California's 'Protect Our Games Act' Hits Roadblock in State Senate

A bill that aimed to stop (or at least dissuade) publishers from taking games offline and making them unplayable has run into a roadblock in the California State Senate.

The Protect Our Games Act failed to pass the Business, Professions and Economic Development committee, with four state senators voting in favor, three against and four abstaining.

The committee unanimously voted in favor of granting the bill reconsideration, meaning it could come back before this group of state senators.

Assemblymember Chris Ward introduced the bill in February and it passed the California State Assembly 43-16 in late May.

That said, the abstentions prevented the bill's progression for now.

"Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session," a volunteer with the Stop Killing Games campaign (which supported the bill) noted on Reddit.

"That is the loss."

The volunteer also claimed this was the movement's first attempt to nudge such legislation through in the US, and that the bill got this far without paid staff or an in-person lobbying campaign.

They said the Entertainment Software Association — a trade organization of major game industry publishers — brought in a lobbyist to halt the bill's progress (including by claiming private servers for the likes of Minecraft would be "illegal") and that Stop Killing Games would be more prepared to counter that in the future.

"Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support," the volunteer, u/Mr_Presidentle, wrote.

"We are not limiting this to California.

We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level."

Were the proposed California legislation to become law as-is, the legislation would require publishers and "digital game operators" to give consumers a 60-day heads-up before delisting a game, along with information on how they could either obtain a refund or continue playing it.

The publisher/operator would, for instance, be permitted to allow customers to play the game on a private- or community-run server in lieu of offering full refunds.

The rules would not apply to subscription-based or free-to-play games.