Rep. Ritchie Torres announced on October 15, 2026, that he would introduce the Power To The Players Act, a proposed U.S. federal measure that would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to establish consumer-protection rules for game ownership and play. The announcement also describes an offline mode for games with online features before their supporting servers shut down. Torres’s announcement
What the proposal would ask the FTC to do
The proposed FTC rules would protect consumers’ ability to own and play the video games they purchase. In practical terms, that goal concerns more than whether a game remains listed for sale: it also concerns whether buyers can keep playing it.
Offline play before server shutdown
For games with online functionality, the announcement describes an offline mode that would be available before the servers supporting the game are shut down. The proposed safeguard is tied to that transition: players would have an offline way to play when those servers close.
Ownership and resale are proposed goals
Torres’s announcement presents ownership and resale as aims of the measure, and Torres says consumers should be able to transfer games they buy. Those goals sit alongside continued play: offline access addresses what happens when servers close, while transfer and resale concern what buyers can do with a purchase.
The announcement is an intention to introduce legislation, not an enacted law. Its proposed protections do not themselves create a consumer right in force.
