TheNamelessOne_PL: 1. I am dependant on GOG servers and my hard drives.
2. Video games are just strings of 0's and 1's. Can you really, "own" those?
3. Will they still be playable on a computer from 2045? If a game becomes unplayable due to software changes, ot's effectively as if you didn't own it, at all.
1. This is no different than owning a CD or having a console copy. As long as you have the disk which can warp and fail overtime you own the game. You run the risk of not being able to get a new disk down the line just like you run the risk of not having access to download your files or lose your files completely.
With GOG you can infinitely copy the files and make backups whereas the console games you cannot, you can only buy a new copy.
2. This goes to a legal construct; you own the hard drive therefore everything on the hard drive is yours. And anything that's ever been written to that hard drive is yours and attributed to you. It's not about the ones and zeros it's about where they're located. That could be on your phone, in cloud storage, a server in Zurich or in a static bag in your desk.
3. Not true about not owning it at all. You bought it you used it just like if you bought a spoon and the spoon broke or got worn out. You throw away things that are broken, you don't drive cars after they catch fire, or the engines die, and you can't afford to fix them or know how to fix them. You get rid of those things and buy new. I'm on my 4th car, I've owned three cars before this 4th car.
The only way the games will not be compatible is if Microsoft decided to not support old libraries and somebody doesn't write or create a wrapper to render the old technologies in a new way. It's why 16-bit programs no longer work; it's why we once had a lot of trouble with old 3dfx titles. That said operating systems like Linux have remained compatible going back to windows 3.1 through emulation. Hardware is no longer a wall for that emulation. But you are correct in time these will no longer be playable, it's a great reason why you don't let your collection get too big.
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Personally, my faith is in Linux, I have a secondary drive I used to boot into a Linux environment and can emulate windows games from any era. I pretty much played all my 90s and early Millennium games to death and I'm happy with not playing them any longer and just focusing on more current titles. It's a paradigm shift, yes, I love having a large library and picking from that what I want to play at any time, but do I want to be stuck in the past or look to the future and enjoy what's now?
