'Stop Killing Games' Movement Passes California State Assembly Floor
Promising progress for game preservation
"ColonelFancy" Mike Lind
6/3/20262 min read
Bill passes floor with a 43-16 vote
A step forward for The California Protect Our Games Act, a grassroots movement crafted to save online games that are decommissioned by the rights and publishing holder, rendering it unplayable, has passed the floor. Now it shall head to the California Senate Floor, where it will go through another round of debates and votes, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.
"This bill would require video game companies to give players advance notice before shutting down server-dependent games and provide a way to keep purchased games playable afterward, such as offline access, community servers, or another workable option," said Chris Ward, San Diego Assembly member.
The movement became Stop Killing Games, a grassroots program that got started in 2024 after Ubisoft shut down their 2014 racing game The Crew. Despite being a single player game, The Crew required a constant online connection. After being shuttered, Ubisoft began revoking licenses from players, seemingly in an effort to migrate those players to the succeeding games. Stop Killing Games gained enough groundswell, notable YouTube figures like PewDiePie, Cr1tikal, and jacksepticeye advocated for the movement. It garnered the attention of Video Games Europe, where Stop Destroying Games began a petition that netted 1.3 million signatures. Despite the massive amount of attention, no new laws, or amendments to existing laws, were made.
Anthem (Electronic Arts, BioWare) can never be played again
Video game preservation will remain a fight the consumer populace is maintaining. While there is no guarantee that many amendments can be made to products developers and publishers release, it's a battle worth keeping a vested interest in, as movements like this may play a part in shaping future products. Customer assurance is getting harder to stake confidence in, as games players put time in can vanish, with nothing to salvage from it. Electronic Arts' Anthem, which saw its servers shut down officially in January of 2016, launched with promise. It's now total vaporware. the same can be said of other major projects that have gone belly up, like Ubisoft's XDefiant and Sony's live service hero shooter Concord, both resulting in the shutting down of the development studios (Ubisoft San Francisco and Firewalk Studios, respectively).
SOURCE: GamesIndustry.biz