{"id":8934,"date":"2026-10-18T16:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T16:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8934"},"modified":"2026-10-18T16:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T16:46:12","slug":"video-game-ownership-bill-congress-power-to-the-players-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8934","title":{"rendered":"Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York\u2019s 15th congressional district in the Bronx introduced the <a href=\"https:\/\/ritchietorres.house.gov\/posts\/rep-torres-announces-power-to-the-players-act-legislation-to-ensure-gamers-own-their-games\">Power To The Players Act<\/a> this week. If passed, the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/video-games\/new-york-rep-announces-game-ownership-bill-that-would-require-consumer-ownership-rather-than-sale-of-licenses-would-also-require-publishers-to-keep-the-game-functional-after-support-ends\">guarantee consumers ownership<\/a> of a game when they pay for it, rather than a licensing agreement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">It\u2019s increasingly common for games sold to require a connection to a server. Meaning that when a company decides to shut down those servers, the games often become unplayable. Rep. Torres singles out <em>NBA 2K25<\/em> as a recent example. 2K will be delisting the game from storefronts at the end of the month and shutting down its servers on December 31st, limiting its playability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">Concerns around ownership, the ability to play, resell, or transfer games have drawn attention recently following Sony\u2019s announcement that it planned to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/games\/960160\/sony-playstation-disc-production-ending\">phase out physical game discs<\/a> in 2028. In a statement announcing the bill, Rep. Torres said, \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">The bill would not only give players ownership of a game, \u201crather than a license to play it,\u201d but also require developers to institute an offline mode before shutting down supporting servers. That is similar to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/video-games\/proposed-pennsylvania-law-targets-publishers-that-kill-digital-games-publishers-must-provide-offline-mode-an-independent-server-patch-or-a-25-percent-minimum-refund\">Protect Our Games Act<\/a> introduced by State Sen. John Kane in Pennsylvania, which would require companies to provide an offline gaming mode, an online gaming mode independent of the company\u2019s servers, or a minimum 25 percent refund when titles are being sunset.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/policy\/1013521\/video-game-ownership-bill-congress-power-to-the-players-act\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York\u2019s 15th congressional district in the Bronx introduced the Power To The Players Act this week. If passed, the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations that guarantee consumers ownership of a game when they pay for it, rather than a licensing agreement. It\u2019s increasingly common for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[39,46,74,75],"class_list":["post-8934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-gaming","tag-news","tag-policy","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Power To The Players Act would guarantee buying a game means you own it, not license it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8934\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress - 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