California Protect Our Games Act backed by Stop Killing Games passes key hurdle

The Stop Killing Games group are celebrating an initial early win for the California Protect Our Games Act as it passed a key hurdle.

What is the Protect Our Games Act? In real simple terms - it's asking to amend the law in the US so that developers of digital games cannot just entirely take away the ability to play it. For games with online servers this would require developers to give proper notice on ceasing operations, and to provide either a way to play the game after their servers shut or to give refunds.

For certain games that contain all sorts of micro-transactions, DLC and big complicated connected servers (those bigger games designed around them), simply ripping out all the needed server infrastructure may not be simple to do. Even so, this writer is of the opinion that if you fork out your hard earned cash on a game - it shouldn't be taken entirely away from you.

The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) trade group tried lobbying against it, but it seems in this case it wasn't enough to stop it progressing - so no doubt they will now amp up their efforts against it.

As of May 14th the California State Assembly Appropriations Committee voted yes (11 for, 2 against) to move the bill forward to the assembly floor after amendments to target newer games (it specifically mentions "available for purchase on or after January 1, 2027"). It's nowhere near done yet though, it has a few more hurdles to go before it actually gets a pass or fail.

It will be very interesting to see what happens if this actually passes and if other US states and countries will then follow it.