California Law Could Force Publishers to Keep Games Online
California lawmakers are proposing a new bill aimed at protecting gamers from losing access to digital games. The legislation would require publishers to provide advance notice before discontinuing support for a game and offer a version that can be used independently. If these conditions are not met, publishers would be obligated to refund the full purchase price of the game.
- ▪The bill, titled AB-1921, mandates that publishers give 60 days' notice before stopping services for a digital game.
- ▪Publishers must also provide a version of the game that can be run independently of their services.
- ▪The legislation will only apply to games sold in California on or after January 1, 2027.
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California lawmakers are putting forward new legislation that could be good news for gamers who have fallen in love with titles whose support was later dropped by their publishers.The new bill, titled AB-1921, would force publishers to give 60 days’ notice before a digital game operator stops providing the services necessary for the “ordinary use of the digital game,” and to communicate this to anyone who has purchased it.Publishers would also need to provide a version of the game that can be used by the purchaser independently of services controlled by the operator—for example, by allowing it to be run on a private server not linked to the developer.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at PCMag.
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