So that's why it smells funny!

That is a good way of looking at it, a digital archive for everyone that is virtually forever. No doubt when the current games are nearly 20 years old we will see the same thing happen with them.

I buy old games only here unless there are some games not avaible on GOG

I buy on GOG because of:

- compability (most important factor)
- DRM Free
- simple installers (for old games that won't probably get any patches that's a plus)
- Fair equal prices for everybody

In that order.

That's how i look at it, Steam/Origin/Uplay for modern games, GOG for old ones. When modern games are done being patched and played online they can be "archived" here and I don't mind paying a few bucks for that.

It's irrational to expect modern games, with all their online features, to be GOG style releases early on.

Well GOG is releasing several games day and date or every close to it. Like the PC version of the Alan Wake games or plenty of indie games.

It's very unlikely that this is true though. Look back 20 years at Computer gaming and imagine the same forward 20 years. It's highly unlikely any of GOGs current installers will even work on Hardware/Software without any tweaks. Sure, you could have an 'old PC with Windows 7/8 on it' from back in the day when Microsoft still existed, but you could do the same now with games from C64 or Amiga or early Windows days.

If GOG goes down for some reason that library backup probably won't do anything for you in the future.

What is more likely is that there'll be places, like GOG (hopefully) or other retailers that still work on updating old games when they don't work properly anymore. (or even more hopefully it'll simply become commonplace for Developers/publishers to keep updating their old stock because they can still sell, we can drea,)

Either way though, it will probably require constant updating to really have a library that lasts 'forever'.

Or some miracles of emulation.

Very true, but then you're back to fiddling again to get your games operational. Unless you expect it to be somehow added standard to whatever OS we might be using then :)

You can keep a legacy computer and maintain it, for one thing. For another I am guessing by the time Windows dies or transforms radically I won't care anymore.

I do agree "sunsetting" is part of software though. It's a shame game publishers don't do more to combat that.

Yeah, it would take some serious work to do a 100% legal archive.

If there was a legal site that done all the C64 & Amiga games I would be there grabbing whatever I could! At the minute I have a few discs I bought from HMV around 12 years ago with the Speccy & C64 games on them, Just keep updating ZXSpin and Vice to play the games, Amiga is a funny one with requiring the kickstart roms (1.3 is always the best for compatability) but its the whole legal thing with it.

Bit of luck though in the future we will see either GOG expand to even bigger heights or we will see more places like GOG building up a huge catalogue of the old games for future generations to come.

When I get considerably older my Steam and other gaming accounts will get passed onto my son and hopefully to his offspring and it will become a family tradition.

Hmmm... that gives me an idea. Make some stone tables, carve Steam logo on them, carve unredeemed Steam codes, either one per tablet or wall-of-text mode, carve drawings of the game characters or screenshots, bury for future generations to feel like idiots.

Hey guys, so those are some good prices for them games eh...

That was me actually. Sorry about that ...

Wrong. I have DOS game installations that I bought in the early 90s (DRM-free, mind you! Ok some of them may have manual checks). Today, those same DOS game installations work just great in DOSBox. Heck, I still have and can play all those self-made racing tracks I made for 4D Sports: Driving back in the day, because that same game installation is still there even on my newest PC.

As long as there will be virtual machines or emulators capable of running e.g. Windows XP, level software, I see no reason why current GOG games wouldn't work just great on them, not really different from running my old DOS games in DOSBox.

With e.g. Steam games that require the Steam client in order to run, that won't be possible, _even if_ Valve/Steam would still be around at that time. A virtual machine running real Windows XP, or similar emulator, will not help you at all because at that point there will be no Steam client which both runs on WinXP anymore, and at the same time is capable of connecting to Steam authentication servers.

So yes, with most Steam games, you will definitely have to rebuy them all again at some point, if you still want to play them.