[0815test]

> they've never been cheaper

But that's the thing. They're not "cheaper" when you account for the fact that you're basically renting them from an unreliable platform that may go down at any time or perhaps deny you "availability" for unknown reasons. And games are actually one of the best cases since DRM-free platforms are reasonably well-established. Other sorts of media are a lot worse off from that POV.

[Pfhreak]

You are right that the games I buy have an N year shelf life. I estimate N to be 'longer than I'm likely to care about a game'.

I don't want NES cartridges around my house despite growing up with one. Nor an SNES or PS2 discs. Every year there's more fantastic media produced than I have time to enjoy, why lock myself into the past when I can pick up a pile of cool indie games and the occasional AAA title every year and just enjoy those experiences?

Who knows, maybe I'll be eating my words someday. I've been buying games for the better part of 30 years and it hasn't happened yet, but maybe you'll be right in the end. I don't spend a lot of mental energy worrying about it.