are games a product consumers buy or a software they lease? Up until very recently, gamers the world over were under the impression they owned a product, with an unlimited right to do with it as they please, but in the era of digital media, gaming companies have been pushing for a subscription model that treats games as a service with a finite and conditional duration.

Whatever decision the California lawmakers reach, don’t expect these questions or the people posing them to disappear anytime soon. As of this writing, the StopKillingGames subreddit has more than 14,000 followers, and momentum is on the side of the consumer.