I just switched over to PC gaming since I trust Valve a lot more than I trust Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. My Steam account is 18 years old and I can still download my earliest purchase from 2005.
There are even better stores in this regard, like GOG or Itch.io. With those, you can just download the DRM-free installers which will work even if the store goes bankrupt tomorrow. Surprisingly many games are available, even some AAAs, not just indie stuff.
yes but GOG has recently started to not respect the DRM free aspects by accepting games that have restricted online multiplayer modes. Still they are better than most other stores.
I don’t think they ever had a requirement that every game have no DRM, and I also think that online games are obviously a temporary experience whose very nature isn’t compatible with the idea of DRM-free.
If they can’t ban players and bots they won’t survive.
Valve isn't really different, PC gaming is different. Almost all games are available via piracy, no matter if Valve still offers a game. This includes games like the recently unlisted Spec Ops The Line, where the barriers are entirely legal.
Xbox people have said quite openly that the releasing everything on PC is their game preservation strategy a few times.
And you can still purchase new games for PS3 on the console. The only thing you have to do is fund the account elsewhere since Sony doesn’t want to support payment security on the PS3.
Even if the backlash and reversal wasn’t there, you’d still be able to play your purchased games and I believe they were going to keep redownloading functional.