Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress

Title: Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress

美国国会提出了一项关于电子游戏所有权的法案。

The Power To The Players Act would guarantee buying a game means you own it, not license it.

“玩家权力法案”（The Power To The Players Act）旨在确保购买游戏即意味着拥有该游戏，而非仅仅获得许可。

Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York’s 15th congressional district in the Bronx introduced the Power To The Players Act this week. If passed, the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations that guarantee consumers ownership of a game when they pay for it, rather than a licensing agreement.

来自布朗克斯区纽约第15国会选区的众议员里奇·托雷斯（Ritchie Torres）本周提出了这项“玩家权力法案”。如果该法案获得通过，将指示联邦贸易委员会制定法规，确保消费者在付费购买游戏时获得所有权，而非仅仅是一份许可协议。

It’s increasingly common for games sold to require a connection to a server. Meaning that when a company decides to shut down those servers, the games often become unplayable. Rep. Torres singles out NBA 2K25 as a recent example. 2K will be delisting the game from storefronts at the end of the month and shutting down its servers on December 31st, limiting its playability.

目前，所售游戏需要连接服务器的情况越来越普遍。这意味着当公司决定关闭这些服务器时，游戏往往会变得无法游玩。托雷斯议员特别提到了《NBA 2K25》作为近期的例子。2K公司将于本月底将该游戏从商店下架，并于12月31日关闭其服务器，从而限制了其可玩性。

Concerns around ownership, the ability to play, resell, or transfer games have drawn attention recently following Sony’s announcement that it planned to phase out physical game discs in 2028. In a statement announcing the bill, Rep. Torres said, “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.”

继索尼宣布计划在2028年逐步淘汰实体游戏光盘后，围绕游戏所有权、游玩、转售或转让能力的问题近期引起了关注。托雷斯议员在宣布该法案的声明中表示：“一款在公司切断电源后就会被收回的游戏，根本不是购买。这是一种伪装成销售的租赁行为。”

The bill would not only give players ownership of a game, “rather than a license to play it,” but also require developers to institute an offline mode before shutting down supporting servers. That is similar to the Protect Our Games Act introduced by State Sen. John Kane in Pennsylvania, which would require companies to provide an offline gaming mode, an online gaming mode independent of the company’s servers, or a minimum 25 percent refund when titles are being sunset.

该法案不仅将赋予玩家游戏的所有权，“而不是游玩许可”，还要求开发商在关闭支持服务器之前建立离线模式。这与宾夕法尼亚州州参议员约翰·凯恩（John Kane）提出的“保护我们的游戏法案”（Protect Our Games Act）类似，该法案要求公司在游戏停运时提供离线游戏模式、独立于公司服务器的在线游戏模式，或至少25%的退款。