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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) announced on October 15, 2026, that he plans to introduce the Power To The Players Act, a proposal aimed at giving people more durable rights over games they buy. The measure has not yet been formally introduced, so its final language, cosponsors, exemptions, enforcement provisions and committee path are unknown.
Torres says the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to write rules treating a purchased video game as consumer-owned rather than merely a revocable license. The outline names three rights—ownership, continued play and transfer—and would require games with online functionality to provide an offline mode before their supporting servers are shut down.
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What the proposed bill would change
Digital storefronts commonly provide access through an account and a platform, while the applicable terms may describe the transaction as a license. That can leave a buyer dependent on a publisher continuing to distribute the software, maintain authentication systems or operate online servers. Torres’s proposal is designed to address that gap between paying a retail price and receiving lasting control.
In his announcement, Torres said, “When you pay for a game, you should own it.” He also described the proposal as a “restoration to the historical norm” and called ownership an affordability issue as game prices rise.
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The three rights Torres identified
- Ownership: A purchase would be treated as ownership of the game rather than only a permission that a company can revoke.
- Continued play: Players would retain a way to use the game after a publisher ends a service, subject to the final rules and any exemptions Congress adopts.
- Transfer: Consumers would receive a right to transfer a game, an issue that could affect gifting, resale or movement between accounts depending on the eventual statutory language.
Offline access after server shutdowns
The announced outline would require an online-capable game to offer an offline mode before its servers are discontinued. It does not yet specify how that mode must work, how much functionality it must preserve, whether developers could seek exemptions, or how the FTC would enforce the requirement.
Why NBA 2K25 is the immediate example
Torres’s official announcement uses NBA 2K25 to illustrate the concern. It lists a $69.99 standard edition and a $99.99 All-Star Edition. The game was scheduled to be removed from digital storefronts on October 30, 2026, with online servers scheduled to shut down at the end of the year—described as January 1, 2027.
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Kotaku, citing Circana data, reported that NBA 2K25 was the fifth best-selling game in the United States in 2024. That ranking shows the scale of a major release, but the announcement does not establish how many players would lose access to particular features or how much money consumers collectively spent.
Torres summarized his objection this way: “A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale.”
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Would the act make every digital game permanently playable?
Not on the information currently available. No bill text has been introduced, and the proposal’s scope is limited to video games as announced. The FTC would need to write regulations, and those rules would determine definitions, deadlines, technical standards and exceptions. A law could also face court challenges over the agency’s authority to adopt the required rules.
Contemporary reporting has linked that uncertainty to the Supreme Court’s 2024 rejection of Chevron deference, which removed a longstanding basis for automatically deferring to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute. That legal issue is a reported risk, not a prediction that the proposal will fail.
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Digital purchase versus physical copy
| Question | Digital purchase today | Physical copy | What the proposal addresses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can access be revoked? | May depend on account, storefront and license terms. | Usually remains usable while compatible hardware and the disc or cartridge work. | Ownership and continued play in principle. |
| Dependence on publisher servers | Can be required for authentication, updates or core features. | Varies; some physical releases still require servers. | Offline access before shutdown. |
| Offline functionality | Depends on the game and platform. | Depends on what is stored on the disc or cartridge. | A required offline mode for covered online games, subject to final rules. |
| Transfer or resale | Often restricted by account terms and storefront systems. | Can generally be handed to another person, subject to platform and regional limits. | A transfer right in principle. |
| Future hardware compatibility | Not guaranteed. | Not guaranteed; newer hardware may lack a drive or backward compatibility. | Not addressed by the announced outline. |
What happens if the proposal advances
- Formal introduction: Torres must file the bill, establishing its actual text and legislative number.
- Cosponsors and committee referral: House leaders would refer it to the committee or committees with jurisdiction, where hearings or markups could occur.
- FTC rulemaking: If enacted, the FTC would develop regulations through the federal rulemaking process. The final requirements could differ from the announcement.
- Implementation and litigation: Publishers, platforms or other affected parties could challenge rules, and compliance dates would depend on the enacted law and FTC regulations.
Until those steps occur, a storefront delisting or server shutdown remains governed primarily by the game’s platform arrangements, publisher policies and consumer terms.
Could it become a model for other media?
Torres told Kotaku that the idea could eventually serve as a model for books, movies or music. Those media are not included in the announced video-game proposal, however. Any extension would require separate legislative language or another rulemaking authority.
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What players can do now
- Check whether a game’s campaign or other core modes work without an internet connection before buying.
- Read shutdown notices for dates, affected modes and any required patches.
- Keep installed software and updates on supported hardware when a service is approaching closure.
- For a title you want to keep independent of an account, compare a physical edition’s actual offline contents; a disc is not automatically a guarantee of complete offline play.
- When considering NBA 2K25, verify the platform, edition, current inventory and the October 30, 2026 delisting schedule before purchasing.
The bottom line on the Power To The Players Act
Torres’s announcement would shift video-game policy toward treating a paid game as an owned product, with continued play, transfer rights and an offline fallback when servers close. It is still a proposal, not law. The decisive details—what counts as ownership, which games qualify, what offline mode must include and how violations would be enforced—will not be known until legislation is introduced and, if it passes, the FTC publishes its rules.
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