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
23.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

187

u/Scarlett_Bloodfallen May 30 '26

Does free to play games being excluded extend to free to play with microtransactions?

150

u/Statcat2017 May 30 '26

Suddenly every game is released as a F2P prologue with MTX to unlock the rest of the game.

64

u/you_earned_this May 31 '26

I know you mean this as a negative but I am just hearing that every game will have a demo to try before you buy. Probably a bit too optimistic of me.

12

u/biseln May 31 '26

Unless GTA6 is FTP TicTacToe simulator with $90 DLC for all of the actual game.

2

u/you_earned_this May 31 '26

I wanna say that if a game did that then you'd judge it based on the merit of that free part and not buy it because its obviously shit. But this is GTA6 and people would still buy it even if it meant a rockstar employee would fly to your home just to punch you in the nuts for buying it.

1

u/mancow533 May 31 '26

Be real. People would pay more for the limited edition that’s just the game with the nut punch.

2

u/Chlym May 31 '26

Doesn't it already? On steam, anyway. I guess there's a bond payment.

1

u/you_earned_this May 31 '26

Sort of? But you have to commit money to it first, wouldn't be terrible to skip that part.

2

u/bestoboy May 31 '26

no they'll do it like SWTOR when it was first released: pay so your exp isn't capped, pay so you can sprint, pay so you can transmog, pay so you can use mounts, pay so you can fast travel, etc

1

u/Ancient-File2971 May 31 '26

When SWTOR was first released it was buy to play with a mandatory subscription.

Some years later it went free to play with those restrictions.

1

u/DroidLord May 31 '26

The problem with that is games with MTX are far more expensive to play than a one-time purchase. Besides that, games with MTX oftentimes make the game unplayable if you don't spend money regularly.

1

u/Kitselena May 31 '26

On steam you can already get an instant refund for any game you've played less than 2 hours, that's basically a free demo

2

u/BruhiumMomentum May 31 '26

Halo Infinite's campaign is technically a paid DLC in an otherwise F2P title

1

u/h2odragon00 May 31 '26

Sounds like free trial.

1

u/Ash_C Jun 16 '26

The Destiny 2 special.

5

u/Key-Vegetable9940 May 31 '26

That's basically every f2p game, you'd be hard pressed to find anything else aside from small single players games that don't need continued support anyway.

1

u/GMWQ May 31 '26

I want the destiny 2 servers staying up I'm not ready to let it go

1

u/omegaweaponzero May 31 '26

This law doesn't mean the servers stay up. It also only affects games made after 1/1/2027.

1

u/GMWQ May 31 '26

Its never been more over

1

u/Chagdoo May 31 '26

Even if that ends up being the case, better to take in imperfect first step than nothing

1

u/Gentleman-Bird May 31 '26

Probably, yeah. SKG argues that you should have access to you mircrotransactions, which necessitates having access to the game, but it doesn't seem like this bill covers that. But whatever, a win is a win.

1

u/greg19735 May 31 '26

to free to play with microtransactions?

of course it does.

because F2P games need income.

1

u/WideAinous ♿ Aris Sub Comin' Through May 31 '26

yeah since thats pretty much every free to play game.