ESA Tells Lawmakers You Don't Own Your Digital Games

"The bill is based on a false premise: that consumers 'own' digital games with permanent access. That is not how software works."

That's the Entertainment Software Association talking, the trade body that represents most of the biggest game publishers in the United States. In a letter urging California lawmakers to vote against AB 1921, also known as the Protect Our Games Act, the ESA laid out its case for why the games industry should be allowed to keep selling you things it can take away whenever it wants. The letter was republished on Reddit by the organizers of Stop Killing Games, the consumer movement backing the bill.

AB 1921 is straightforward. If passed, it would apply to paid digital games sold after January 1, 2027. Companies shutting down online services would need to give 60 days' notice and then either release a version of the game that works without those services, patch it so servers aren't required, or issue a full refund. That's it. Pick one of three doors. The bill doesn't demand anyone keep servers running forever, which is the straw man the ESA keeps building.

In a statement provided to ABC10, the ESA argued that "many games depend on evolving technology, licensed content, and online systems that change over time," and that AB 1921 "could force developers to spend limited time and resources keeping old systems running instead of creating new games, features, and technology." The group also pointed to California's existing AB 2426, which requires digital storefronts to disclose that customers are buying a license rather than a product, as evidence that the state already recognises games aren't owned. I find that argument almost comically self-defeating: the state had to pass a law specifically because the license model was so deceptive that consumers didn't realise what they were agreeing to. Citing that law as proof the system works is like a restaurant pointing to its health code violations as evidence it takes food safety seriously.

What the bill actually asks for

Stop Killing Games general director Moritz Katzner responded directly to the ESA's lobbying push. "This is the same fight as in Europe: a grassroots consumer movement asking for basic end-of-life protections, versus the industry lobby trying to preserve the right to sell games that can later be rendered useless while preserving control," Katzner wrote. He stressed that AB 1921 gives companies options rather than mandates, and that the refund path exists precisely for cases where preservation is impractical.

The ESA's doomsday framing doesn't hold up against what we've already seen studios do voluntarily. Lunarch Studios made Islands of Insight playable offline in 2024 so fans could keep playing after servers closed. 1047 Games added peer-to-peer support to Splitgate in 2025 before pulling its servers. Even Ubisoft, the company whose shutdown of The Crew sparked this entire movement, eventually added an offline mode to The Crew 2. None of those studios collapsed under the weight of that work. If small and mid-sized developers can manage it, the publishers the ESA represents certainly can.

California Assemblymember Chris Ward, who introduced the bill, framed it as a consumer fairness issue. "We're really for California consumers trying to be able to draw that line about the anticipation of what they got when they signed up for something at a significant cost to themselves," Ward said in remarks to ABC10. He also noted that preservation of digital games is cheaper now than it has ever been, and that the development work on a game is already finished by the time a publisher decides to kill it.

What bothers me most about the ESA's position isn't the legal arguments or the cost concerns. It's the tone. Putting "own" in scare quotes when talking about products people paid full price for that tells you exactly how the industry's biggest lobby views its customers. The ESA isn't wrong that games are technically licensed under current EULAs. But AB 1921 exists precisely because a growing number of lawmakers and consumers think that arrangement is broken. The bill would apply only to future paid games and offers publishers three separate compliance paths, one of which is simply giving people their money back. If the industry can't live with any of those options, the problem isn't the legislation.

Stop Killing Games says it will publish a detailed video breakdown of the ESA's lobbying arguments soon. AB 1921 still needs to pass through California's Assembly Committee on Appropriations before reaching a full vote, and the ESA's opposition means the bill faces a well-funded fight on the way there.