NBA 2K25’s Delisting Prompts ‘Power To The Players Act’ Targeting the FTC

U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres (NY-15) will introduce the Power To The Players Act on October 15, a bill directing the Federal Trade Commission to write rules treating every paid digital video game as a purchase rather than a revocable license. The bill is the first concrete federal response to the Stop Killing Games player movement, and Torres put NBA 2K25 at the center of the announcement. The game retailed for $69.99 standard or $99.99 All-Star and is set to be delisted from digital storefronts on October 30, 2026, with its online servers shutting down December 31, 2026, a little over two years after launch.

NBA 2K25 is the test case Torres put in his own release. The delisting was confirmed by 2K in late summer; once servers close, players who paid full price will own a $70 game whose most-played modes simply stop working. “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 in a press release. Kotaku first reported the legislation after a phone interview with the congressman.

The bill is the first concrete federal response to the Stop Killing Games player movement, which picked up mainstream momentum over the summer. The next inflection point is just ahead: Grand Theft Auto VI ships as a download code in a box on November 19 at a starting price of $80, giving physical-store buyers no fallback if Rockstar ever revokes access. Torres’ release cites the same generational shift Stop Killing Games has been hammering.

If signed into law, the Act would let players resell their games, a right that existed on every cartridge from the Atari 2600 through the Wii, and force publishers to keep enough backend running for offline features to work after servers close. The bill leaves out other digital media (music and movie libraries), but Torres told Kotaku the gaming-specific scope is a starting point: “I hope we can set a precedent that will be followed elsewhere.”

What would change under the bill

There’s a long road ahead. Torres’ release confirms the bill is being introduced, not yet co-sponsored or scheduled for committee. Most federal bills never reach a full vote, and big publishers are expected to lobby hard against restrictions on licensing. The first hearing is the moment to watch, not the announcement. For now, players who own NBA 2K25 still have until December 31, 2026 to spend the MyTEAM coins and VC they paid for, and the October 30 delisting is what triggers the “no new buyers” clock.

Our read: The bill is a multi-year lobbying fight, not a near-term fix. Two mechanics actually shape behavior regardless of whether the FTC ever writes rules: a first hearing would put publishers’ delisting practices on the record, whatever happens to the bill. The real deadline is NBA 2K25’s, which delists in two weeks and goes offline in ten. If you still play, the next two months are the last chance to grind MyTEAM, Pro-Am, and Park and move earned progress to NBA 2K27.

Correction (October 15, 2026): An earlier version included an unsourced claim about Sony’s next console and an unsourced statistic about federal bills.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report