New US bill would make the games you buy yours to keep

A US congressman wants to change what "buy" means in gaming. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, has proposed the Power to the Players Act, a bill meant to ensure that paying for a video game gives you ownership of it rather than a licence to play it, Ars Technica reports.

What the bill would do

According to the announcement on Torres's House website, as described by Ars Technica:

• Ownership, not a licence. Buyers should have the right to own, play and transfer the games they purchase.
• The FTC gets the job. The bill directs the Federal Trade Commission to act against games that disappear after purchase.
• Offline modes. Games that normally only work online would have to offer a way to play offline, so they can keep running long after their servers are switched off.

Notably, the announcement does not say publishers must keep servers running forever, a demand that sank support for some earlier proposals because of the cost.

The example Torres's office picked is NBA 2K25. It launched on 6 September 2025 and is scheduled to become unplayable on 31 December because its servers are shutting down.

"When you pay for a game, you should own it," Torres said in a statement, calling a game that can be taken away "a rental disguised as a sale." He told Kotaku the rule should be simple: "if you pay for it, you own it."

Why it matters now

Game preservation has become a hot issue. Ars notes that Sony's latest earnings showed digital downloads made up 82% of full-game unit sales on PS4 and PS5 in the covered fiscal year, and campaigns such as Stop Killing Games have pushed for change in several countries. Physical discs alone don't fix the problem: many still need online servers, and licence agreements usually say you are buying a revocable licence even when the files sit on a disc. That is part of why Nintendo's stance on keeping physical games around still gets so much attention.

The hurdles

The bill faces a long road. Most proposed legislation never gets a vote, and because the full text hasn't been published, nobody can yet judge how enforceable it would be. Requiring offline modes could also be technically hard for games built around online servers, which might force developers to rethink how some titles are designed.

Online content can vanish in other ways too: Riot is ending League of Legends Classic's current run in January 2027, a reminder of how much of modern gaming depends on a publisher's servers and plans.