When you buy a video game digitally, you probably assume you own it. That assumption, in most cases, does not match the legal reality: you hold a license, and publishers can revoke access to major features or remove the title from storefronts entirely.
NBA 2K25 makes that gap concrete. Launched in September 2024, the game is scheduled for delisting on October 30, 2026, with online services including MyCAREER, MyTEAM, multiplayer, online leagues, and virtual-currency features set to end on January 1, 2027.
Offline modes such as Play Now and MyNBA will reportedly remain available for existing owners after the shutdown. Even so, the most progression-focused and commercially prominent parts of the game will disappear for anyone who paid full price.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat representing New York’s 15th Congressional District, announced plans to address that situation with the Power To The Players Act. His proposed legislation would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations treating digital game purchases as durable ownership rights rather than potentially revocable licenses.
Games with online components would also be required to offer a functional offline mode once their servers shut down. Torres framed the principle plainly, according to reporting by Kotaku and Engadget: “If you pay for it, you own it.”
He positioned the bill as a return to the ownership expectations associated with physical cartridges and discs in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, when a purchased game generally remained playable without depending on a publisher’s servers. It is worth noting that physical media never guaranteed indefinite access to every feature, and legal rights around digital ownership vary by platform, jurisdiction, and contract.
Torres’s proposal aligns in spirit with the Stop Killing Games campaign, which has argued that publishers should not sell products that become unusable or substantially degraded when online support ends. Engadget noted the connection, though the campaign’s formal endorsement of the bill was not confirmed in available reporting.
Torres also suggested that successful game-specific protections could eventually serve as a template for digital films, music, and books. Those categories are not covered by the current proposal.
The Bill Faces Real Obstacles Before It Changes Anything
The legislation has not yet been formally introduced, and its path through Congress is far from certain.
The Power To The Players Act had not been formally introduced in Congress at the time of Torres’s announcement, and no cosponsors were confirmed in available reporting. Any introduced bill must proceed through committee before reaching a floor vote.
Publisher opposition is plausible given the potential scope, but no documented statements from major publishers were available at the time of reporting. Requirements affecting server operations, licensing structures, and post-shutdown support would represent significant changes to how the video games industry operates.
The legal terrain adds another layer of uncertainty. Following the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision overturning Chevron deference, federal agencies including the FTC have less latitude to interpret ambiguous statutory language independently. As Engadget noted, that ruling creates legal exposure for any rulemaking effort if Congress does not provide sufficiently precise authority in the bill’s text.
How the legislation ultimately defines terms such as “ownership,” “offline mode,” and “functional access” will matter considerably if the rules face an industry legal challenge. Those definitions cannot be assessed until formal bill text is available.
Torres has described the video-game sector as a starting point, citing the time, money, and personal progression players invest as justification for federal action. If the bill advances and survives legal scrutiny, he suggested, its framework could eventually extend to other categories of digital media. That outcome depends on steps that have not yet been taken.
