THE CRUNCH
Buying a digital game has never meant owning it, and NBA 2K25 is the latest proof. 2K removed the game from digital storefronts on 30 October 2026 and will shut down its online servers on 31 December. Because the single-player MyCareer story mode runs on those servers, it will vanish with them, leaving buyers of the $99.99 All-Star Edition with a little over two years of access to a mode they paid for. Owners can still redownload and play the offline modes, such as Play Now, MyNBA, The W and MyWNBA, but that is the ceiling.
The underlying arrangement is simple: storefronts like Steam, PlayStation and Xbox sell revocable licences, not copies. Delisting a game is the milder outcome, since existing owners keep it in their library. A server shutdown goes further, killing anything that checks in with the publisher's infrastructure, even single-player modes. The worst case is a revoked licence: after Ubisoft shut down The Crew's servers in March 2024, player reports described the always-online racer being moved to an "inactive games" section of Ubisoft Connect that no longer allowed downloads.
The physical fallback is shrinking too. Sony will stop making disc-based PlayStation games from January 2028, and Rockstar's boxed Grand Theft Auto VI, ahead of its 19 November launch, contains a download code rather than a disc, leaving nothing to lend or resell once redeemed. Nintendo's Switch 2 game-key cards likewise hold no full game and depend on an online check-in. GOG has gone the other way, offering offline installers that keep working without the store's permission.
Regulators have started to respond, though the fixes are partial. California's AB 2426, in force since January 2025, bans storefronts from saying "buy" without disclosing that customers get a licence, but it does nothing to stop later server shutdowns, and its disclosure rule is being tested in a proposed class action against Sony filed in June. In October, Representative Ritchie Torres announced a bill that would have the FTC treat purchased games as owned and require an offline mode before servers close. "If you pay for it, you own it," Torres told Kotaku. In Europe, the Stop Killing Games campaign collected more than 1.29 million valid signatures, but the European Commission declined to propose legislation in response, according to the report.