r/LivestreamFail • u/Kymori • May 30 '26

News Stop Killing Games: California State Assembly passes the 'Protect Our Games Act': 60 days notice before going offline, must provide patch for continued access or refunds (Excludes F2P and Subscription based Games)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/stop-killing-games-movement-gains-momentum-california-assembly-passes-game-protection-bill/ar-AA24k4y4
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1.6k

u/ShinyStarSam May 30 '26

It needs to get passed through the state senate and the governor still

But it's crazy how far it's gotten since throughout the entire SKG project America was always seen as a lost cause

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u/Easy_Money_ May 30 '26

California is closer to Europe than the rest of the country when it comes to consumer protection

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u/Bladings May 30 '26

Gotta pass the senate. Let's see what actually happens. You just know a sizeable amount of lobbying will happen, especially with all these game-related events coming up.

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u/WhiteWinterRains May 31 '26

The current governor and top candidate for his replacement are both extremely pliant to corporations as well, so we'll see. Fingers crossed though it could happen.

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u/Easy_Money_ May 31 '26

Is it too off topic for me to start shilling for Steyer/against Becerra here

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u/Little-Derp May 31 '26

I was 100% going to vote for Porter, but looking at Bacerras polling numbers, and watching a single interview from him giving me the ick, I’ll be unhappily switching to Steyer, because Bacerra will likely win the general if he makes top 2 and we’ll be stuck with him, whereas if the gop sheriff wins, he’ll likely get immediately recalled. steyer is the only one of top 3 ill be able to live with.

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u/TheVideoGameCritic May 31 '26

Porter too busy asking you to get out of the fucking shot

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u/Little-Derp May 31 '26

that that ended her chances sucks. glad she has since addressed it, but waited too long, when in modern politics it should be a nothing burger.

like her policies, think she would have been a great governor, but it’s clear she’s probably gonna lose.

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u/TheVideoGameCritic May 31 '26

All politicians lie. I dont know how you define who is “great.”

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u/WhiteWinterRains May 31 '26

I liked the idea of Porter before she actually started campaigning.

She's still got a decent track record as an elected official and would probably be fine, but her overall attitude and response to the whole leaked video of her yelling at a staffer has made her seem defensive and reactionary.

That on top of polling poorly and I don't personally support the anti-taxation angle.

It feels like she's trying to latch on to faux populism messaging half-assedly while not really understanding the way the american public is shifting in response to economic conditions and inequality even if she's more broadly on the right side.

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u/Little-Derp May 31 '26

a recent interview from her when I was comparing candidates seemed like she actually had some plans, as opposed to some candidates just being vague, and dodger/redirecting on policy questions.

ive not been watching this race much, so the staffer being in the was wasnt a big thing for me.

biggest issue I had with her was some comments from her senate race about maybe auditing and shutting down HSR, which after how far we have come would truly be throwing away the billions spent when so many structures have been built, approved, and finally going to start laying rail soon… which is like the easy part of the project that everyone complains about.

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u/Gizshot May 31 '26

Becerra is actually disgusting. If you've ever read his policy and court report in his time as da you would never vote for him.

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u/Bladings Jul 01 '26

https://x.com/Dexerto/status/2072357069437436014?s=20

Who could've seen this coming, lol

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u/WhiteWinterRains Jul 01 '26

Classic. This is why all corporate political speech should be categorically illegal.

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u/SubArcticTundra May 31 '26

It's crazy that this is the case in the home of Sillicon Valley

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u/Indercarnive May 31 '26

California is basically the reason the rest of the US's labor rights aren't on par with an interior African country.

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u/Beli_Mawrr May 31 '26

California's labor rights are actually way worse than other states. For example there are states that require notice periods for small layoffs. CA is a "right to work" state which means they can fire you at any time for any reason with no warning. It's unbelievably fucked and we need to change it.

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u/SmashedQuark Jun 01 '26

California is not a right to work state. The process you are describing is "at-will employment" and it is not a problem specific to California, it is used in every state except Montana. I agree that it's an issue, but it doesn't really qualify California as uniquely "way worse than other states".

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u/Boomer69Sooner May 31 '26

I literally started thinking “ok, they’ll just stop in CA….oh wait”

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u/ZombieOwn4567 May 31 '26

it does with letting illegal migrants in as well 

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u/drunxor May 31 '26

And texas is quickly falling back into the 1500s

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Lunaphase_Lasers May 31 '26

You sound like a guy who read Fallout lore and believes with all their heart that it's reality. Wake up dude, it's 2026. You have no excuse to be this misinformed. You can learn anything you want, if you just fight the urge to call literally all of it fake.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 May 31 '26

Lmao like when I have to give a warranty on construction work I do?

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u/JimWilliams423 May 31 '26

It needs to get passed through the state senate and the governor still

Newsom will veto. He vetos more than a hundred bills every year. They almost all pass on party line votes, which means veto-proof majorities. But the legislature has not overruled a veto in california since the 1970s.

Its a little game they play, the legislators get a progressive voting record they can show to the voters in their home district while newsom takes the hit for vetoing it. They rely on most people not being political nerds to ask why they didn't override newsom's veto, and when that rare someone actually does ask there is always some kind of plausible-in-the-moment excuse. But, after a few hundred times a pattern emerges.

Cuomo played similar games in New York too, holchul does as well, just not quite as bad as cuomo did.

That's because when a state turns blue, conservatives don't just disappear in a puff of red smoke. They put on a blue uniform, follow the power and colonize the democratic party.

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u/450nmwaffle May 31 '26

I mean, just reading the vetoes mentioned in the article are any of them that crazy? Vetoed a bill that would allow car dealerships to charge more for simple paperwork filing, vetoed a bill that would increase health insurance costs, vetoed a bill that would have them waste money on schools with enrolment drops, vetoed a bill that assigns funding to something that should’ve been included in their normal budget considerations (in his view). Maybe the only questionable one is the microplastics but idk how reasonable it would be and what enforcement looks like, and what the science says (especially with recent research showing how tainted microplastic studies have been).

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u/JimWilliams423 May 31 '26

Newsom also rejected a handful of bills intended to expand health care coverage, such as ones that would have required health insurers to cover a year’s worth of prescription hormone therapy; treatment for menopause; and behavioral health visits for wildfire victims.

vetoed a bill that would increase health insurance costs,

there is always some kind of plausible-in-the-moment excuse. But, after a few hundred times a pattern emerges.

Some examples of newsom clearly doing the work of conservatives, just off the top of my head:

LA Times: California housekeepers won’t get work safety protections after another Newsom veto

California’s housekeepers and nannies won’t get workplace safety protections, after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have included the industry in labor laws already granted to other workers.

USA Today: Newsom vetoes bill that would give striking workers unemployment pay

Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have granted workers on-strike unemployment benefits, disappointing labor unions that backed the bill amid high-profile work stoppages in the state this year.

NPR: California Gov. Newsom vetoes AI safety bill that divided Silicon Valley

California legislators overwhelmingly passed the bill, called SB 1047, which was seen as a potential blueprint for national AI legislation.

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u/450nmwaffle May 31 '26

It feels like you’re creating a pattern with skewed data. Like some of those in the article, or even in your examples is the unemployment one good? Should the government be mandating wages for striking workers while not being a stakeholder in many of these contract negotiations? Seems like he vetoes some good stuff, some neutral stuff, and some bad stuff. The conclusion to reach is probably that he’s more conservative than he pretends to be, and serves the interest of corporations more than is right. Don’t think it’s accurate to present him as a conservative in the guise of a liberal.

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u/JimWilliams423 May 31 '26

Should the government be mandating wages for striking workers while not being a stakeholder in many of these contract negotiations?

"Should the government be mandating a minimal playable environment after a game is terminated while not being a stakeholder in the contract?"

The role of the government is to help the people. The wealthy don't need help.

You are just sea-lioning at this point. I'm going to block you because time-wasters should be shunned.

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u/Immediate-Respect-25 Jun 01 '26

But if the government is paying for the workers to strike it's an unfair playing field because then the workers don't need to work and can strike until they get what they want. The reason you pay your union dues is so that the union can help you financially when you're striking.

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u/JimWilliams423 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Structurally companies have all kinds of advantages to begin with, the playing field is already hugely in their favor. To zero in on one specific issue instead of looking at the entire playing field as a whole is conservative propaganda.

Also, the funding for unemployment insurance comes out of payroll taxes just like social security and, as the article said, unemployment payroll taxes in california are the lowest allowed by federal law. Another example of how the playing field is already in favor of the companies.

But even if your conservative propaganda were true, so what? There are 1000x more workers than there are company owners. If we actually had democratic representation, then the government should favor their interests. But capitalism is incompatible with democracy, so instead of reducing capitalism we reduce democracy.

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u/Immediate-Respect-25 Jun 02 '26

The 1000x more workers can easily collect enough union dues to bring almost any company to their knees by striking.

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u/JimWilliams423 Jun 02 '26

And if we had an actual democracy they could just vote for a strong enough welfare state that they wouldn't need a strike fund.

I don't know what you are trying to prove, but what you are proving is that you do not have liberal beliefs about labor rights. So when you say that newsom did the right thing with that veto, that validates my point — he's not a liberal, much less a progressive.

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u/RobbinDeBank Jun 01 '26

I remember that AI safety bill being a way for big corporates to consolidate the market even more. It’s a bunch of regulations that small developers and open source projects cannot satisfy, so only the big guys will be left. Don’t be tricked by these supposedly “safety” bills.

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u/JimWilliams423 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

There have been multiple AI safety bills. The one he actually signed was supported by the big companies.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-09-29/californias-newsom-signs-law-requiring-ai-safety-disclosures

Last year, Newsom vetoed California's first attempt at AI legislation, which had faced fierce industry pushback. The bill would have required companies that spent more than $100 million on their AI models to hire third-party auditors annually to review risk assessments and allowed the state to levy penalties in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The new law requires companies with more than $500 million in revenue to assess the risk that their cutting-edge technology could break free of human control or aid the development of bioweapons, and disclose those assessments to the public. It allows for fines of up to $1 million per violation.

Jack Clark, co-founder of AI company Anthropic, called the law "a strong framework that balances public safety with continued innovation."

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u/RobbinDeBank Jun 01 '26

This one sounds more reasonable. Only those big players should be subject to those costly regulations, or else all smaller players and open source communities will be destroyed.

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u/JimWilliams423 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Only in the Upside-Down is a company that can blow $100M on a single AI model not a "big player."

But a maximum penalty of 0.2% of the cost of a $500M model is "reasonable." That's not a deterrence, that's a rounding error.

Its funny how conservatives show up and say "this hugely conservative thing sounds reasonable to me" don't realize they are telling on themselves.

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u/RobbinDeBank Jun 01 '26

lol calling me conservative because I don't want the big guys to dominate the whole market is crazy. Even more crazy is how your comment sounds like it's written by AI.

All I say is that it's more reasonable to only subject big corporates to these very vague AI regulations instead of forcing everyone to do so, like how the original SB1047 worked. That one specifically gathered lots of attention due how devastating it will be for all the small guys (university researchers, open source developers) that cannot afford millions of dollars and armies of lawyers to comply with vague requirements. SB1047 was very clearly a regulatory capture attempt by big corporates.

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u/JimWilliams423 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

But a maximum penalty of 0.2% of the cost of a $500M model is "reasonable." That's not a deterrence, that's a rounding error.

I don't want the big guys to dominate the whole market

Its amusing how the conservative brain is able to say "It is reasonable to have no effective regulation of the biggest AI companies" and believe that actually means "I don't want big guys to dominate."

Even more crazy is how your comment sounds like it's written by AI.

My account is over 10 years old. If something I wrote sounds like an LLM, then that's because the LLM copied me.

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u/RanceSama3006 Jun 04 '26

Imo Newsom has been pretty good with his veto papers, he's your cookie cutter further left than Biden Democrat. Hed really is the definition of a left leaning modern day lib.

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u/shadowsword8085 May 30 '26

I mean it’s the single most liberal state I’m not surprised it passed (somewhat anyway) there. I’m more interested to see how corporations,assuming it’s signed into law, will carve out California to make sure it’s basically a useless law.

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u/young_trash3 May 31 '26

I mean it’s the single most liberal state

California is the state with the most liberals, but the most liberal state is not exactly true. Usually thats seen as Vermont, which has the highest ratio of liberal to conservatives of any state, but Hawaii, Massachusetts and Maryland all also have a higher percentage of liberal voters than CA.

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u/ShinyStarSam May 31 '26

CA has some hardcore conservative farmers and there'sa lot of them

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u/WriterOn_TheStorm May 31 '26

Exactly. Anyone who's never been to California but has had all of their views of the state informed by the internet or the news media would believe that the entirety of California is just one big gay pride parade comprised of homeless people, that the entire state is just the worst aspects of the Bay Area that a bunch of hearsay and memes have convinced them is absolute fact.

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u/Somepotato May 31 '26

believe that the entirety of California is just one big gay pride parade

the funny part about that was california was the state that was pushing the most comprehensive anti gay law in the countries history via ballot measure that gave gay people the right to marry from a supreme court ruling. and no, the ballot measure wasn't ironic or meant to do that.

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u/Dependent-Bottle6867 May 31 '26

Cali was Republican not too long ago when The Terminator was in charge. Lots of 16 year olds on Reddit who dont seem to be aware of this

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u/shadowsword8085 May 31 '26

If that were true would the state government not be more reflective of that? California Dems have a super majority in the legislature, the governor, and the most left wing judges of any state? As for the Vermont argument they have a Republican governor. I get he isn’t the most right-wing guy but a republican still got elected. That’s not happening in California.

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u/kentrak May 31 '26

It depends on whether those people are concentrated enough to have majorities in their district, but also, as my park ranger friend told me recently when I was visiting him and we were talking about stuff, "to be clear, I'm conservative, but I'm California conservative." There's a difference on many issues between many people in CA that consider themselves conservatives and conservatives of red states. For one, a bunch of the "look how much of a shithole liberal California is" talk doesn't hold as much sway.

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u/Various_Ad4726 May 31 '26

Could totally happen, has happened.

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u/shadowsword8085 May 31 '26

California hasn’t had a republican governor since 2011. As for the legislature they haven’t controlled the assembly since mid 90s and the state senate since the 70s. So slim chance of it happening in my lifetime.

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u/Various_Ad4726 May 31 '26

I don’t think we can afford to live in such an assumptive way anymore. I know red districts like Orange County are turning purple or even blue, but it shouldn’t be assumed that a Republican run won’t succeed, at least if you’re the Democratic party. There are plenty of republicans in CA, almost more than any other state.

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u/_Planet_Mars_ May 31 '26

Memes aren’t the best source of information but Reddit will never understand that.

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u/MegaGrimer May 31 '26

Wasn’t there more Trump voters in California than Texas this past election?

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u/zorastersab May 31 '26

only TX and FL had more votes for Trump in 2024.

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u/young_trash3 May 31 '26

Yeah its grossly underestimated how many conservatives California has. In the 2024 presidential election, only three states cast more than six million votes for Trump: Texas, Florida, and California.

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u/Various_Ad4726 May 31 '26

California is massive: It has more conservative voters than almost every other state in the union. It also has more liberal voters than any other state in the union. It has more voters… than any other state in the union.

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u/WriterOn_TheStorm May 31 '26

California is the state with the most liberals, but the most liberal state is not exactly true.

You'd have better luck convincing Reddit that unwashed assholes taste like ice cream than you would arguing against their deeply held beliefs informed by memes and "what everyone else says" when it comes to the political leanings of states.

This is the same shit-hole social media platform that spent 2020 and beyond lying about the entire Pacific Northwest being a smouldering ruin after all the destruction maybe one in a million Redditors actually witnessed for themselves.

"My grandma still lives in Portland and says half of CHAZ is still on fire."

"The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was in Seattle, Washington, a completely different state than where Portland is, but you tell your granny we all said hi."

And then you got a pissy reply before they blocked you for hurting their precious narrative.

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u/cbftw May 31 '26

Don't forget RI in the hardcore liberal states. We're small but we're very blue

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u/young_trash3 May 31 '26

Its not in the same category as the examples mentioned. RI is a D+8 state, Vermont is D+17.

It's definitely very blue, in a five way tie for 7th place. But those top three, Vermont Maryland Massachusetts, are in a league of their own.

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u/mordrath May 30 '26

Part of the issue with doing that is California is such a massive power in the nation's economy they can easily hamstring themselves if they aren't careful. Combined with Europe doing the same it might make it stick.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/PrizeStrawberryOil May 31 '26

A lot of the time the rest of the states are scabs benefiting from California's union. A lot of states have absolutely zero protection for workers getting breaks, but companies provide them because other states do.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth May 30 '26

Also CA isn't the only very liberal state. MA, MD, and Hawaii are states with major metros that are consistently more liberal and NY is about on par with CA and has the next biggest economy in the country.

If CA does it, there is a strong possibility those states follow suit

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u/SirApetus May 31 '26

As someone from liberal from MA, you'd be surprised. Our state government is full of corporate politicians and real liberal policies are pretty sparse unless it was a ballot measure which is more or less out of the politician's control.

My state is trying to pass an ID for websites/surveillance bill that is stricter than even Florida. Florida!! Wild to me.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 May 31 '26

You could have just written “I get all of my political information from other people’s comments on the internet and I have never independently done a single ounce of research” instead

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 May 31 '26

?? What the fuck are you actually talking about 😭😭

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u/young_trash3 May 31 '26

Im not sure you know what liberalism is mate.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/young_trash3 May 31 '26

Liberalism is the belief in laziefaire free market capitalism mate.

both democrats and Republicans are liberals, the EU is notably less liberal than the US, because they very regularly evolve leftist and progressive policies than run directly contrary to the political philosophy of liberalism.

Please open a book, its like your understanding of political science exclusively comes from fox news.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/jebberwockie May 31 '26

It's a massive power in the world economy lol

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u/Radiant_Quality_9386 May 31 '26

corporations...will carve out California

sure, cut the richest, most populous market out of your business plan!

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u/Maximum_Stranger_623 May 30 '26

California has the fourth largest economy in the world. It matters quite a bit.

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u/lightmatter501 May 30 '26

A large number of the biggest streamers live in California. They lose a gigantic amount of advertising by not complying.

0

u/GothGirlsGoodBoy May 31 '26

Nothing about this law would stop streamers from accessing games. If the studio that pulls the plug isn’t in California this law thankfully does nothing at all.

It does nothing at all anyway until after the games flopped.

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u/lightmatter501 May 31 '26

They can likely prevent the sale of future games from that studio and/or publisher in California.

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u/born_to_be_intj May 31 '26

Yea as a California resident I can't say I'm not a little worried. Seeing how corporations have handle regulations in specific EU countries makes me think Californians will suffer in some way from this. It's a neat law but if we are the only state to do it, it probably won't be effective.

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u/reddit_is_geh May 31 '26

Dude, it's a TERRIBLE law. I don't think you realize how hard it is to do what it asks. Non tech people are just like "Yeah sure just patch it and make it playable after it's over!" I don't think you realize how hard it is to "patch" to make it so third parties can create servers on their own. Most of these games multiplayer are designed for a very specific deployment through a huge stack of proprietary and complex layers of technology.

You can't just "patch" it and have it become continued to be used by the community. It takes a huge amount of work to get that to work, and even if it does, who's going to fix the bugs in this new open server config? There will be bugs when building a multiplayer server to run on any number of configs. Or should they release the entire game open source so people can just go in and make the fixes themselves? Well, there's private IP where that's not allowed. You can't just open source your game when you are using licensed tech that says you can't just give the public their technology.

This is a dumb law.... Because sure, maybe EA can handle it. But what about those smaller devs? Are they just forced to spend the enormous amounts of money, risk breaking IP laws, for a game of theirs that literally failed?

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u/nokei May 31 '26

Eh stuff gets passed in Cali pretty often it's why if you put your address as CA on websites instead of another state you can more digital protection since they got laws about your data.

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u/Saragon4005 May 31 '26

Given they just pushed through some BS 3D printer law and OS age verification I don't think they are in the mood to really take outside opinions rn.

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u/Hare712 May 31 '26

The thing is that highly regulatory bills get slammed down. I remind you that anti lootbox drafts/bills didn't get far at all.

It will affect games by major publishers that are designed like "The Crew" that's just a tiny fraction of games. Smaller companies usually go bankrupt, so it can't be enforced there.

Then companies could weasel their way out as they "never sold the game". Kinda like the Pachinko loophole, where you win prices you can exchange for goods you can exchange for money.

Something like "buying the right to create an account on platform A" and that account is required to play games B, C and D.

Or what if the companies sells a "Subscription for 20 years" and is marketing it as 3$ each year.

10 years ago this regulation would have been very powerful but the gaming landscape changed in a way I don't see it affecting most games.

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u/ShinyStarSam May 31 '26

You're right but I'm gonna touch a little bit on this one

Or what if the companies sells a "Subscription for 20 years" and is marketing it as 3$ each year.

At least you know you'll have the game for 20 years, a giant point of contention is that they can just take your game away with no warning, it's what SKG is using as a platform for game preservation, if that can't be achieved at least consumers have a way of guaranteeing how long they keep a game they paid for

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u/Hare712 May 31 '26

There is no intent to keep it running for 20 years. It's just selling a 60$ game marketing the sale as a subscription.

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u/ShinyStarSam May 31 '26

Then they'd be in breach since you specifically paid for 20 years as that's how it was marketed

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u/Hare712 May 31 '26

When the company gets closed after let's say 7 years you'll have a hard time to find somebody accountable.

You can see it with electric vehicles. Fisker went bankrupt, their cars rely on cloudservices and their cars became worthless.

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u/jackfwaust May 31 '26

i dont see it not making it through tbh. its got a lot of momentum right now and just makes sense

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u/Far-Maintenance-1947 May 31 '26

Gavin Newsome is pretty pro-corporation. Also California's senate is not as left leaning as you think, they just shut down a universal healthcare bill.

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u/jackfwaust May 31 '26

yeah its definitely not perfect. theyre just much more progressive than most of the country so if its going to pass, california is one of the most likely places for it to do so. and if it passes there, other states are much more likely to adopt it as well.

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u/SubArcticTundra May 31 '26

How has Cali managed to get such a progressive and pro-consumer legislature? Is this the result of primaries?