On October 15 local time, US Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres announced his intention to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives titled the Power To The Players Act. The initiative aims to enshrine consumers' rights to own the video games they purchase and continue playing them even if the publisher ends support for the project. At the time of the announcement, the document is in the stage of a statement of intent: for the law to take effect, it must be officially introduced into the rules, discussed in committees, and passed in Congress. Nevertheless, the very fact of Torres's public statement has already caused a wide resonance in the gaming community, where the topic of digital ownership has long been one of the most discussed.
Three Pillars and the Role of the FTC
According to the announcement, the bill directs the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to develop specific rules to protect the rights of digital game buyers. The document is based on three key requirements that should determine exactly how publishers and stores must handle purchased copies. Torres emphasizes that the FTC will receive a mandate to create a regulatory framework that makes ownership of digital content real rather than declarative. This means the regulator will be required to ensure that user agreements do not turn into a tool for the unilateral alienation of an already paid-for product.
«Rent Disguised as Purchase»
In his speech, Torres sharply criticized the current order in the digital gaming market. According to him, if a person has paid for a game, it should belong to them: they have the right to play it and pass it on to others. The congressman called a purchased game that can potentially be shut down at any moment «rent disguised as a purchase». In his belief, purchased games should not be a temporary license: they must remain accessible for a long time after the developer company or publisher has stopped working on this project. This rhetoric reflects growing discontent among gamers, who increasingly face situations where their digital libraries lose value without their consent.
Servers Close — Games Die
Currently, most stores and publishers explicitly state in user agreements that the player is acquiring not the game itself, but the right to use it. Recently, cases have become more frequent where online games close their servers, and the purchased copy becomes impossible even to launch. Because of this, players are increasingly demanding that their rights be protected and that the ability to play after server closures be guaranteed. Every such story — from mass shutdowns of multiplayer services to the complete termination of support for individual titles — strengthens the public demand for legislative intervention and makes Torres's initiative more relevant than ever before.
Offline Mode as a Precedent
The fact that offline mode after server shutdown is technically possible is clearly demonstrated by NBA 2K25: it can be played offline even after online components are closed. Torres and supporters of the initiative use this example as proof that the requirement to ensure the accessibility of a purchased game is not a utopia, but a fully feasible technical standard. If one of the largest sports titles is capable of functioning without server infrastructure, then, according to the authors of the bill, a similar approach should become mandatory for all digital products purchased by the consumer with their own funds.
What's Next
At present, the Power To The Players Act remains a statement of intent. For it to become an active law, the document must go through the full legislative cycle: official introduction in the House of Representatives, review in specialized committees, public hearings, voting, and, if necessary, approval in the Senate. The outcome of this process will be known in the coming months, but the very fact that the congressman has publicly undertaken this initiative already sets a new tone for the discussion on digital rights in the US and could influence publishers' policies even before the law is passed.
