Not being able to sell in California is a huge loss though. I agree January 1st is a little too soon, but better to have a little bit of pain now to make things better later.
Is your first sentence responding to my second paragraph? If so, I’m not sure I understand.
The opposing stance to this makes the argument that licensing makes this law not feasible. But if a company’s license runs out, they can’t sell the game anyway, in California or otherwise, regardless of if this law passes. So what does it even have to do with the idea that companies should leave a game in a responsibly playable state? Which is what the core of Stop Killing Games wants.
No, I was commenting on just the first paragraph. January 2027 is too soon for any game that’s currently in development to be reasonably expected to pivot by then, and the same goes for any game that’s already available and expects to have a long tail on its sales, so it’s sort of like lighting the fuse on a bomb. The licensing argument is stupid nonsense, and they know it.
It changes the plans of shuttering a server, not offering a new one. Any such independent play patch soils only be released when a company is ready to end servers.
A new game previously intended to be released December 31st of this year, caught off guard with just one day of warning, could still release without changing a thing. The game will have servers for years to come, presumably.
It actually requires a pivot, because if you want to account for making a game playable at end-of-life, you normally have to plan that from the start, to make sure the game is structured in a way that allows for easy switching. If all you plan is actually to turn off the servers, well, that’s the current situation.
Making sure the game ends gracefully means either releasing dedicated server binaries, implementing P2P (or Splitscreen) multiplayer or disabling multiplayer, and repurposing/rebalancing previously online content to work in the new setting. That’s not easy to do if you never wasted a thought on those things in development, especially with a skeleton crew of developers which have been working on other stuff for years at this point.
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to see this legislation come into effect, but even I have to acknowledge that a game that has been worked on for years and goes live in January 2027 is probably not designed for this.
Highgaurd didn’t even last a month, and they definitely didn’t have the funds left over to make that game self hostable while they were in their death throes, even if they wanted to.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that if a game is available for sale, it should be in a reasonably playable condition. So if a company wants to continue selling their game beyond 2027, they should begin making end-of-life plans or face penalties. I think that’s the goal here.
It’s important to remember that this bill isn’t trying to enforce endless support, rather that game companies end support in a responsible way that doesn’t essentially brick the game.
Should change it to apply to any and all games published after the bill is passed.
Realistically, its a big ask for publishers to retroactively apply to their older games, but I do think they should still legally be required to do so for old games they don’t sell anymore. Its not realistic to ask that though, so it is understandable that it wouldn’t be included.
crying onto a wad of money I c-can’t believe sniff they want me to pay developers sniff after the release date. It’s not fair, IT’S JUST NOT FAIR! THINK OF THE C-SUITES!! PLEASE! WE CAN ONLY AFFORD 14 NEW ROLLS ROYCE VEHICES THIS YEAR! THEY MIGHT LOSE THE NEW-CAR SMELL WHILE THEY STILL OWN IT!
The older a game is, the more work it would take to retroactively fix them. Its not realistic to expect this especially when some publisher catalogs span more than a decade. Getting the old server code to work and then verifying that it isnt going to delete system files when uninstalling it or something by accident takes time and money away from new development.
Instead, if they plan End of Life into the product from the beginning, the time and cost of doing it is drastically reduces to basically nothing. A few weeks of forethought and planning to avoid potential years of development work fixing old bromen games is a trade I am willing to accept.
Again, I wish they would release old server files and let us figure out how to get them running, but I understand there are limitations that prevent that.
But like, why is this my concern? If your neighbor burns their house down, should they blame you for not replacing the batteries in their smoke alarms?
All these companies made a choice to kneecap their games when they sunset the network services - why should I, or anyone, feel any pity that they are being called out for it? I paid a company for a good, I should be able to use that good perpetually. If you buy a car, and 5 years later a forced ota update bricks going into reverse, is that okay? Should I feel bad that Toyota needs to un-fuck their customers after the backlash? ‘oh we would love to fix it, we really would, but it would be so much work to do so’ - how is that an acceptable excuse?
All my games up until the 2000s had server/client support, and I can (and do, occasionally) still play them. They then created the problem of ‘don’t worry, we’ll host it (until we won’t anymore)’, and then want mercy instead of fixing it? I’d laugh but I may pass out before I can regain my composure.
I agree with you but it is not realistic to expect that. And SKG has the same take I do.
It is not realistic to expect the business to stop what they are doing and create this huge cost undoing the damage they did when it is much easier to convince lawmakers to just enforce it going forward. Its harder for the businesses to argue against it because they cannot claim such an immense cost fixing their old catalog. Do I wish they would fix everything? Yes of course. But in this world that was never going to happen. SKG has the best option we have right now.
Great to hear and generally support this move. I wonder if Jan 1st 2027 is a little too soon though?
The licensing argument never made sense to me. Wouldn’t that impact sales of the game, not people who already own it being able to play?
Not being able to sell in California is a huge loss though. I agree January 1st is a little too soon, but better to have a little bit of pain now to make things better later.
Is your first sentence responding to my second paragraph? If so, I’m not sure I understand.
The opposing stance to this makes the argument that licensing makes this law not feasible. But if a company’s license runs out, they can’t sell the game anyway, in California or otherwise, regardless of if this law passes. So what does it even have to do with the idea that companies should leave a game in a responsibly playable state? Which is what the core of Stop Killing Games wants.
No, I was commenting on just the first paragraph. January 2027 is too soon for any game that’s currently in development to be reasonably expected to pivot by then, and the same goes for any game that’s already available and expects to have a long tail on its sales, so it’s sort of like lighting the fuse on a bomb. The licensing argument is stupid nonsense, and they know it.
What pivoting?
It changes the plans of shuttering a server, not offering a new one. Any such independent play patch soils only be released when a company is ready to end servers.
A new game previously intended to be released December 31st of this year, caught off guard with just one day of warning, could still release without changing a thing. The game will have servers for years to come, presumably.
It actually requires a pivot, because if you want to account for making a game playable at end-of-life, you normally have to plan that from the start, to make sure the game is structured in a way that allows for easy switching. If all you plan is actually to turn off the servers, well, that’s the current situation.
Making sure the game ends gracefully means either releasing dedicated server binaries, implementing P2P (or Splitscreen) multiplayer or disabling multiplayer, and repurposing/rebalancing previously online content to work in the new setting. That’s not easy to do if you never wasted a thought on those things in development, especially with a skeleton crew of developers which have been working on other stuff for years at this point.
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to see this legislation come into effect, but even I have to acknowledge that a game that has been worked on for years and goes live in January 2027 is probably not designed for this.
Highgaurd didn’t even last a month, and they definitely didn’t have the funds left over to make that game self hostable while they were in their death throes, even if they wanted to.
Funny thing is this particular bill also applies semi-retroactively. The original version was worded
but in the April 6 revision that ultimately advanced, that was changed to:
I’m heavily in favor of SKG, but this particular bill isn’t workable on this schedule. It’s not what SKG has been petitioning for.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that if a game is available for sale, it should be in a reasonably playable condition. So if a company wants to continue selling their game beyond 2027, they should begin making end-of-life plans or face penalties. I think that’s the goal here.
It’s important to remember that this bill isn’t trying to enforce endless support, rather that game companies end support in a responsible way that doesn’t essentially brick the game.
Should change it to apply to any and all games published after the bill is passed.
Realistically, its a big ask for publishers to retroactively apply to their older games, but I do think they should still legally be required to do so for old games they don’t sell anymore. Its not realistic to ask that though, so it is understandable that it wouldn’t be included.
crying onto a wad of money I c-can’t believe sniff they want me to pay developers sniff after the release date. It’s not fair, IT’S JUST NOT FAIR! THINK OF THE C-SUITES!! PLEASE! WE CAN ONLY AFFORD 14 NEW ROLLS ROYCE VEHICES THIS YEAR! THEY MIGHT LOSE THE NEW-CAR SMELL WHILE THEY STILL OWN IT!
The older a game is, the more work it would take to retroactively fix them. Its not realistic to expect this especially when some publisher catalogs span more than a decade. Getting the old server code to work and then verifying that it isnt going to delete system files when uninstalling it or something by accident takes time and money away from new development.
Instead, if they plan End of Life into the product from the beginning, the time and cost of doing it is drastically reduces to basically nothing. A few weeks of forethought and planning to avoid potential years of development work fixing old bromen games is a trade I am willing to accept.
Again, I wish they would release old server files and let us figure out how to get them running, but I understand there are limitations that prevent that.
But like, why is this my concern? If your neighbor burns their house down, should they blame you for not replacing the batteries in their smoke alarms?
All these companies made a choice to kneecap their games when they sunset the network services - why should I, or anyone, feel any pity that they are being called out for it? I paid a company for a good, I should be able to use that good perpetually. If you buy a car, and 5 years later a forced ota update bricks going into reverse, is that okay? Should I feel bad that Toyota needs to un-fuck their customers after the backlash? ‘oh we would love to fix it, we really would, but it would be so much work to do so’ - how is that an acceptable excuse?
All my games up until the 2000s had server/client support, and I can (and do, occasionally) still play them. They then created the problem of ‘don’t worry, we’ll host it (until we won’t anymore)’, and then want mercy instead of fixing it? I’d laugh but I may pass out before I can regain my composure.
I agree with you but it is not realistic to expect that. And SKG has the same take I do.
It is not realistic to expect the business to stop what they are doing and create this huge cost undoing the damage they did when it is much easier to convince lawmakers to just enforce it going forward. Its harder for the businesses to argue against it because they cannot claim such an immense cost fixing their old catalog. Do I wish they would fix everything? Yes of course. But in this world that was never going to happen. SKG has the best option we have right now.