Stop Killing Games, a consumer group that’s been making news recently, has achieved its most significant success so far.
The California State Assembly approved the ‘Protect Our Games’ act last week, moving the initiative closer to becoming a reality. However, groups like the ESA, which runs the E3 gaming convention, remain strongly opposed.
This all started because the game The Crew was shut down permanently in 2024. Many people were upset, and that’s what led to this movement.
Gamers and advocates are pushing for a rule to prevent publishers from making games unplayable by turning off their servers. They believe there should always be a way to continue enjoying these games, perhaps through a simple offline mode.
I’m following this new bill in California, and if it passes the Senate, it’ll change things for publishers. It basically lays out some new rules they’ll have to follow.
One proposed rule would require game companies to inform players 60 days before shutting down game servers.
Crucially, this would legally obligate companies to always include a playable single-player mode, or give players the tools to create and run their own game servers.
As a gamer, it sounds like this new rule would only affect games you actually buy. That’s good news for those of us who love free-to-play games, because they wouldn’t be included!
But the ESA argues the proposal is not feasible:
Video games rely heavily on updated technology, licensed materials, and online services that are constantly changing. A new bill, Assembly Bill 1921, could require developers to focus their time and money on maintaining older systems instead of creating fresh games and features. This doesn’t align with how modern games are made and could lead to fewer new and exciting gaming experiences for players.
I’m having mixed feelings about this. I generally support the idea behind the movement, but I worry that people aren’t realizing how much effort will actually be needed.
I love Honkai: Star Rail, and thankfully, since it’s free-to-play, this new thing probably won’t impact it. But I often wonder how tough it would be to actually play it without an internet connection – that would be a real challenge!
Although the game is designed for one player, it uses an online system to save and sync your progress in the cloud.
Yes, it technically could work offline, but it wouldn’t be easy. It would essentially require rebuilding the entire game to function without servers.
If a company shuts down game servers, it usually indicates the game isn’t popular anymore, making further development hard to justify.
I understand the problem, but I don’t think it’s right to remove access to software people have already purchased. For example, I own a Blu-ray copy of The Crew, but it’s now unusable, which is frustrating because the game had a lot of single-player content, even though it required a constant internet connection.
It seems like the Entertainment Software Association is opposing this because they don’t want to deal with the added effort it would require. However, if they’re going to create games that always need an internet connection, they should probably be required to have backup plans in case the servers stop working eventually.
I’m curious to see how things will ultimately resolve. It’s obvious this conflict isn’t finished, regardless of the final outcome.
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2026-06-01 20:37