US bill requiring paid games to be playable after they shut down has passed initial vote and moved to the Senate

A US bill designed to stop paid games being terminated and being made unplayable in the future has passed its initial vote.

The Protect Our Games Act, which was proposed by California Assemblyman Chris Ward, was put to a vote at the California State Assembly, where it won with a vote of 43-16.

It will now be passed to the State Senate, where it will be debated and voted on again. If it passes this vote, House and Senate members will then work on the final version of the bill before it’s submitted for final approval. It will then be published and the President will have 10 days to sign or veto it.

The bill is aimed at paid video games that require an online connection, and can potentially be shut down in the future, rendering them unplayable.

Should the bill become law in its current state without any modifications, publishers would be legally required to give the public at least 60 days notice if it plans shut down a game’s servers and prevent its “ordinary use” (to ensure players don’t buy it right before it’s shut down).

The publisher will have to tell players the exact date the shutdown will occur, which services will no longer be provided, which game features will stop working as a result, any known security risks that might come as a result of the shutdown, and how the player can continue to either use the game or get a refund.

Publishers will then be legally required to do one of three things:

• Provide an alternate version of the game that “can be used by the purchaser independent of services controlled by the operator” (i.e. a version that no longer needs to connect to the server),
• Patch or update the existing game so it can continue to be playable “independent of services controlled by the operator” after the servers have been shut down, or
• Refund the player the full cost they originally paid for the game.

There is a notable caveat to this bill – should the Protect Our Games Act become a law in its current form, it will only apply to games released on or after January 1, 2027, and it will not apply to subscription-based games or games that are “offered to a person for no monetary consideration”, i.e. free-to-play games.

What this means is that while the law would prevent another situation like Ubisoft‘s The Crew – which was released as a paid game requiring an online connection, but was then shut down 10 years after its release, rendering it unplayable – it would not apply to any live service titles that have no initial cost.

In theory, then, should this eventually become law in its current form, we could see an increase in live service games releasing as free-to-play, as publishers look to protect themselves from having to pay compensation or provide an offline version of their game should it ever be shut down.

An example of how the process should work in the future is MultiVersus, Warner Bros‘ Smash Bros competitor, which was shut down in May 2025.

Although the game is no longer available, players who logged in between February 4 and its shutdown in May 30 saw their save file updated to allow an offline version of the game to continue to be playable, with all earned and purchased content available moving forward.