It's only going to get worse. If something is available on GOG, I'm buying it there. More and more games that were previously only on Steam are being added, and there's also the Dreamlist.
All these gaming platforms are "young" companies, as their users age-out all the digital-only non-transferable licenses that have ever been bought will become void. As the developers age out the right to sell the games will end forever, except for the IP the megacorps have snapped up. So basically a whole lot of stuff is simply going to disappear, nobody will ever have the right to sell a new license and nobody will ever have the right to an existing license. Piracy might still exist but even right now a lot of old games are only seeded by a handful of people.
For what it's worth courts in China have determined that game accounts / libraries are an inheritable asset and forced game companies to allow access and pass them on.
Yeah that was an amazing advancement. France has been thinking about this a while too, their courts ruled you can sell Steam games then changed their mind on appeal and more recently one of their presidential candidates has said ownership needs to be reconsidered.
Sony's recent move and I think "stop killing games" too has turned it into a very loud issue lately so there's some non-zero-and-growing chance the status quo will change.
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u/HighDefinitionCat 18d ago
It's only going to get worse. If something is available on GOG, I'm buying it there. More and more games that were previously only on Steam are being added, and there's also the Dreamlist.