I spent a generation buying digital games and I kind of regret it. I love looking at my shelf of old games, even if I no longer have the means to play them. It’s a delight to look at them and reminisce—not just about the games, but also about my life and friends from the days when I played them.

Anyway I’ve already permanently lost access to many games as online stores have closed down. I shudder to confront the possibility of Steam not being around forever. But even owning the disc is no guarantee of playability these days. I’ve heard of a few games now whose disc/cart only partially contain the files and you absolutely need to download the rest of the game to play it. I greatly fear that in the future we will look back and find that much of this era was simply not preserved.