alt Hacker NewsCalifornia and meaningless feel good legislation with massive loopholes? A match made in heaven!
If this is how the bill ends up being enacted, it will only push more big game developers into making their titles subscription only. A win for gamers' rights, I suppose.
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I think it's more likely that the big studios will start rolling out trivial offline modes (less risky) rather than overhaul their revenue models (more risky).
Subscription only games get way less revenue than pay once for the most part. So I don't think moving to subscriptions isn't gonna be as attractive to publishers as you think.
Also, with a subscription the customer has VERY different expectations, compared to a one time purchase. As in, they expect the access to go away once they no longer pay.
I can see them adding a $1 per year subscription at the very least.
It's not meaningless feel-good legislation, it's actively harmful by disincentivizing a bad thing, in favor of an even worse thing. See also car fuel economy standards that push car makers into killing the wagon market segment in favor of SUVs.