Well, it looks like Stop Killing Games has some real momentum behind it now. While it looks like no legislation has been enacted yet, Stop Killing Games has still scored two major victories in the past couple of months. The first was gathering enough signatures to prompt a public hearing in the EU Parliament, and now it’s won an assembly committee vote in California that gains it a floor hearing. People often say (myself included) that you can only vote with your wallet, but this appears to be proving viable as well.

Selling games digitally has been a massive boon to large game companies, enabling even greater profit margins and, perhaps even more importantly, granting them unprecedented unilateral control over customer purchases. Whereas that “you’re only buying a license” applied only in theory to physical games, with digital it’s very real and it’s already been used as a means to invalidate countless legal purchases over the years. Well, now, that particular gravy train might finally be on its way to its final stop.

As reported by The Escapist, what has actually happened is that a proposed bill, AB 1921 Protect Our Games Act, has been moved forward by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in California, passing by a vote of 11 to 2. Next, it will eventually go to the California State Assembly, where it will need at least 41 votes to pass and move onto the California State Senate and then the governor’s desk if it passes there too. So yeah, it has a long way to go, but at least it didn’t just get buried outright, especially considering that the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) is actively lobbying against it.

What the “AB 1921 Protect Our Games Act” bill will do, if passed and made into law, is require game publishers and developers to give their customers 60 days notice before shutting down a game. It also requires them to provide some means of playing the game offline, be it a patch or the means for player communities to host their own servers. If passed, it would go into effect as of January 2027, which would be the earliest it could take effect after becoming law.

Under such a law, game developers and publishers who fail to comply could have a civil class action suit brought against them by a California district attorney or even its Attorney General. Can you imagine it? No more having to say goodbye forever to a beloved online game or even potentially having access your digital purchases revoked due to the company not wanting to host them anymore! It’s definitely a captivating thought, yeah?

This is all still hypothetical, though, since the bill’s journey has only just begun, and it’d only be effective in California if passed. But still, California would be enough to force policy and design change across the board, and there’re still active discussions in the EU! Seriously, this could be huge!

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What’s your take on this? Do you think it has a chance of actually passing?

image from the Destiny 2: Beyond Light gameplay trailer