A new bill proposed by Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democratic US congressman from New York, aims to establish new regulations that would ensure that “buying a video game would give the consumer ownership of the game rather than a license to play it,” including assurances that they can continue to access the games for years after they are released.
The announcement names NBA 2K25 as an example of the problem the bill is trying to solve; that game launched on September 6, 2025, but is scheduled to become unplayable on December 31 due to server shutdowns. The bill, which is called the Power to Players Act, directs the FTC to take action to prevent outcomes like that in the future.
Torres published the following statement on the bill:
When you pay for a game, you should own it. Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. 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. Families in the Bronx and across the country save up to buy these games, and they deserve better than a license that can vanish at any time. The Power To The Players Act ensures consumers own what they buy and can keep playing long after a company moves on.
“I think there should be a simple rule: if you pay for it, you own it,” Torres told Kotaku in an interview. He called the new status quo the bill proposes a “restoration to the historical norm,” referencing how most games were experienced by players back in the ’90s.
A wider movement
The bill comes at a time when game ownership and preservation is a hot-button issue. Some consumers have been protesting Sony’s announcement that it plans to discontinue releases of PlayStation games on physical media.
In its most recent financial earnings report, Sony revealed that digital downloads account for 82 percent of full-game unit sales across PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 for the covered fiscal year, suggesting that less than 20 percent of games are still purchased in physical media form. But the argument is that continuing to offer physical discs is not just about satisfying a minority of players’ habits. Players hope it would aid with long-term preservation of games, which are sometimes de-listed from digital marketplaces and then become inaccessible.
It’s worth noting, though, that physical discs don’t solve the problem on their own. Many games sold on discs still require online servers to function, and generally, the end-user license agreements for both the games and the digital storefronts they are sold on make it clear that the user is purchasing a revocable license, not actual ownership of the media, even if the files are burned onto something physical.
There are also numerous examples of games where the version that shipped on the disc was meaningfully distinct from the version players ultimately know because of patches. So it makes sense that consumers and their representatives are turning to legislation like this to drive a change in industry practices.
There have been activist and lobbying movements, such as Stop Killing Games, that have been advocating for change on this front, but different proposed bills around the world have suggested different kinds of solutions.
Potential technical concerns ahead
Some prior proposed legislation on this issue has required that developers keep servers running indefinitely, leading to criticism that the bills’ authors don’t understand the cost of that. This bill appears to take those criticisms into account—but at least as worded in the press release on Ritchie Torres’ House of Representatives website, it could still run into resistance.
While the announcement does not say the bill requires online servers to remain online, it does require normally online-only games to offer offline modes of play so players can continue to play the game long after servers might be shut down. The way some online games are engineered, that may not be feasible, so this could require developers to take very different approaches to some online games’ architecture.
The proposal of this bill does not guarantee it will become law; it still has a long path ahead, and most proposed legislation never even makes it as far as a vote. And since the full text of the bill is not yet publicly available, it’s not yet possible to assess its effectiveness or enforceability.
There is also another elephant in the room: Large language models and specialized coding harnesses have recently enabled a wave of decompilations and reconfigurations of both classic and contemporary video games and software. These projects are almost certainly currently illegal, but the scale of the movement is such that enforcement may be difficult. It’s possible that, whether legally or not, these new tools will change the shape of the software preservation conversation in the coming months and years.
Samuel AxonSenior Editor
Samuel AxonSenior Editor
Samuel Axon is the editorial lead for tech and gaming coverage at Ars Technica. He covers physical and generative AI, large language models, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development.
