From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
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See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
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I don’t agree with the companies having to run the servers forever, imagine how that impacts indie shops.
But when they take the burden of running sole-hosted servers and shut them down, they should have to push some self host able server software for the community.
And single player hands should never require on line functionality.
Good job you agree with SKG. They have said over and over again that they do not think they should have to keep hosting servers indefinitely just not making the thing you spent money on unusable. Wether that be by giving the community server hosting software or in cases of games like the crew just not making single player online only.
I actually misread what they wanted to do and yes I agree.
Oh, cool. I've always heard them say that, thought their support may have been a slight contradiction to their previous statements.
Overall, this sounds pretty good.
I see there is an exemption for subscription-based MMOs, but no exemption for buy-to-play MMO (like, Guild Wars). I wonder how this bill would impact that market?
I think the assumption is that buy-to-play MMOs tend to be less microservice-based or 'cloud native' than subscription ones, such that they are more likely to already feature a monolithic server application. They're probably thinking games like ARK: SE, and DayZ, rather than Guild Wars. In reality, some sub-based MMOs have monolithic servers (e.g. Mabinogi), and some buy-to-own MMOs have distributed architectures.
This was probably also an easier sell to politicians, by saying, "hey, they said they sold the whole game for that price, so why can they not deliver the whole game, server included?" With a subscription, it becomes harder from a business 'rights' perspective to argue that a player who paid for e.g. 1 month of a subscription immediately before the game is retired should be allowed to then own and operate the full game indefinitely, and then becomes a sort of, "how long paying the sub is long enough to 'own' the game?" debate. This is especially important because it could impact a lot of non-game software as well, so politicians are much more likely to quash this out of fear of backlash. So they may just be picking their battles.
WRT market impact, I am sure the shittier companies would use the exemption as a loophole, and just make all their multiplayer games subscription-based. I doubt it will encourage more buy-to-own MMOs in the future as well, but I think SKG cares more about the extant software people paid for already, than the market impact.
I'm not even slightly surprised. Sounds like the exact MO of Stop Killing Games.
You don't have to keep services running forever, that's not fair at all, but you should have to give people the tools to do it themselves - because people should be able to preserve these experiences.
That's exactly what SKG advocates for.
Im sorta excited by games that work a bit like an mmo but can be played completely offline like no mans sky.
Beginning on the date a digital game operator ceases to provide services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game, the operator shall provide the purchaser with one or more of the following:
(A) A version of the digital game that can be used by the purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator.
(B) A patch or update to the purchaser’s version of the digital game that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator.
(C) A refund in an amount equal to the full purchase price paid for the digital game by the purchaser.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921