Bill To Block Publishers From Killing Online Games Advances In California (arstechnica.com) 58
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A bill focused on maintaining long-term playable access to online games has passed out of the California Assembly's appropriations committee, setting up a floor vote by the full legislative body. The advancement is a major win for Stop Killing Games' grassroots game preservation movement and comes over the objections of industry lobbyists at the Entertainment Software Association. California's Protect Our Games Act, as currently written, would require digital game publishers who cut off support for an online game to either provide a full refund to players or offer an updated version of the game "that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator." The act would also require publishers to notify players 60 days before the cessation of "services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game." As currently amended, the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered "solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or after January 1, 2027, would be subject to the law if it passes. [...]
In a formal statement of support for the bill sent to the California legislature, SKG wrote that "there is no other medium in which a product can be marketed and sold to a consumer and then ripped away without notice As live service games rise in popularity for game developers and gamers alike, end-of-life procedures are essential tools to ensure prolonged access to the games consumers pay to enjoy." The Entertainment Software Association, which helps represent the interests of major game publishers, publicly told the California Assembly last month that the bill misrepresents how modern game distribution actually works. "Consumers receive a license to access and use a game, not an unrestricted ownership interest in the underlying work," the ESA wrote. The eventual shutdown of outdated or obsolete games is "a natural feature of modern software," the group added, especially when that software requires online infrastructure maintenance. The ESA also said the bill would impose unreasonable expectations on publishers regarding licensing rights for music or IP rights, which are often negotiated on a time-limited basis. "A legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely could place publishers in an impossible position -- forcing them to renegotiate licenses indefinitely or alter games in ways that may not be legally or technically feasible," they wrote.
In a formal statement of support for the bill sent to the California legislature, SKG wrote that "there is no other medium in which a product can be marketed and sold to a consumer and then ripped away without notice As live service games rise in popularity for game developers and gamers alike, end-of-life procedures are essential tools to ensure prolonged access to the games consumers pay to enjoy." The Entertainment Software Association, which helps represent the interests of major game publishers, publicly told the California Assembly last month that the bill misrepresents how modern game distribution actually works. "Consumers receive a license to access and use a game, not an unrestricted ownership interest in the underlying work," the ESA wrote. The eventual shutdown of outdated or obsolete games is "a natural feature of modern software," the group added, especially when that software requires online infrastructure maintenance. The ESA also said the bill would impose unreasonable expectations on publishers regarding licensing rights for music or IP rights, which are often negotiated on a time-limited basis. "A legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely could place publishers in an impossible position -- forcing them to renegotiate licenses indefinitely or alter games in ways that may not be legally or technically feasible," they wrote.
All they need is peer-to-peer LAN-style gaming (Score:1)
the bill would impose unreasonable expectations on publishers...
Too damn bad! They can sell/rent the license to somebody else. Compulsory licensing solves all problems.
For a client-server based game all they need to do is patch the game to add peer-to-peer networking support over TCP/IP. One peer system will act as the game server for this LAN-style game.
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And depending on the type of game, P2P networking is garbage. If the game is fast and competitive, host will have unfair "0 ping" advantage.
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And depending on the type of game, P2P networking is garbage. If the game is fast and competitive, host will have unfair "0 ping" advantage.
And the same will be true for the player running a standalone server at home if the game is still client-server. Their server and their game client will be networking directly over the same local subnet and not have to route over the internet.
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Yeah. It's a bad setup and design for a lot of game genres. It's why they didn't set it up that way in the first place.
People need to stop pretending that they own digital products and therefore can, or should be able to, do whatever they please with them. Stop pretending that live service games will be around indefinitely or that any money spent on that live service means you get any kind of say or ownership of anything.
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Yeah. It's a bad setup and design for a lot of game genres. It's why they didn't set it up that way in the first place.
Absolutely. But the company running the server has another big advantage, the opportunities to cheat are greatly reduced with the game literally running on a company server and the gamer's clients acting as an input device and outputting what partial information the client sends it (ex, you visible portion of a map).
The point is, the company can work around such proposed legislation via peer-to-peer or peer-hosted. The experience however will not be the same. The community will likely collapse due to thi
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Ah, I understand now. I was thinking you were trying to say that P2P works like a simple drop-in replacement that "works" just as "well" as the company hosted servers.
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Ah, I understand now. I was thinking you were trying to say that P2P works like a simple drop-in replacement that "works" just as "well" as the company hosted servers.
Apologies if I was not clear. It "works" only in getting past the legislation.
In short, the legislation being discussed is just another well meaning but superficial solution. One where unintended consequences have not been considered adequately.
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Seriously. This entire idea that "You only own a license, and f*ck you for trying to play a game after we destroy it." Goes all the way back to be beginning. Blame Bill Gates.
While I'm all for "being able to make a profit" off a creative work you paid money for, the idea that you don't own the thing is antithesis to how people expect things to work. If I pay to watch a movie in a theatre, and I pull out a camcorder/cameraphone to record it, there is nothing stopping the theatre staff from telling me to leav
Industry amnesia or mine? (Score:2, Informative)
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Up to a point, sure. I think it's fair if a publisher stops issuing new patches but leaves the game playable at that point in time. Over time, the operating system and libraries will evolve and eventually the game will break. We have pretty good backwards compatible stuff for now and there are still gaps, especially outside of gaming.
It's not unheard of to sandbox or use a VM for a specific application that relies on a deprecated runtime environment.
It does sound like if the Publisher has a subscription pla
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I like the idea behind the bill but I'm sort of struggling to understand the target market here. Maybe it's more for the console market where they sell single player games but *must be connected to play*? That's also bullshit, to say the least. Must be connected to play a single player game, GTFO.
Agreed; I don't think that this would apply to something like an MMORPG, where if the bill was carried to a logical extreme, would require the publisher to keep at least one server alive indefinitely, with server maintenance and other associated costs in perpetuity. In particular, the carveout listed that would exclude "completely free games" and games "offered solely for the duration of a subscription" creates some confusion, in that a game like an MMORPG that is free to download and install, but has both
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In a lot of juristictions there is a concept called the "natural lifetime" of a product. When you hear a product has a "lifetime warranty" thats what is meant by "lifetime" (its not YOUR lifetime, its the products lifetime). and largely thats a term of art that means roughly "whatever a reasonable person would expect that product would last for". For software this would be "for as long as a computer can still run it". So it would be unreasonable to still expect Powermac software to run in a world where you
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It does sound like if the Publisher has a subscription plan for the game, then this bill does not apply to them.
The wording of the bill sounds like they're actually talking about games that are on a subscription based services, like Xbox Game Pass.
Any subscription-based service that advertises or offers for sale access to any digital game solely for the duration of the subscription.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca... [ca.gov]
It was a different class of games .... (Score:2)
"A legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely could place publishers in an impossible position..." Feels like I remember a time when indefinitely playable games was the default for publishers.
That was more for peer-to-peer games, and smaller scale client-server games where a peer would host a server, where the publisher didn't need to deploy any additional resources. However with the larger scale client-server games the publisher did need to invest heavily in server infrastructure.
Publishers should be able to comply with such laws by offering either peer-to-peer or peer-hosted, which are kind of similar. The latter requiring two computers, one running the server side and the other the client
Honestly if the game has even a handful of players (Score:2, Insightful)
The trouble is that if a lot of people start playing the old game you're going to get a lawsuit from the original publisher because even if they don't have a game out there they don't want gamers playing games without paying them.
One of the things that pisses me off is that to this day
Re:Honestly if the game has even a handful of play (Score:4, Informative)
Then somebody is probably going to reverse engineer the protocol and put it back up.
Not sure if you don't know anything about game development or just completely misunderstood what this entire movement is about. Reverse engineering a protocol won't do shit. These live service games usually have quite complex server side software in some cases being exclusively responsible for things like map creation. You won't get very far even if you did know how the computers spoke to each other.
I mean Christ you can play the Sega Saturn version of virtual on online today... Any Phantasy Star Online Dreamcast is out there too.
Yes, because they don't rely on server side features.
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You are correct there have been a few cases where things are done on the server side like heroes of might and magic 6. But most of that was DRM.
I'm not saying that because people can bypass DRM it's okay for publishers to break the game you paid the money for. But what I
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True but at that point you just build the maps.
Yeah so nothing matters and you can just reverse engineer everything and start your own gaming studio right? Clearly the answer to my earlier question is you don't know anything about game development. Replacing a server side component of these live service games is a monumental task.
This has nothing to do with DRM here. Hacking DRM is child's play. Generating a mountain of content and the software required to serve that content to multiple clients is not the stuff of a couple of disgruntled hackers playing
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Seems to me, a lot of the "server side" content is just choices made in development to keep control of the game system out of consumers hands. These are design choices, not technical limitations.
"We cant let you run your own server to keep our abandoned game up because we designed the game in a way that wont allow us to do that"
These choices can just as easily not be made. We live in the era of 100gb+ game patches. There's no real excuse for this kind of game design aside from straight up obsolescence.
This will only end ownership (Score:3)
The publisher is allowed to terminate games that are subscription based. Say good buy to anything other than a subscription
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signle player games and local muilt (Score:2)
signle player games and local multi player don't need it.
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Also, many popular online games (like EverQuest, WoW, Star Wars Galaxies) have proved they can live on decades after they stopped being supported by their maker. This includes games that ARE still supported ... but an earlier version of the game isn't ... so fans have made servers to support that earlier version (see Project 1999 for EQ or "Classic" WoW).
I just wish this bill had a requirement that, if a subscription game ended, the client had to be open sourced within X months. Even with the current lega
Forced disclosure of code and trade secrets ... (Score:1)
... so fans have made servers to support that earlier version (see Project 1999 for EQ or "Classic" WoW) ...
The problem with that those servers would have to distribute copyrighted materials, various downloadable artwork and in game content.
Note that "Classic" WoW is actually a Blizzard product. Homebrew WoW servers ran into legal problems as suggested above.
the client had to be open sourced within X months
Largely unworkable. The old and current versions of the client (and servers) most likely share code and trade secrets. It is an extremely high legal hurdle for a court to order (allow) forced disclosure.
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Seems like owning games was already on life support.
If you restrict your idea of "games" to the 5 or so massive AAA titles released by a few mega studios each year then sure, it's on life support. You'd have to ignore many many hundreds of games which are released each year not only free of any server control, but also available DRM free, but you do you.
The "elites" control only a tiny tiny portion of your life. You'll continue to own nearly everything you have and they have no say in the matter. Please just look around you. *Takes a sip of tea from a DRM fr
and the game will be sold as subscription service (Score:2)
and the game will be sold as subscription service and not you own it
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If only the players had the balls to refuse to buy subscription games and instead read books, learn another language, or have a hobby like learning to play a musical instrument.
But no. The human mind craves instant gratification. The activities above take time to produce meaningful results.
The suppliers of these games know this. Their wares would be worth much less if there wasn't such a huge demand for activities which yield no personal enrichment dividend.
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It's not because they are allowed by law currently that it's moral or something that should be allowed by law.
Selling food with lead was legal not too long ago.
They aren't wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
"A legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely could place publishers in an impossible position -- forcing them to renegotiate licenses indefinitely or alter games in ways that may not be legally or technically feasible,"
They aren't wrong which is why they should merely be required to....
* declare a minimum timeline for the servers to be online.
* put an independently buildable copy of the source code for the server in escrow with the state.
* source code of updated versions of the any changes to the server.
* ensure the client program can easily use a third-party server.
If they don't want to do that then keeping the servers online indefinitely is the alternative. You do not have a right to a particular business model.
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Content licences aren't such a big problem. A lot of games now have a "streaming mode" where they don't use licensed music, only stuff that won't get copyright strikes on Twitch and YouTube. A lot of the work has already been done because streaming is a big source of free advertising these days.
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Agreed.
'drnb' above was saying that there are trade secrets in the server code... what trade secrets? How to draw the map or how the server can handle 50 players at once?
Unless the server has code in it that has it connect to resources outside of the server, but on Blizzard's internal network, there shouldn't be anything close to a company secret in the public-facing server.
And, if they're shutting it down, then it must be past the "sell-by" date, so any trade secrets shouldn't be a big deal anymore, right
Not Constitutional (Score:2)
What's next, Microsoft has to continue to support Windows XP?
The vendors will update the TOS to reflect this kind of reality, nothing lasts for ever.
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Windows XP doesn't suddenly stop working when the new one comes out... that's the difference.
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Windows XP doesn't suddenly stop working when the new one comes out... that's the difference.
Actually technically if you install Windows XP right now you can't activate it. So even Windows XP doesn't meet the strict demands of the stop killing games movement.
Re: Not Constitutional (Score:2)
And MS should be forced to allow activation of XP. If I have a legal copy then I should be able to install it. Microsoft is the one that coded up the hoops we had to jump through, so they ought to be liable for supporting that process indefinitely or remove that activation behavior.
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You mean, can't activate it the normal way on MS's server... there's plenty of ways to do it offline.
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There are no legal ways to activate it. Yes we can colloquially call it "normal vs non-normal" but that doesn't solve the issue for places like companies which have potentially auditable legal requirements to obey licensing terms.
You and I not giving a shit about running a quick crack doesn't solve the problem. The only "legal" way to run Windows XP right now requires you to reboot every 30 days and run a command that resets the activation grace period (and despite that being 90 days on install, it's only 3
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Could you elaborate on what specific parts of the constitution this bill violates?
Re: Not Constitutional (Score:1)
Shutting down Call of Duty is a clear violation of the second amendment.
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What's next, Microsoft has to continue to support Windows XP?
This has nothing to do with support. It has to do with function. I still have a Windows XP machine here and it still works just fine without issue. Microsoft doesn't support it, and critically it *hasn't* been killed by Microsoft.
This is the bar you want to set? Let's set it. The entire stop killing games movement would have 99% of the goals achieved with a Windows XP style software cycle at this point.
Why 99%? Well technically Microsoft did kill their activation server. So ever 30 days you need to boot int
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What's next, Microsoft has to continue to support Windows XP?
It's not what the law means, but... it would not be a bad idea... Stop Killing Windows anyone?
But by the law MS would be required to at least let you activate the product, being by activation servers or phone, releasing a "forever key" or a patch.
Honestly, no biggie for them.
Great news (Score:1)
Back in the 2000s, I remember Apple asking people to âoebuyâ a feature from the Apple Store for $0, to unlock extra functionality for the iPod. The reasoning was that they cant just change the product that they have sold.
At the bare minimum, a product should do what it says on the box. If online play is part of the game, then it should remain active, as long as people want to play.
Glad that lawmakers are taking this issue up.
unreal tournament come back with user hosted serve (Score:2)
unreal tournament come back with user hosted servers.
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unreal tournament come back with user hosted servers.
...except for the 2015 version, every other version of Unreal Tournament can be spun up and made to work perfectly?
And when Steam goes out of business? (Score:1)
So what happens when Steam goes out of business and you lose all access to your games? Refund for the 3000+ games I have would be sweet :).
Music licensing (Score:2)
Why are your poor business decisions my problem as a consumer? If I buy a game (license), I should be able to play it forever, live service or not. I don't care that you only licensed music in it for X amount of time. License the music for the game for all time or don't license it at all! This wouldn't fly for any other medium, could you imagine? We're remotely disabling your blu-ray disc because our licensing deal to put product placement in your movie ran out.
If you don't want to keep the servers going, y
"there is no other medium ..." - books? (Score:2)
Books ... incl. libraries that have to renew their subscriptions to ebooks over and over
Bogus Excuses (Score:1)
They should not give a pass for subscription games. If the publisher wants to stop selling the subscription then players play for free on a 3rd party server. what makes that special to get a pass?