U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres introduced a new bill called the Power to Players Act, which aims to change the legal and technical relationship between consumers and video games. Instead of treating a purchase as a revocable license, the bill seeks to guarantee that consumers own the game they paid for, with the right to operate and transfer it and to continue accessing it years after its release.
The move comes against the backdrop of games losing their functionality when companies shut down their servers. The announcement cites NBA 2K25, which launched on September 6, 2025, and is scheduled to become unplayable on December 31 because of server closures. The bill directs the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action to prevent such cases from recurring in the future.
From Licensing to Ownership
Torres said that consumers who pay for a game should own it, rather than receive a license that may disappear when a company decides to discontinue the service. The representative believes the bill restores what he described as a historical rule that was more common in the gaming experience of the 1990s, when operating a game depended less on the company’s continuing services.
The issue is not limited to digital copies of games. Even physical discs may require an internet connection to servers, while end-user license agreements typically provide for the sale of a revocable license rather than the transfer of actual ownership of the medium or content. The version on the disc may also differ from the version a player uses later after updates.
What Would Change in Practice?
According to the available wording of the announcement, the bill does not require servers to remain operational forever, but it would require games that normally depend on an internet connection to provide an offline mode, allowing players to continue playing after the servers are shut down. This could be complicated for games whose software architecture was built entirely around connected services or server-side functions.
If this obligation becomes law, some studios may need to design different game architectures from the outset, or separate the functions necessary for single-player operation from services that require servers. However, the bill does not yet explain how “playability” would be defined or what minimum offline mode would be required, because its full text was not available when the article was published.
A Broader Context and Open Questions
The bill coincides with a broader discussion about game preservation, including protests over Sony’s move to reduce PlayStation game releases on physical media. According to the latest financial report cited by the article, digital downloads accounted for 82 percent of full-game sales for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles during the relevant fiscal year, making long-term access to digital games an issue that goes beyond the preferences of disc collectors.
Campaigns such as Stop Killing Games are also active in calling for changes to industry practices, but the proposed solutions vary between requiring companies to keep servers online and providing local alternatives for operation. Large language model tools and specialized programming tools have also recently contributed to a wave of efforts to reverse-engineer and reconfigure old and modern games and software—projects that the source describes as currently bordering on illegal—which could change the software-preservation debate in the future.
certi.news analysis: The proposed change is not merely an amendment to sales terms, but an attempt to address modern games’ dependence on infrastructure that remains under the publisher’s control after purchase. The bill’s significance lies in linking the consumer’s right of access to a specific engineering question: Was the game designed to continue operating without servers? Nevertheless, its actual impact remains uncertain; the bill has not yet reached the voting stage, most bills do not become law, and the absence of the full text prevents an assessment of its enforceability or the scope of potential exemptions.