ESA Fail Miserably To Halt Stop Killing Games, California Bill Moves Forward

TL;DR

California's AB1921 Protect Our Games Act advanced past the Assembly Appropriations Committee despite the ESA's opposition letter, which Stop Killing Games systematically dismantled point by point.

Key Points

• 1.California's AB1921 cleared a major legislative hurdle. The California Assembly Appropriations Committee voted yes to move the Protect Our Games Act to the Assembly floor, a result the Stop Killing Games movement called a 'huge success,' with Chris Ward's team credited for the win.
• 2.The ESA's opposition letter claimed the bill harms consumers and the ecosystem, but Stop Killing Games refuted every argument. The ESA alleged AB1921 creates impossible obligations and risks harming the broader video game industry — claims Stop Killing Games called alarmist, unsubstantiated, and based on misframings of what the bill actually asks.
• 3.The ESA falsely claimed the bill asserts consumers own digital games; Stop Killing Games clarified it does not. The bill references leases and subscriptions and only asks that purchased games remain accessible in some functional state, or that refunds be issued — not that consumers gain IP ownership.
• 4.Stop Killing Games compared digital purchases to physical media to explain the core ask. Just as buying an N64 cartridge gives permanent access to play it without owning the IP, digital buyers should have guaranteed access to what they paid for, even after servers shut down.
• 5.The ESA's licensed-content argument — that expiring music or athlete licenses make compliance impossible — was dismissed as conflating selling with playing. Stop Killing Games argued that customers already holding a purchased game should retain access regardless of whether new sales of that game are possible.
• 6.The ESA's claim that refunds based on 'time played or value received' are unfair was rejected as irrelevant. Stop Killing Games argued a fixed purchase price like $60 promises access, not a set number of hours, comparing it to buying a Blu-ray that can be watched once or a thousand times at the same price.
• 7.Progress is simultaneous in Europe, where the EU citizens initiative surpassed one million signatures and received strong support at a European Parliament hearing. Stop Killing Games is pushing for these protections to become a global standard, citing that an estimated high-80s to low-90s percentage of games in history have already been lost to lack of preservation.