[behringer]

> for a depreciating asset that is eventually worthless.

And that's where you lose me. I have games from my childhood I still play. Some of those games are worth many times more than what I paid for them back then.

Video games are art, not a consumable you can charge by the hour for.

[hn92726819]

> I have games from my childhood I still play

I think they are talking about modern games that do not have an endless shelf life like older ones can. With always-on DRM (like the game mentioned in the article), or games tied to an online service (where servers inevitably shut down like GameSpy or Destiny), or older games purchased on a market that closes (like WiiU shop or M$ book shop recently), you effectively lose access to the game forever.

Of course there are exceptions like Battlefront 2 where patches update ancient games or emulators that allow playing older games, but this isn't the norm for PC games.

[dangus]

I’m not saying that I want them to be consumables that disappear from my library.

What I am saying is that, in practice, my digital game library hasn’t worked that way. Even the most egregious shutdowns (ahem…Nintendo) have left me with a way to save my purchases.

And even if I’m screwed over, I’ll still not feeling very screwed over versus the amount I paid and the enjoyment I got. Or even if I’m really screwed there’s probably a trivially easy workaround like emulation.