Why You Don’t Own Your Own Video Games Any More
5. Digital Games Aren't Games (They're Licenses)
Steam has undeniably led the charge towards a digital gaming future over the last 15-ish years. Today, almost 100 million active users have libraries containing hundreds if not thousands of digital games which are accompanied by no physical component.
There's no denying the incredible convenience of being able to access any one of these games within seconds at the mere click of a button, except that without a disc, there's no way in which you can really claim to truly own the game in any capacity.
What you've purchased on Steam and other digital storefronts like Epic Games Store is a license to download and access the game - a license which can be revoked by the publishers at any time and for any reason without any guarantee you'll be refunded.
Though platforms like Good Old Games (GOG) make every effort possible to ditch meddlesome DRM and make provisions for players to have access to the game even if the platform folds one day, this a distinctly minority stance in the industry.
The prospect of Steam ever going bankrupt and closing up shop is difficult to fathom, but what's more concerning is publishers who decide to pull video games for reasons relating to expired rights or licensing.
Take Alan Wake, which was yanked from digital storefronts for almost 18 months due to the game's original licensed music rights expiring, an issue which shouldn't really be players' concern - and wouldn't be with a physical copy - yet absolutely is.
To be clear, anyone who had already bought Alan Wake could still download it, but suddenly the game had disappeared off the digital market for everyone else.
And sometimes things are much worse than that - take Konami removing P.T. from PSN even for those who already had it attached to their account, and the PC version of Tron: Evolution being rendered unplayable eight years after its release due to the DRM license expiring.
The prospect of games being pulled for one of any multitude of reasons and never returning means they may only live on through existing Let's Play videos, which is depressing to say the least.
This is without even getting into online-only games, for which ownership is rendered further nebulous due to the fact that the game will likely be closed as soon as it stops making money and becomes a hindrance to the publisher - e.g. any number of MMORPGs to come and go since World of Warcraft.