The Power To The Players Act directs the FTC to write rules that make a paid game an owned copy rather than a license.
Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York’s 15th congressional district introduced the Power To The Players Act this week. The bill directs the Federal Trade Commission to write rules that guarantee buyers own a game outright instead of holding a license to play it.
Torres points to NBA 2K25 as a recent case. 2K plans to delist the game from storefronts at the end of the month and shut down its servers on December 31st, which limits how much of the title stays playable. Sony’s plan to phase out physical discs in 2028 has also pushed ownership questions into public view.
Builders of live-service titles face a new planning constraint. The bill requires developers to ship an offline mode before they retire supporting servers, so teams need to scope shutdown paths at launch rather than at sunset. Games that depend on server connections for core play carry the most exposure.
Pennsylvania State Sen. John Kane filed a parallel measure, the Protect Our Games Act, which would require an offline mode, an online mode independent of company servers, or a minimum 25 percent refund when a publisher sunsets a title. Watch whether the FTC opens a rulemaking and whether Congress advances the federal bill this session.
What matters
- Rep. Ritchie Torres filed the bill this week, and it would apply to games sold with server dependencies.
- Studios that sunset servers would need an offline mode, which changes shutdown planning and cost.
- Watch whether the FTC opens a rulemaking and how Congress treats the Pennsylvania offline-mode bill.
Why it matters
Watch whether the FTC opens a rulemaking and how Congress treats the Pennsylvania offline-mode bill.
This GenAI News article was prepared in original wording using reporting and materials published by The Verge. Source reference: https://www.theverge.com/policy/1013521/video-game-ownership-bill-congress-power-to-the-players-act.
Drafted by the GenAI News review pipeline.