Why You Don’t Own Your Own Video Games Any More

Though there is absolutely no way for gamers to reverse the tide of dwindling physical ownership, there are at least means through which we're able to protect games, by way of active preservation.

It's fair to say that video game preservation is far more of an enthusiast hobby than it is any sort of official monolith, but there are numerous persistent, online resources which attempt to retain both physical and digital copies of older games. With modern fare, the legal issues simply become too great.

In that case, companies like Limited Run Games are doing their best to give a physical, download-free alternative for smaller indie titles which perhaps never even received an original physical release, ensuring they won't simply be lost to time in the event of a storefront exiting the industry or dying off.

Though that's not to ignore the dubious, and undeniably illegal, virtue of video game piracy as a preservation tool, also.

Beyond cutting the tether from player to digital storefront, it allows games to be played without intrusive DRM like Denuvo, which has often been shown to slow performance and render the retail version technically inferior.

There is very little that can be done for Games-as-a-Service titles, though, beyond enthusiasts keeping cracked versions of the game alive in private servers, as has been with the case with many long-defunct MMORPGs.

Even so, compared to music and movie preservation, video games still have a long way to go before they approach anywhere near the same level of regard and respect for their own lineage.

And yet as vital as maintaining the industry's legacy is, it's also important not to lose sight of the bigger picture...