Having the library from which to download the files again is the service. You don't get this if you buy Dino Crisis on the Dreamcast. GD burns in a fire? No more game for you. You're looking at a positive of the platform that doesn't exist if you buy the original disc, and then saying it's a negative that that additional (free) service can be lost through ToS violations or policy changes. Download the game, burn it to a disc, and you have the exact same physical thing you are talking about with buying a CD-ROM game from 1999.
It's
NOT a free service. If it were to stand as an archive up forever then sure, and if it included all versions they posted then great.
But GoG is just another steam. The only difference being the decoupled client and not using DRM.
So this is an ideological problem with the copyright system as a whole. That's fine, but completely extraneous in the context of the discussion.
Maybe. Maybe i have this stigmatism and belief, that commercially made products should be allowed to be sold or given away. We're talking VHS tapes or CD's or DVD's you once bought at the store.
Then i have a paralell belief that made copies should
NOT be sold, and instead are only given freely because the effort to copy said product was far less than the original, and also has an inferior lifespan (
and possibly technically inferrior in quality too, but that's media not games...)
So you pay money for something that has no physical form, you are told not to copy it and not to distribute it, yet it is functionally on par with a copy.
Also judges (though stupidly) have ruled against sites and companies that merely downloading something is on par with making a brand new copy of something vs how it's seen as on-air where you have to be there in the moment to consume said product and you can't save it (
and then the whole VHS ruling and them trying to outlaw VHS's and tapes).
What is a company like GOG supposed to do better to, in good faith, provide ongoing and restriction-free access to games which have not been commercially available in years? Before GOG released these games, you could play them via subscription service on the Playstation Network. Is the gaming world now better or worse now that GOG has made this option available?
This is why i said i'm unsure, as i'm glad the product exists. But i don't like GoG for their treatment of me, etc.
I'd much prefer if you could in theory buy discs of said game and have it mailed to you. Not burned, but pressed. CDs and DVD's are like 5 cents each to press, though you do batches of 10,000 at a time. So if i could ask for my 100 game library (
it's larger than 100 games, but for the sake of argument) to be sent to me, I'd likely pay shipping and they do everything else. Problem solved.
Would it be cool if GOG did physical releases? Surely, but they also have to make a profit to keep doing what they do and need to do what's commercially viable for them. There are companies out there releasing retro and indie games in physical forms. Those should be supported also. Nothing wrong with that.
So take the files, put the .exe on a disk and put it in a jewel case on the shelf next to your original CD ROM. What's the functional difference? That can't be taken away (barring theft or some kind of court order, I suppose) and can be physically traded.
Functional difference? Probably nothing.
Legal difference... maybe you forgot the FBI warning at the beginning of every DVD/VHS tape threatening to fine you for $300,000 for making or sharing copies of said content (
if you get caught...). And should i decide to sell content
i believed i owned because
i paid for it, and then get thrown in jail and my life ruined for naively believing i actually owned what i paid for...
The MIAA and MPAA have ruined lives for far far far less.