Following the recent disappointing deliberation by the European Commission on the Stop Destroying Videogames citizens’ initiative, the Protect Our Games Act (AB 1921) was a California bill, proposed by Assemblyman Chris Ward, that would force game developers and publishers to make paid video games playable even after they were shut down. Despite things looking positive, with the bill passing the California State Assembly with a 43-16 victory, it has stalled in the second-last phase with a State Senate Committee vote, which saw four members vote yes, three vote no, and three other members abstain. As explained by a Stop Killing Games volunteer, a bill needs a majority “yes” vote in the State Senate in order to pass, which means it only needed three additional votes in the Senate Committee. If it had passed, a final draft would have been created by House and State members and submitted for approval.
In a Reddit post, the Stop Killing Games volunteer also highlighted the movement’s determination, stating that the organization had gotten as far as it had with “a U.S. budget of zero dollars. No paid staff in California. No war chest. No in-person lobbying operation,” and on a compressed timeline. The SKG movement also had to argue its position against the well-funded ESA (Entertainment Software Association) lobby, who presented a number of alarmist arguments against the bill. Some of the arguments included claims that Minecraft and Call of Duty community servers were “illegal, and they are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers.” despite Microsoft providing the very instructions and resources required to host those community servers.
The ESA doubled down in a follow-up statement to PC Gamer, stating that “Private servers infringe on the intellectual property (IP) rights of game publishers. Publishers reserve the right to exercise their rights against them.” On the topic of the new bill, the ESA said that “The provision in CA AB 1921 that proposed these servers as a legitimate alternative to keep games running raises concerns about a publisher’s ability to enforce their IP rights. In addition, private servers operate with no oversight from the publisher and do not uphold the same trust and safety standards. This could create an unsafe environment for players and be counter to the industry’s commitment to fostering safe and fun game play for all players.”
The SKG movement is now looking forward to its next steps, which involve mass recruitment in order to establish a US presence and introduce new versions of the law in upcoming State Senate sessions and “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 organization is also looking to expand to a national level and introduce similar bills in both other states and at a federal level.
Stop Killing Games volunteer, u/Mr_Presidentle on RedditThis was our first attempt, in our first year, in the United States, with a U.S. budget of zero dollars. No paid staff in California. No war chest. No in-person lobbying operation. The timeline was so compressed that we could not get funding in place fast enough to put people in the building.
We ran this on volunteers, emails, phone calls, and the truth.
And we still pushed a consumer-rights bill through the entire State Assembly, 43 to 16, and into a Senate committee vote. We were only three votes away from this becoming law.
A volunteer movement with nothing took on one of the most powerful trade groups in entertainment and forced them to spend real money and real effort to stop us.
They had to work for this.
They are going to have to work a lot harder next time, because next time we will be ready.
The opposition was led by the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying arm of the biggest publishers on earth. They did not fight this with facts. They fought it with fear.
They brought in a high-paid, D.C.-based lobbyist, Jennifer Gibbons, who worked the offices with claims that ranged from misleading to flatly false. We are putting those claims on the record, because sunlight is the entire point:
They claimed that running a private server, like the ones people run for Minecraft, would be “illegal.”
They claimed the bill demands “forever” support.
They claimed it is “impossible” to keep online games playable after support ends.
They claimed games with licensed content, like music, car brands, or sports, could never stay playable after sales stop.
They claimed that requiring an end-of-life plan would force studios to build “a completely new product.”
Every one of these claims was designed to scare a busy legislator who does not have time to fact-check a well-dressed lobbyist in real time.
It worked just well enough this round.
It will not work when we are standing in the same room, with developers and players beside us, ready to answer every single claim as it happens.