In a press release announcing the move, Torres said that the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish protections for players. Among them is that purchasing a video game would give consumers ownership instead of just the license to play it. Games with online functionality would also require publishers to provide an offline mode for players before servers supporting online play are taken down.
“When you pay for a game, you should own it,” Torres said in a statement. “Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy.”
He added that a game that can be taken away by a digital storefront or gaming publisher at a moment’s notice is not a purchase, “It is a rental disguised as a sale.”
Events leading to the Power to The Players Act
In gaming circles, there are ongoing debates about what exactly constitutes ownership and whether a company can simply pull the rug on a game because it no longer wants to devote resources to keep it running.
Torres specifically used 2K — the maker of the popular NBA2K franchise — as an example of how gamers are made to feel powerless. On Oct. 30, NBA 2K25 will be delisted from digital storefronts. Online servers will also be shut down at the end of the year.
At launch two years ago, NBA 2K25 retailed at $69.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the All-Star Edition. Even after NBA 2K25 is delisted from storefronts, current owners will still be able to play offline modes. But online modes, like MyCAREER and MyTEAM, are notably where many players spend their time and money on in-game purchases.
“No consumer should have a game they paid for pulled out from under them on a company’s arbitrary timeline,” Torres said.
NBA2K25 is just one example of a game going kaput in recent memory. In 2024, Ubisoft cut off online access to The Crew, its online-only racing game, IGN reported. Concord, Anthem and Highguard are other online games that have vanished.
As for NBA 2K, players can now buy the newest iteration of the franchise, NBA2K27, which was released last month. However, it is common for some players to skip a year, or even two, of a sport’s game’s annual release if there aren’t any substantial improvements to gameplay or popular modes they care about.
