Representative Ritchie Torres wants the FTC to establish regulations ensuring you can play the games you've purchased.
Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has announced plans to introduce a bill calling on the Federal Trade Commission to protect people's ability to own and play the video games they've purchased. The Power to the Players Act hasn't been introduced in Congress yet — but at least in spirit, it sounds like it lines up with the Stop Killing Games campaign, a movement lobbying for protecting game ownership in a landscape dominated by digital software licenses that can be revoked at a moment's notice.
The announcement for Torres' bill specifically mentions NBA 2K25, which serves as a good example of what's at stake. The basketball game launched in 2024 for $70, and is now being removed from digital storefronts on October 30, just two years after it was released. While games getting delisted isn't uncommon, 2K's decision to also shut down the servers supporting the game's online modes in December effectively means players won't own the same game they paid for by the end of the year.
The Power to the Players Act would direct the FTC to prevent similar situations from happening by making it so players own games rather than license them, and forcing companies to offer an offline mode if a game's servers are being taken down. In an interview with Kotaku , Torres said enforcing the protections would be a "restoration to the historical norm" that existed before games were primarily sold digitally.
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