THE DISAPPEARING GIFT: WHY YOU DON’T REALLY OWN YOUR VIDEO GAMES

THE DISAPPEARING GIFT: WHY YOU DON’T REALLY OWN YOUR VIDEO GAMES

Imagine it is a few years from now. You are looking through your digital library to revisit a favorite game you bought during the holidays, or perhaps you are watching a younger relative try to boot up a gift you gave them years ago. You click play, but instead of the familiar title screen, you get a cold error message: Server Connection Failed.

You check your internet. It is fine. You check the publisher’s website. There, in a buried blog post, you find the truth: the servers have been decommissioned, the licenses revoked, and the product you paid sixty or seventy dollars for has been effectively erased from existence.

This isn't a glitch. It is the current state of digital ownership. However, a new piece of legislation called the Power To The Players Act, recently introduced in Congress by Representative Ritchie Torres, is looking to change the rules of the game.

THE DIGITAL GRAVEYARD: BEYOND NBA 2K25

When Representative Torres introduced this bill, he pointed to NBA 2K25 as a prime example of the industry's "planned obsolescence" problem. The game is slated for a server shutdown and delisting much sooner than most consumers would expect. But the problem goes far deeper than just sports titles. The gaming industry is littered with the corpses of games that consumers thought they owned.

Take the case of The Crew, a popular racing game from Ubisoft. In early 2024, Ubisoft didn’t just shut down the servers; they actually began removing the game from players’ digital libraries. Even those who had purchased the game a decade ago found that they no longer had the right to even download the files. Because the game required an "always-online" connection to function, the physical discs people kept on their shelves became nothing more than expensive plastic coasters.

Then there is the Overwatch 1 disaster. When Blizzard launched Overwatch 2, they didn't just release a sequel; they completely replaced the first game. If you loved the specific balance, maps, or six-on-six gameplay of the original Overwatch—a game millions of people paid for—too bad. It literally does not exist anymore. It was patched out of existence to make room for a free-to-play successor. These aren't isolated incidents; they are part of a growing trend where "buying" a game is actually just "renting" it until the publisher decides it is no longer profitable to keep the lights on.