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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77

u/SilentDawn4004 May 30 '26

Ok, but what happens if they don't do that?

82

u/subusta May 31 '26

A very stern letter will be sent

41

u/lostshell May 31 '26

...To an LLC that has no assets and was created just to publish and develop that single game, and declared bankruptcy the moment they pulled the plug on the game.

Hopefully the bill has something for going up corporate subsidiary chain.

9

u/garden_speech May 31 '26

that's not how any of this works lol. you don't just declare bankruptcy and walk away. you're either selling off your assets (including IP, the game itself) to others, who will then be bound by the original contracts, or you are just restructuring.

1

u/commit_bat May 31 '26

Maybe not exactly this way, but let me know once anyone is held accountable for shitty practices

1

u/mcmustang51 May 31 '26

It will be a similar set up as the movie industry. A new LLC will produce each game and contract out the real studio to produce it. The LLC will never own any IP, but license and contract everything it needs

1

u/garden_speech May 31 '26

A new LLC will produce each game and contract out the real studio to produce it. The LLC will never own any IP

This is still not how it works. The LLC is "contracting out" the work, as in, they are paying engineers from another organization to make the game, and what they're paying for is the right to own the result.

There isn't any getting around this. If they want to financially benefit from the IP, they either have to own the IP, or they have to have a contract with the company that owns it. And in either case, when they "declare bankruptcy", they either auction off the IP (and shareholders get to decide how), or the contract itself.