Survivor’s Log: If We Don’t Own Our Games, What Exactly Are We Buying?

There are plenty of reasons I buy games digitally.

My Steam Deck alone should probably make it obvious that I am not standing on a hill waving a physical game case around and demanding that everyone return to 1998. The same goes for my Switch. I own a mixture of physical and digital games for it, and if anything, the digital side probably outweighs the physical.

Digital distribution is convenient. My library travels with me, I can install something without hunting for a disc, and sales have allowed me to pick up games I probably would never have bought otherwise.

Digital games are not the problem.

The problem begins when digital becomes the only option while the amount of control we have over the things we pay for continues to shrink.

Sony has now announced that physical disc production for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will end in January 2028. Games already released on disc, or released before that cutoff, are unaffected. After that point, new PlayStation releases will be digital-only. Sony says the change reflects the broader shift in consumer preference towards digital media. PlayStation’s announcement can be read here.

I can understand the business logic.

That does not mean I have to like where it leads.

A Very Different PlayStation

There is something particularly strange about this coming from Sony.

Back in 2013, Microsoft managed to turn the Xbox One reveal into a lesson in how quickly you can annoy your own customers. Its original plans surrounding used games, online authentication and sharing created enough backlash that Sony had an extremely easy target.

PlayStation responded with one of the simplest demonstrations in gaming history.

How do you share a PlayStation 4 game?

You hand somebody the disc.

Sony’s own PS4 FAQ was equally clear. A PS4 disc could be traded in, sold to another person, lent to a friend or kept. Sony also said disc-based used games would not require activation steps or additional usage fees. The original PlayStation 4 FAQ is still available here.

It was an effective message because everyone understood it immediately.

You had the game.

You could hand it to somebody else.

Thirteen years later, PlayStation is heading towards a future where that option disappears for new releases.

The irony is difficult to ignore.

Apparently We Never Owned Them Anyway

The timing becomes even more awkward when combined with Sony’s current position on digital purchases.

PlayStation users have recently been reminded that digital software is licensed rather than sold. At almost the same time, Sony has been defending that distinction in court.

A proposed class action in California argues that the PlayStation Store’s use of terms such as “buy” and “purchase” does not make it sufficiently clear that customers receive a licence rather than ownership of the digital game. Sony has responded that its terms already make the distinction clear and that it is not plausible for reasonable customers to believe they are obtaining ownership of a digital game in the same way they would own a physical copy. Tom’s Hardware has a useful breakdown of the filing here.

Legally, the idea that software is licensed rather than sold is nothing new.

What bothers me is what happens when you combine the two positions.

Physical games are being phased out.

Digital games are licences.

And customers are apparently expected to accept that the thing replacing physical ownership gives them less control over what they paid for.

That leaves me with a fairly simple question.

If physical ownership is disappearing, why shouldn’t digital customers be given more control rather than less?

Steam Isn’t Quite the Answer Either

This is also where I have to be fair to Sony.

Steam isn’t some perfect digital ownership paradise.

Valve’s own Steam Subscriber Agreement says that Steam content and services are licensed, not sold, and that the licence does not give the user title or ownership of that content. Some games may also require the Steam client or an internet connection depending on the title and its licence terms. Valve’s Steam Subscriber Agreement is available here.

So I can’t point at Steam and say, “There. Valve solved digital ownership.”

They haven’t.

What Steam has done extremely well is make digital distribution convenient enough that most of the time I don’t particularly think about that distinction.

I buy a game. It sits in my library. I install it on my Steam Deck. I play it.

For everyday use, that works.

But convenience and ownership are still two different things.

And that’s where GOG becomes much more interesting.

GOG Shows That Digital Doesn’t Have To Mean Less Control

GOG is also a digital storefront.

There are no boxes being delivered to my house when I buy something there.

The difference is what I can do afterwards.

GOG requires games released on its platform to be DRM-free. Its Galaxy client is optional, and GOG provides offline installers that can be downloaded independently of the client. Its own developer documentation says games should remain playable regardless of Galaxy authentication, whether Galaxy is installed, or whether an internet connection is available. GOG explains its DRM-free requirements here, and its offline installer system here.

I can download an installer.

I can put it on an external drive.

I can make another backup.

If I want, I can store that copy somewhere completely separate from GOG.

That doesn’t magically erase copyright law or mean I suddenly own the intellectual property.

Obviously I don’t.

What it does mean is that my ability to reinstall that game does not have to depend entirely on whether the storefront still exists ten or twenty years from now.

That is a meaningful difference.

Microsoft Is Already Trying Another Approach

Microsoft has now added another interesting possibility to the conversation.

In August 2026, Xbox announced a new disc-to-digital feature for supported Xbox One and Xbox Series X games. Xbox Insiders began testing it on 31 August.

The system allows a player to insert a supported physical game into a compatible Xbox console and claim a digital entitlement. Microsoft says most Xbox One and Xbox Series X disc-based games support the feature, with eligibility depending on technical and licensing factors. Xbox’s announcement is available here.

That entitlement can then provide some of the advantages normally associated with owning a digital version, including access through Xbox Play Anywhere or Xbox Cloud Gaming where those features are supported.

There is, however, an important limitation.

This is not Microsoft permanently converting a physical game into an independent digital copy.

Microsoft’s own usage rules describe it as a limited-access digital licence. The entitlement remains conditional on continued possession of the qualifying disc. Microsoft can require the disc to be revalidated, and if the player no longer possesses it, access to the associated digital licence can be suspended or revoked. The digital licence also cannot be transferred separately from the physical disc. Microsoft’s Digital Goods Usage Rules explain those conditions here.

That distinction matters.

This is not the same solution GOG offers, and it does not solve every preservation problem.

But the underlying idea is still interesting.

You bought this physical game. We can recognise that purchase digitally too.

Rather than treating physical and digital libraries as completely separate worlds, Microsoft is at least building a bridge between them.

Steam shows how convenient a digital ecosystem can become.

GOG shows that digital distribution can coexist with DRM-free offline copies.

Microsoft is now showing that a physical purchase can be recognised inside a digital ecosystem too.

None of those systems is perfect.

But taken together, they make it much harder to argue that less consumer control is simply an unavoidable consequence of going digital.

Preservation Isn’t Just About Old Games

This is where the discussion stops being purely about which shop has the nicer refund policy.

Games disappear.

Servers close.

Licences expire.

Stores shut down.

Hardware eventually fails.

Sometimes a game becomes difficult or impossible to obtain legally despite thousands or millions of copies once being sold.

Physical media was never indestructible, but a functioning disc and compatible hardware gave you something important: a copy that did not need permission from a remote storefront every time you wanted to revisit it.

DRM-free digital files can provide something similar.

They can be copied.

They can be archived.

They can survive the storefront that originally sold them.

That matters to me because I’ve recently found myself returning to older games, and it’s a reminder of how important it is that those games remain accessible years after their original release.

I’ve spent plenty of time revisiting games from systems that disappeared from shop shelves decades ago. The idea that today’s games could become tomorrow’s preservation problem because customers were never allowed to retain useful copies of what they bought seems completely avoidable.

The technology is not the obstacle.

The policy is.

I’m Not Asking For The Disc To Survive Forever

Physical media probably was always going to decline.

Downloads are convenient. Publishers don’t have to manufacture discs, ship them around the world and hope retailers sell them.

I understand why the industry is moving this way.

And given how many digital games I own, it would be slightly ridiculous for me to pretend I’m opposed to it.

I’m not.

What I don’t accept is the idea that moving to digital inherently means customers must surrender control.

If you’re going to remove the physical copy, give me something meaningful in its place.

Maybe that’s a DRM-free installer like GOG.

Maybe it’s a system that recognises an existing physical purchase and gives it useful digital benefits, like Microsoft is now testing.

Maybe somebody comes up with an even better solution.

I don’t particularly care which approach ultimately wins.

What I care about is that the answer isn’t simply:

Physical media is disappearing, and you’ll have less control over what replaces it.

Give me offline installers.

Let me create backups.

Let me keep those backups without requiring authentication from a service that might not exist thirty years from now.

You can still have cloud saves.

You can still have automatic updates.

You can still have achievements, multiplayer services, storefronts and all the other conveniences modern platforms provide.

Digital distribution does not require digital dependence.

What Exactly Am I Paying For?

Maybe that’s the part of this whole situation I find most uncomfortable.

Publishers are increasingly comfortable using the language of purchasing when they want my money, then the language of licensing when questions of ownership arise.

The button says Buy.

The receipt looks like a purchase.

The money certainly leaves my bank account like a purchase.

But apparently expecting lasting control over the thing on the other side of that transaction is where things become unreasonable.

I’m not convinced.

Sony once demonstrated the benefits of physical ownership by handing a PlayStation game from one person to another.

It was funny because there was nothing complicated about it.

You bought something.

You possessed it.

You decided what happened to your copy next.

If that future really is disappearing, then I don’t think the answer should be to shrug and accept that we now control less.

Digital can be better than that.

We already know it can.

The industry just has to decide whether giving customers that control is something it actually wants to do.

For me, that’s the distinction.

Digital distribution is fine.

Digital convenience is great.

But if physical games are going away, I want the replacement to give players more control over the games they’ve paid for, not less.

Because one day the servers will go quiet.

And when they do, I’d quite like the games to survive them.