Digital Stores Closing, Games Disappearing
The digital future is, well, not really the future anymore. We are living in the digital present as most people are buying games digitally in 2023. This would be fine if we could trust the companies behind these digital pieces of content and the stores they are available on. But of course we can’t.
In 2023 we saw a whole bunch of digital games and online-only titles die or get their termation dates announced. We also saw TV shows and movies removed from digital stores as licenses expired and the folks in charge decided to move on and screw all their customers in the process.
Of course, it sucks if you spent money on a game and then can no longer play it due to dead servers. But it also makes it harder and harder to preserve video games for the future, meaning that decades of this art form run the risk of one day becoming inaccessible or unplayable. And while pirates, modders, and hackers can pick up some of the slack, it’s not an ideal situation at all.
