Why Are Game-Key Cards So Controversial?

[Cerebralbore101]

Pemalite said:

sc94597 said:

you bought a Steam game in 2004, you can play it in 2026, and have been able to play it without being interrupted in these 22 years. On its original hardware, or on updated hardware. That's the value of digital. This would not be possible if PC were restricted to physical media. Physical games of that era are far less playeable now, without having to go through a bunch of work, than Steam. Hell, most current PC's don't even have optical drives. 

Sorry. That is blatantly false.

I can still put my Windows 98 StarCraft: Brood Wars CD into my USB external Blu-Ray drive on my modern Windows 11 PC and install and run the game perfectly fine, despite being 27 years old.

Likewise, I can still put my original Age of Empires (1997) CD from 2002 that I got in a Kellogs cereal box and run it perfectly fine from disk.

I have Commander Keen on floppy disk, which I can install from my USB floppy drive, that's a game that released for DOS in 1990, 36 years ago.

These are games that are older than Steam. And will continue to be perfectly operational for years to come.

PC is a platform that is contiguous, it doesn't have "Generational breaks" the same as console, besides OS changes, which can have work around's for backwards compatibility (I.E. DosBox), which exists regardless if it's digital or physical.

Isn't that all just via software emulators? No native playing?