At the beginning of June, a bill proposed in the California State Assembly in the United States seemed poised to make massive waves in the video game industry. The bill would've required game developers to have offline modes for their games, so that players weren't losing something they paid for when servers got shut down. The Protect Our Games Act passed its vote at the congress level, but unfortunately, as spotted by VGC, it did not make it further.
After passing its initial vote, it was tossed up to the Senate, which is as far as it got. The bill was not able to obtain the necessary majority vote it needed to succeed, with four senators voting 'Yes,' three voting 'No,' and the rest abstaining. Yes, there were more votes in favour than against, but it's the senators who abstained that are the key piece here.
Abstaining may leave you neutral, but it's effectively closer to saying 'No,' since it still doesn't give the bill the required votes needed for a majority. So the bill still fails, even with more 'Yes' votes officially on the board.
If the bill had been successful without major modifications, it could've potentially played a major role in changing how studios and developers approach making their games, but specifically their online multiplayer games. We've seen countless titles now, whether they're successful at launch or not, eventually have their servers shut down, making the game that players paid for entirely unplayable.
That was the case with Ubisoft shuttering The Crew, which started the entire Stop Killing Games initiative in the first place. The Crew spawned two sequels so far, but there's currently no official way to play that original game since Ubisoft shut its servers down. Yes, offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorsport were set up, but the first game was still left behind.
As it currently stands, every game, paid or free-to-play, is at risk of being shuttered and removed from your gaming library whenever the publisher or developer decides it is done paying to keep the games running. That's not to say players are entitled to demand studios never stop paying to keep servers running for older, less popular titles. Just pointing to a reality that would see players' gaming libraries shrink with no recourse to preserve the games they loved to play.
Of course, this bill's failure does not mean the Stop Killing Games initiative is finished and will stop fighting to preserve as many games as possible. "We are not stopping. Not even close," reads a post on Reddit from the group following the failed vote.
"Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly, and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support. We are not limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level...They have to win every single time to keep things the way they are. We only have to win once to change them."
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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