'If You Pay for It, You Own It': The Power to the Players Act Takes Aim at Digital Game Licenses

Every gamer who has ever clicked "buy" on a digital storefront has signed the same quiet fiction: you pay full price for the game, and what you actually receive is a license — permission to play a digital copy you do not own, revocable in ways the box on a shelf never was. This week, a member of Congress decided to say the quiet part out loud. Rep. Ritchie Torres wants a law that says if you pay for it, you own it — and his proposed Power to the Players Act takes direct aim at digital game licenses. Whether he succeeds is another matter entirely, and the honest version of this story includes both halves: a genuinely striking idea, and a very long road between that idea and your PlayStation library.

What Torres is proposing

Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres, who has represented New York's 15th congressional district in the Bronx since 2021, plans to introduce legislation called the Power to the Players Act, according to Kotaku's reporting. "I think there should be a simple rule: if you pay for it, you own it," Torres told Kotaku in a phone interview. Engadget's report on the announcement described the same core mechanism: the bill would call on the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations ensuring people can own and play the video games they purchase.

As outlined in the coverage, the bill would direct the FTC to create regulations protecting ownership rights for video games. Companies selling digital games would need to grant players more than just a license that can expire at any time, and games with online features would need to provide offline modes that still work even when servers eventually shut down. In his press release, Torres said that a game that can disappear when a company pulls the plug is "a rental disguised as a sale," per uGames' account of the release, in which Torres also said consumers must have the right to own, play and transfer the games they buy. Torres framed the proposal to Kotaku as a restoration of the historical norm — the way ownership worked through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, when a cartridge or disc you bought simply kept working — and as an affordability issue, arguing that families in the Bronx and across the country save up to buy these games and deserve better than a license that can vanish.

The example that makes it concrete: NBA 2K25

Every policy argument needs a receipt, and this one arrived on schedule. Kotaku's reporting led with NBA 2K25, the fifth best-selling game of 2024 in the U.S.: a little over two years after release, 2K Games confirmed it is pulling the plug. The game is to be delisted from digital storefronts on October 30, and by January 1, 2027 its online servers will go offline, making its most popular modes impossible to play. Gadget Review's account carried the same dates and the same sting: people who paid $70 will keep some offline modes, but the progression-focused heart of the game — the part they actually paid for — disappears on the publisher's timetable, not theirs.

The proposal also lands in the middle of a broader movement. Engadget noted the bill lines up in spirit with the Stop Killing Games campaign, the consumer movement lobbying against games being rendered completely unplayable when online support ends, and Kotaku traced the same lineage — a year of players asking, with increasing organization, why "buy" doesn't mean buy. Torres' bill is, in effect, that argument translated into federal regulatory language: not "stop shutting down servers," which no law can sensibly demand forever, but rather a simpler demand: when the servers go, the game you bought must still work in some real, playable, offline form — and what you bought must be treated as yours.

Games only — for now

The scope, as proposed, is deliberately narrow: video games only. But Torres has been open about the larger ambition. He told Kotaku he hopes the act could model rules for other digital media, and Engadget reported he suggested enforcing these protections could inspire calls for similar ones covering digitally purchased books, movies and music. Anyone who has ever "bought" a film from a store that later lost the rights to it will understand the shape of that argument instantly. Games are simply where the contradiction is sharpest, because games combine a full-price purchase, a hard dependency on company servers, and a shutdown date that can arrive barely two years after launch.

Why GTA VI makes this week's timing impossible to ignore

And then there is the launch sitting five weeks out like a neon sign for the entire debate. Grand Theft Auto VI arrives November 19 at $79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition — and its boxed version contains a download code instead of a disc, as Rockstar has confirmed. The box reaches stores November 12, the same day preloading begins, so that boxed buyers can download in advance exactly like digital ones. In other words, the biggest entertainment product of the decade will be sold in a physical box, at full price plus, in a form that is legally and practically a license redemption — resalable only until the code is used, playable only through an account and a storefront. Nobody is alleging Rockstar will delist GTA VI in two years; that is not the point. The point is that the industry's flagship product now embodies, perfectly, the ownership model Torres is targeting. If you want to explain this bill to someone in ten seconds, hand them that box.

The honest fine print: this changes nothing on November 19

Now the cold water, because it matters. The Power to the Players Act has not been introduced yet — Torres has announced plans to introduce it. Kotaku noted it would face a long committee process, and Torres did not confirm whether it will have cosponsors or Republican support. Even in the friendliest imaginable timeline, the path runs: formal introduction, committee consideration, passage by both chambers, a signature, and then FTC rulemaking to turn the statute into actual regulations publishers must follow. That is measured in years, not weeks. It would not change anything at GTA VI's launch, or for NBA 2K25's October 30 delisting, or for any game currently sitting in your library. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something — probably a license.

What it does change, right now, is the weather. A sitting congressman has put the words "if you pay for it, you own it" into the congressional conversation, attached them to a named bill with a named regulator, and grounded them in a delisting that is happening this month to a game millions bought two years ago. Publishers have spent a decade teaching players that ownership was a nostalgic misunderstanding. This week, the nostalgia got a bill number waiting to happen. The fight over what you actually bought is no longer just a forum thread — and that, even with the long road ahead, is genuinely new.