I love California for these laws because even though their jurisdiction is technically limited, it makes no sense for the companies to not make the changes available nation wide.
The alternative to companies shutting games down without supporting them is not them supporting them, it is them not making them in the first place or making them very expensive (price, ads, pay to play, etc.).
The customer now has to pay a tax becasue of the cost this puts on game makers. This is not good :(
If a game can't exist without scamming the players then perhaps it shouldn't exist so that more honest developers can get those players.
Stop building games to self destruct. Once you fix your bad practices (which, you should not have been doing to begin with, pay for them once with some retooling and moving forward you don't need to pay more, then get some ethics and you will incur fewer costs like this going forward) there is no ongoing cost here.
I think your analogy is a great one. I had a plan to pour a pillar that wouldn't exist without me somewhere (lets say this is online matchmaking), and you come and tell me I cant do my plan anymore, or if I do, I have to pour a second/different one (self hosted servers or p2p) or give away the pillar I make for free.
Games take money to maintain, if you make a law that forces people to maintain them for longer (or forever), that increases the costs. Higher costs -> less games. Most game makers are not Electronic Arts or Rockstar. Those companies will be 100% fine and will pass any costs onto you.
It just seems crazy that a company should be forced to give a refund to all players or spend 1000s of person-hours implementing outdated multiplayer features becasue only 50 people are playing their game once a month.
I won't enjoy it, and things aren't perfect as they are, but I will think back to this thread when the articles of layoffs, price hikes, ads, dark patterns, and "lack of quality games" become more and more prevalent because this law will have directly influenced it.
Theres no free lunch.