That is absolutely untrue. Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files. No serial numbers to redeem, no servers, no downloads or updates. Sometimes you’d get a booklet with the game that had some codes in it that the game would ask for on startup to make making copies a little more difficult, but that was it.
You’d literally have everything you need just on the CD, disk, or cartridge. We 100% owned the game and the system it was played on, and the only way to revoke that would have been to physically break into your house and steal it.
This whole games as services thing is about 20 years old tops, and it wasn’t even remotely approaching the standard for quite a while after that.
Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files.
I can do that today too. I can buy from gog, download the installer an burn it to a DVD. I now own a physical object with the game files that gog or the game publisher can not easily take away from me. I’d still just own a license, not the game, and the license can be revoked. They just couldn’t really keep me from playing the game even after it was.
You need to understand the difference between having something in your possession and having the rights to it. You never owned any video game, even in the days of cartridges, they were always licenses.
Meaningless hair splitting. I still have my entire collection of SNES cartridges. They’re still playable, and no one can take them short of robbing me. If my ownership of those games was limited to a license that could be revoked, that might not be the case.
That is absolutely untrue. Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files. No serial numbers to redeem, no servers, no downloads or updates. Sometimes you’d get a booklet with the game that had some codes in it that the game would ask for on startup to make making copies a little more difficult, but that was it.
You’d literally have everything you need just on the CD, disk, or cartridge. We 100% owned the game and the system it was played on, and the only way to revoke that would have been to physically break into your house and steal it.
This whole games as services thing is about 20 years old tops, and it wasn’t even remotely approaching the standard for quite a while after that.
I can do that today too. I can buy from gog, download the installer an burn it to a DVD. I now own a physical object with the game files that gog or the game publisher can not easily take away from me. I’d still just own a license, not the game, and the license can be revoked. They just couldn’t really keep me from playing the game even after it was.
You need to understand the difference between having something in your possession and having the rights to it. You never owned any video game, even in the days of cartridges, they were always licenses.
“Having” is not the same as “owning”.
Meaningless hair splitting. I still have my entire collection of SNES cartridges. They’re still playable, and no one can take them short of robbing me. If my ownership of those games was limited to a license that could be revoked, that might not be the case.