The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the video game industry in the United States. It's primarily seen as a sort of interest/pressure group for video game publishers, though the ESA represents the industry as a whole.

One of the organisations the ESA has been actively working against in recent years is Stop Killing Games, a consumer-led movement with the sole aim of passing legislation that compels publishers to give communities and/or players viable ways to keep playing a game once official support for the game has ended, e.g., facilitating the hosting of private servers.

As you can imagine, publishers do not want additional restrictions placed on their ability to wind down live-service games, and, as a result, have been dogged in their opposition to the movement.

Protect Our Games is a Stop Killing Games-endorsed act that's currently moving through California's legislative process. The bill was recently debated in the state senate.

These proceedings produced a baffling statement from the ESA's vice-president for state government affairs, Jennifer Gibbons, who responded to a comment made by state assemblymember Chris Ward regarding community servers.

ESA Lobbyist Declares Minecraft Servers Illegal

"Minecraft is currently hosted by community servers, Call of Duty has community servers, so it's an option that's out there, in existence today," Ward explained.

"They're illegal," Gibbons interjected. "They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers."

You can, of course, go to the official Minecraft website and find everything you need to host a private server, as players have been doing since the game first launched in alpha. Private servers have never been illegal, unless they, in some way, deprive the publisher of potential revenue, which isn't the case with a single-purchase game like Minecraft.

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California state senator Caroline Menjivar then asked Gibbons if private servers were like the "black market" of video games, to which Gibbons responded, "Yes. In fact, we consider it piracy," and went on to explain that the association currently has two pending lawsuits against private server hosts.

In an area that requires specific knowledge, like video games, every contested bill is going to be an arena for lobbyists from both sides to obfuscate, exaggerate and conflate to win over legislators who aren't educated on the topic. You can expect a lot more outlandish quotes before the dust settles.

The bill was ultimately voted down, with three aye votes, four noes and four abstentions. However, a reconsideration has been granted, so the bill will be debated and voted upon once more in the near future.

A Stop Killing Games campaign volunteer responded to the verdict on Reddit, promising the campaign will have an in-person presence at the next debate and that similar bills will be introduced in state legislatures across the United States.

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Minecraft

Sandbox Survival Systems OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 90/100 Critics Rec: 84% Released November 18, 2011 ESRB E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence Developer(s) Mojang Publisher(s) Mojang
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