These days I play my games wither on a switch or an emulator. I like physical games, and if i like a game I’m emulating I try to get a physical copy of it. One of the reasons I like having the physical copy is that it gives me a plausible reason to have the data. Even if I got it through alternative sources game publishers can’t complain, especially if the game is now defunct.

Which i think is part of the problem. Stop Killing Games is a thing for a good reason. If I bought a game, but the only way for me to access it is through dead corporate servers, and links that have been left to rot, why shouldn’t I pirate it? The company itself forced me to. Or worse they brought back their old catalog through a subscription service. Sorry Nintendo, im not paying five bucks a month to play the original Legend of Zelda.

I do miss the manuals. Warcraft had a beautifully illustrated booklet of all the units thst i read backward and forward as a kid. I think the modern digital only environment speaks to an ethos of exploitation endemic to capitalism. The corporate shills control production of the art of video games. And the artists and the people who consume that art are exploited for the sake of publisher profits.