Technically, we’ve never owned our games. Even cartridges are meant to be a license to the game. This is one of the many bullshit defenses that games manufacturers use to go after people making tools to dump carts to files and people who develop emulators.
It’s the same argument used by companies against DVD or BluRay ripping.
I get that physical gave us a lot more control over our purchases than digital, and subscription services have degraded that control even further, but I’m tired of everyone framing this as an ownership issue. At best it’s an access and control issue. The whole “you’re just licensing it” problem has been present for decades.
Technically, we’ve never owned our games. Even cartridges are meant to be a license to the game. This is one of the many bullshit defenses that games manufacturers use to go after people making tools to dump carts to files and people who develop emulators.
It’s the same argument used by companies against DVD or BluRay ripping.
I get that physical gave us a lot more control over our purchases than digital, and subscription services have degraded that control even further, but I’m tired of everyone framing this as an ownership issue. At best it’s an access and control issue. The whole “you’re just licensing it” problem has been present for decades.