California AB 1921 Passes Assembly to Stop Killing Games by Requiring Publishers to Provide Offline Modes and Server Tools for Consumer Access
A significant change in law regarding digital interactive media is approaching in the U.S. An advocacy bill by consumers based on the worldwide 'Stop Killing Games' movement has successfully passed in the California State Assembly. AB 1921 was legally named, and has now moved on from the lower house by a landslide vote of 43 in favor vs 16 against, and will soon head to its most significant stage as the State Senate vote looms.
Once implemented into law, AB 1921 would completely re define how entertainment software businesses deal with their product life cycles. Publishers would be required to supply the consumers with timely notice prior to disabling servers that their purchased games rely on, and would also be required to supply a plausible alternative method for the software to remain playable, such as an offline mode, or the development of tools which allow community servers to be operated.
This legislative intervention is in part driven by consumer dissatisfaction with purchasing a product and then having access to it terminated upon the cease of official support. Bill supporters claim that consumers should have right of perpetual access to products they purchase, and particularly those that are marketed as being viable long term products. As is apparent from the bill's successful progression through California's lower house, this argument has been well received and legislation now favors digital preservation over current corporate software licensing frameworks.
Lobbies are aggressively resisting this legislative change in the entertainment software industry. Major publisher conglomerates released a recent statement defining digital games as services and not as goods, and thus players purchase only a license. "The companies claim that providing servers for outdated titles is simply too costly to sustain,"
reads a report by games industry blog PC Gamer.
However legislative bodies continue to pursue a more rigid regulatory framework. As California's AB 1921 moves to the State Senate, it is being treated as a test case for digital consumer rights in the United States. Should it pass through the final stage in the state legislature, businesses throughout America would be compelled to adapt their product life cycles to this new regulation and it may become a model for other states.
