Congress bill would make buying a game mean owning it
A new federal proposal would treat games as owned products, require offline access before server shutdowns and put the FTC in charge of the rules.
The Power To The Players Act has been introduced in the US House of Representatives, opening a new front in the argument over whether buying a video game should give consumers ownership rather than a revocable licence. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York announced the bill this week, saying it would give players stronger rights when a publisher sells a game that can later be disabled. 1
What the bill would change
The proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish rules guaranteeing that consumers own a game when they pay for it, rather than merely receiving permission to access it. That distinction matters because an online game can remain visible in a shop while still depending on servers controlled by its publisher. 2
The bill would also require developers to provide an offline mode before shutting down supporting servers. In practical terms, that could mean a publisher would need to preserve a playable version, provide an independent server option or take another step that prevents a paid game from becoming unusable simply because its online service has ended. 1
That is an ambitious requirement, rather than a small change to shop wording. Modern games often combine a paid product with account checks, live services and cloud-dependent features. The legislation is aimed at the point where those systems stop being a convenience and become the only way to access something a player has already bought.
Why Congress is looking at ownership
The proposal arrives as the industry’s reliance on servers and digital storefronts becomes harder for players to ignore. NBA 2K25 is cited as a recent example: 2K plans to remove it from storefronts at the end of the month and shut down its servers on 31 December, limiting how long its online-dependent features can remain usable. 2
The wider debate has also intensified after Sony said it planned to phase out physical PlayStation game-disc production in 2028. That does not by itself determine whether a digital purchase is fairly described as ownership, but it underlines how quickly the balance between a product and a service is changing. 2
A Pennsylvania proposal, the Protect Our Games Act, has taken a related approach by discussing an offline mode, an independent server patch or a minimum 25 per cent refund when a title is sunset. The federal bill would put the Federal Trade Commission at the centre of a broader consumer-protection framework. 3
Our opinion
The bill is asking a sensible question that the games business has avoided answering cleanly: what exactly has a customer paid for? A publisher should not be forced to keep every server running forever, but a player should not discover that a purchase was effectively temporary only after the company has moved on. An offline fallback or a clearly defined preservation route would make the transaction more honest without pretending that live services have no ongoing costs.
The difficult part will be defining ownership in a way that works for multiplayer games, licensed music, third-party technology and games built around continuous updates. Those details will decide whether this becomes useful consumer protection or an unworkable rule. For now, the Power To The Players Act is an introduction, not a new right: it still has to pass through Congress before any of its proposed safeguards take effect.