Do You Own Your Games? Licensing, Access, and the End of Physical Media

Music went first. CDs gave way to downloads, downloads gave way to streaming, and what a consumer actually bought became a licensing question instead of a property question. Video games are now completing the same shift. Sony will end physical disc production for new PlayStation titles in January 2028 and is closing the PS3 and PS Vita storefronts. That forces a question the industry has largely avoided answering: what does "buy" mean when the product is a revocable license tied to an account?

Emma C. Smizer, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC, Christina Scelsi, VGBA President, Keith Cooper, Cooper & Iravani, LLP, and Noah Downs, Premack Rogers work through the legal framework behind digital game ownership. Coverage includes end user license agreements and their enforceability, the first sale doctrine and why it stops at the download, and California's AB 2426 disclosure requirements for digital goods. The panel also takes on delisting and revocation risk, transfer of digital libraries at death or divorce, and preservation work under the DMCA anticircumvention rules.

The discussion turns to the Protect Our Games Act and the Stop Killing Games campaign behind it. Proposed notice, patch, and refund obligations for server dependent titles show where California consumer protection law is headed on this issue. Nathan McKay of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC moderates. Attendees will leave knowing where ownership language in consumer game distribution holds up and where clients on both sides of the transaction face exposure.