US Rep proposes bill to give video game buyers "ownership," not "a license"

A bill introduced by Representative Ritchie Torres, called the Power to Players Act, would change how consumers buy video games by treating purchases as ownership rather than revocable licenses and directing the FTC to prevent games from becoming permanently inaccessible. The proposal cites NBA 2K25’s planned server shutdown as an example and promises rights to own, play, and transfer purchased games. It responds to a wider preservation crisis driven by the industry’s shift to digital sales - Sony reports digital downloads are 82% of PlayStation full-game sales - and by decisions to discontinue physical releases. Activists and advocacy groups press for legislative fixes because discs and user agreements often fail to preserve playability: many boxed games depend on online servers, and post-release patches can make shipped versions meaningfully different.

The proposal avoids a blunt mandate to keep servers running forever by requiring online-only titles to offer offline modes so players retain access after servers shut down, but that requirement creates substantial technical and cost challenges for games engineered around persistent online services. The bill’s full text is not yet public and it faces a long, uncertain path through Congress. Meanwhile, advances in large language models and automated tooling have accelerated decompilation and reconfiguration of games and software, introducing an enforcement and preservation complication that may reshape how access and archival efforts proceed.