A game can be paid for, downloaded and still be designed to die.

California’s Protect Our Games Act advanced through a committee in May 2026. As described by Ars Technica, the proposal would require a publisher ending support for an online game to provide a refund or an updated version that enables continued use independent of services controlled by the operator.

The bill follows the backlash to Ubisoft’s shutdown of The Crew and a wider campaign called Stop Killing Games. It addresses a gap in the digital bargain: publishers describe access as licensed, while customers experience a game as a purchased object with a place in their library.

The server is part of the product

Online features can be expensive to operate. That is not an argument for pretending the server is irrelevant at checkout. If the server is essential to launch, save or play, the dependency is part of what the customer bought into.

The most honest sale would say what survives a shutdown: offline modes, local saves, private hosting, a refund or nothing. The current model often leaves that answer buried in an end-user licence after the money has changed hands.

Preservation is a consumer feature

The act’s proposed remedy is modest: keep the game usable or make the customer whole. It does not freeze every online service forever. It asks companies to plan an exit instead of treating shutdown as a clean break from the people who paid.

A digital product needs a sunset plan. Without one, the customer is renting a future the company can cancel.