Power to the Players Act: The Bill Demands Offline Modes, Not Forever-Running Game Servers
By Indie Kings | October 17, 2026
Updated October 17, 2026: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) proposed the Power to the Players Act on October 16, 2026, a bill meant to make buying a video game convey ownership rather than a revocable license to play, with the FTC directed to act against publishers that kill access, per Ars Technica. The bill requires normally online-only games to offer offline modes rather than indefinite server uptime, and its text is not yet public, so enforceability cannot be assessed yet.
Image credit: House of Representatives, via Ars Technica.
What the bill does
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced the Power to the Players Act on October 16, 2026, per Ars Technica. Under the bill as described, buying a video game would give the consumer ownership of the game rather than a license to play it, including assurances that buyers can keep accessing their games for years after release. The bill directs the Federal Trade Commission to take action against outcomes that strip players of purchased games.
"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," Torres said, per the House press release relayed by Ars. The same statement promises consumers "the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer" the games they buy.
"I think there should be a simple rule: if you pay for it, you own it," Torres told Kotaku, per Ars. He framed the goal as a "restoration to the historical norm," pointing back to how most games worked in the 1990s, when a cartridge or disc in your hand was the whole product.
The NBA 2K25 example
Torres's announcement names NBA 2K25 as the case study, per Ars. The game launched on September 6, 2025, and is scheduled to become unplayable on December 31, 2026, because its servers shut down, per Ars coverage citing IGN. That is roughly 16 months of shelf life on a full-priced title, and the shutdown takes single-player story content down with it.
The Power to the Players Act directs the FTC to prevent future outcomes like that one, per the announcement. In other words, the bill is written against a specific, dated, verifiable harm rather than a hypothetical one, which is part of why the example built into the legislation's pitch.
Why discs did not fix this
The ownership problem is bigger than digital storefronts. Sony announced it will stop making physical PlayStation copies in 2028, per earlier Ars coverage, and the shift is already far along: Sony's latest quarterly submission reports digital downloads at 82 percent of full-game unit sales across PS4 and PS5 for the covered fiscal year, per Ars. Fewer than one in five PlayStation games now sells as a disc.
But the physical minority is not a safe harbor either, and this is the part most disc collectors miss. Many games sold on discs still require online servers to function, and end-user license agreements generally define the purchase as a revocable license rather than ownership of the media, even when the files sit on plastic you physically own. Patches have also made disc versions diverge from what shipped, so the disc alone no longer preserves the game as released.
That is the backdrop Torres's bill addresses, and it is the same backdrop that fueled the Stop Killing Games activist movement, per Ars, which has pushed for change on this front across jurisdictions.
Offline mode instead of forever servers
This is where the bill departs from its predecessors, and it is the detail worth repeating to someone who stopped following this debate. Earlier proposed legislation in multiple countries required developers to keep game servers running indefinitely, and critics tore into those bills' authors for not understanding what indefinite uptime costs. The Power to the Players Act takes a different shape: per Torres's press release, it does not demand that servers stay online, but instead requires normally online-only games to offer offline modes of play so buyers can keep playing long after servers shut down, per Ars.
Offline mode is a cheaper, bounded obligation than eternity. A publisher builds one working offline configuration, ships it, and then is free to sunset infrastructure. That is why this wording answers the strongest criticism earlier bills faced, and why the bill can honestly claim to restore the 1990s norm of a product that keeps working without a company's say-so.
| Bill element | What it requires (per the announcement) | What it does not require |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership vs license | Buying a game conveys ownership, not a revocable license to play | Does not leave EULA-style revocation in place |
| Continued access | Assurances of access years after release | Does not specify a fixed retention window in the announcement |
| Server uptime | Offline modes for normally online-only games | Does not require servers to run indefinitely |
| Enforcement | FTC directed to act against kill outcomes like NBA 2K25's | Does not name a private right of action publicly yet |
| Bill text | Not yet public | Cannot be assessed for effectiveness or enforceability yet |
The real fight: thin clients and an unbuilt bill
The offline-mode mandate carries its own technical trap, and Ars names it plainly. Some online games are engineered as thin clients, where the server holds the game and the client holds little more than a display pipeline. There may be no offline mode to switch on, because almost nothing of the game runs on the player's hardware. Complying could force developers to change architecture for some online games in very different ways, per Ars, and it is not yet clear a studio can comply at all for a game designed from scratch around server authority.
The legislative odds are also long. The full text of the bill is not yet publicly available, so its effectiveness and enforceability cannot be assessed, per Ars, and most proposed legislation never even makes it to a vote. Announcements are cheap; statutes are not. Anyone promising this bill fixes game ownership is ahead of the evidence.
One further shift sits outside the bill entirely: AI-era tools have enabled a wave of mass decompilation of classic and contemporary games, per an October 14, 2026 post by Simon Willison cited by Ars, which could reshape the preservation conversation even though such projects remain legally dubious.
Our take
In our view, requiring an offline mode instead of perpetual uptime is the first bill wording on this issue that treats developers as people with real cost structures, and that matters because preservation legislation has mostly died on exactly that misunderstanding. But we think the thin-client problem is the real fight ahead: if "offline mode" becomes the statutory phrase, publishers have every incentive to define it down into something hollow. We would watch for the actual bill text before believing anything.
FAQ
What is the Power to the Players Act?
A bill announced October 16, 2026 by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) to make buying a game convey ownership rather than a revocable license, with continued access years after release, per Ars Technica.
Does the bill force publishers to keep servers online forever?
No, per the announcement. It requires normally online-only games to offer offline modes instead, which is the change from earlier bills that demanded indefinite server upkeep.
Why does the bill cite NBA 2K25?
It launched September 6, 2025 and is scheduled to become unplayable December 31, 2026 when servers shut down, per Ars citing IGN. The bill directs the FTC to prevent future outcomes like that.
Do physical discs already guarantee ownership?
No. Per Ars, many disc games still require online servers, EULAs define purchases as revocable licenses, and patches have changed disc versions from what originally shipped.
Will the bill become law?
Unknown. The full text is not public yet, so effectiveness and enforceability cannot be assessed, and most proposed legislation never reaches a vote, per Ars.
How digital has PlayStation buying become?
Per Sony's latest quarterly submission via Ars, digital downloads are 82 percent of full-game unit sales across PS4 and PS5 for the covered fiscal year.
Bottom Line
The Power to the Players Act would trade revocable licenses for ownership and demand offline modes instead of forever servers, a genuinely different approach from prior bills. Its own example, NBA 2K25 going dark December 31, 2026, shows the harm is concrete. But the text is not public, the thin-client problem has no answer yet, and most bills never reach a vote, so treat this as the opening of a fight rather than the end of one.