The Entertainment Software Association told California lawmakers this week that player-run community servers for Minecraft and Call of Duty are unauthorized and unsafe, pushing back on the servers' use as a case study during a hearing on game preservation legislation. The exchange came during a California Senate hearing billed as "Protect Our Games," convened to examine a proposed Protect Our Games Act. Discussion at the hearing turned to community servers, an option currently available to players of both Minecraft and Call of Duty, and the ESA's position that such servers operate outside the law.
ESA representative calls servers "illegal"
An ESA representative identified as Gibbons told the hearing that community servers for Minecraft and Call of Duty "are illegal and they are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft." Gibbons went on to argue that Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, has drawn criticism over the servers because they "do not employ the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers." The framing positions unauthorized servers as a liability not just for publishers' intellectual property but for player safety, an argument the ESA has leaned on to distinguish community-run infrastructure from officially sanctioned multiplayer environments.
"Piracy" comparison and pending litigation
Pressed on whether the phenomenon amounted to a "black market of video games," Gibbons did not reject the comparison. Instead, the ESA representative characterized community servers as "piracy" outright and disclosed that the trade group has "pending lawsuits against private servers," signaling that the organization's opposition extends beyond hearing-room rhetoric into active legal action. In a follow-up statement to Dexerto, the ESA reiterated its stance, saying unauthorized private servers "infringe on the intellectual property rights of game publishers" and "operate with no oversight" when it comes to trust and safety standards. The two-part argument — legal infringement paired with an absence of safety oversight — has become the ESA's core case against the practice.
Preservation debate looms over the exchange
The hearing's broader subject matter gave the exchange added weight. The Protect Our Games Act discussion touched on game preservation, an issue that has gained momentum through the Stop Killing Games movement, which pushes for titles to remain playable after developers pull the plug on official online support. Community-run servers have been floated as one practical route to keeping multiplayer games alive once publisher support ends. That proposal is precisely what the ESA pushed back against during the hearing. By labeling community servers illegal, tying them to piracy, and pointing to active lawsuits, the trade group signaled it views unauthorized server hosting as a legal violation to be litigated rather than a preservation mechanism to be accommodated, even as the servers in question remain live and accessible for both Minecraft and Call of Duty. The hearing leaves an unresolved tension between publishers' legal and safety objections and preservation advocates' push to keep multiplayer games playable long-term, with the ESA's disclosure of pending lawsuits suggesting the fight over community servers is headed for the courts as much as the legislature.
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