US bill would guarantee ownership of purchased games and require offline modes

A federal push for game ownership

Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat whose district covers New York's 15th congressional district in the Bronx, has introduced the Power to the Players Act, according to The Verge. If the bill becomes law, it would direct the Federal Trade Commission to write regulations guaranteeing that a consumer who pays for a game owns it outright, rather than merely accepting a licensing agreement.

The proposal also carries a preservation requirement: developers would have to provide an offline mode before shutting down the servers their games depend on.

The problem it targets

As The Verge explains, a growing share of games need a connection to a publisher's servers even for ordinary play. Once a company decides to switch those servers off, the titles often stop working entirely, no matter how much customers paid for them.

Torres pointed to NBA 2K25 as a recent example. Publisher 2K plans to remove the game from digital storefronts at the end of the month and will shut down its servers on December 31, restricting what buyers can still do with it.

The bill also lands amid a broader debate about digital ownership. Sony's announcement that it intends to phase out physical game discs in 2028 has heightened concerns about whether players will keep the ability to play, resell or transfer the games they buy.

In the statement announcing the legislation, Torres was blunt: "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."

Echoes at the state level

The federal proposal closely mirrors an effort already underway in Pennsylvania. The Verge reports that State Senator John Kane has introduced the Protect Our Games Act there, which would require companies retiring a title to offer one of three remedies: an offline mode, an online mode that runs independently of the company's own servers, or a refund of at least 25 percent of the purchase price.

A long road ahead

Introduction is only the first stage of the legislative process. The Power to the Players Act would need to clear both chambers of Congress and be signed into law, after which the actual rules would fall to the FTC to draft and enforce. The Verge does not report on the bill's prospects or timeline, and no vote has been scheduled according to the coverage.

Why it matters

Most digital game purchases today are structured as licenses, which lets publishers legally revoke access, delist titles and disable online services at will. If this bill advances, it would shift the default toward genuine ownership, forcing digital marketplaces and developers to either keep purchased games playable indefinitely or build exit paths, such as offline modes, before pulling support.

The legislation also signals growing regulatory interest in "kill switches" for paid software more broadly, and it arrives at a moment when the industry's largest hardware makers are moving away from physical media, the last straightforward form of game ownership. Combined with the parallel effort in Pennsylvania, it suggests that lawmakers are beginning to treat digital resale, transfer and preservation as consumer protection issues rather than niche enthusiast complaints.