Yet the dangers of all-digital still remain unseen to many.

The entire concept was bizarre. All they needed to do was hire a team to bring the Warcraft 3 content into the Starcraft 2 engine, and leave the old game alone. Instead someone pitched "play them both at the same time" as if 2d and 3d games can work the same way like Starcraft remastered. I was pretty horrified when they announced it 1.5 years ago.

The new game was dragged down by the old software engine and deciding to keep cross play between a 2002 engine and a 2020 game. Stupid. I think they got misled by all the Crash Bandicoot type remasters into thinking this was a good idea.

This sounds like one of the biggest screwups in the gaming industry on a relatively high level in a long, long time. Just wow.

It's not like digital automatically means anti-consumer practices. The danger is less the format and more the people in charge being greedy idiots.

Yes, but the thing is the people in charge are the people in charge and they control the strings, while they have no sway over whether or not my cartridge continues to work. The perfect world wouldn't have people in charge of the digital distribution system, but that's not going to happen.

Yeah, but that doesn't put Digital as being lesser by default. The format is fine, it's the people who are not. The people are the core and only issue here, not the format itself, like there is no spinning around the fact that the format itself isn't sentient, but the people who have said power to muck around with said format do, ergo, it's only the people that pose the problem, not the format. 

Like any time we see a game ripped from a store, it's primarily down to contract expiry, which is, you guessed it, a people issue, someone basically making up a rule, that either requires more money up front, or they pull said product, which again, is a people issue (greed) and not the format itself. I will always blame the person who made said contract or made a bad decision to pull said game or deny refunds, not the format. 

I'm just really, really tired of a bygone era combing back, shambling along, trying to assert that the way forward is still somehow worse off (it really isn't, because like it or not, plastic is finite and we're supposed to be using less of it). 

True, digital format is easier for the corrupt to take advantage of. In this case though, even if you have the disc for Warcraft 3, you can't go online without the Reforged update. It's still playable but a significant chunk of content is now lost.

The 'people' being what they are is a constant factor, is what I'm saying. They're not going to change, which means a digital-only future controlled by these people is a danger. I've said multiple times in various threads over the years that personally I'm not against Netflix-style renting services or whatever, but full priced single licence purchases through publisher controlled clients is effectively enslaving yourself. If that would become the only way how games are distributed in the future, you can kiss any fairness goodbye. There's proof of this time and time again, like now with the old Warcraft 3 being blocked in favour of something else, 'just because'.

Which is scummy. That begins with multiplayer modes and the like being controlled by dedicated servers instead of old-school peer-to-peer. But that's another story. 

Yeah, and this is why said people either ened to be removed, or new laws need to be put in place, to minimise this sort of thing being caused by aid people who remove said games/refunds.