US bill to keep paid games playable after shutdown fails Senate vote

A proposed US law that would have required game publishers to keep paid titles playable even after their official shutdown has stalled in the California State Senate, failing to advance beyond committee.

The Protect Our Games Act, introduced by California Assemblyman Chris Ward, initially cleared the State Assembly last month with a decisive 43-16 vote. From there, the bill moved to the State Senate for further debate and a second vote. If that vote had succeeded, lawmakers from both chambers would have reconciled differences before sending the final version for approval.

But according to the Stop Killing Games consumer advocacy group, which tracks efforts to preserve video games after they go offline, the bill lost momentum in the Senate. Only four Democrats voted in favor, three Republicans opposed it, and the remainder abstained. As a campaign volunteer explained on Reddit, “Those abstentions matter. In a committee vote, an abstention is not neutral. It has the same practical effect as a no, because a bill only advances if it gets a majority of yes votes. Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session. That is the loss.”

The volunteer noted that the campaign operated without any dedicated funding or professional lobbying support. “This was our first attempt, in our first year, in the United States, with a US budget of zero dollars. No paid staff in California. No war chest. No in-person lobbying operation,” they wrote. They also accused the Entertainment Software Association of lobbying senators with arguments that “ranged from misleading to flatly false,” including the claim that running a private server akin to those used for Minecraft would be illegal.

Despite the setback, the group vowed to continue. “We are not stopping. Not even close. 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,” the volunteer added. “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. The ESA is about to learn what it is like to fight on many fronts at once.”

Had the bill passed without amendments, publishers would have been required to give the public at least 60 days’ notice before shutting down a game’s servers and rendering it inoperable. That notice would have had to include the exact shutdown date, which services would be discontinued, which game features would stop working, any known security risks, and instructions on how players could continue using the game or obtain a refund.

Publishers would then have been legally obligated to either provide an offline-compatible version of the game, patch the existing version to allow offline play, or refund the full purchase price to affected players.

A model for how this could work in practice is MultiVersus, Warner Bros.’ Smash Bros.-style fighter, which was shut down in May 2025. While the online game is no longer available, players who logged in between February 4 and the shutdown date received a save file update that enabled an offline version of the game to remain playable, including all earned and purchased content.