What does it even mean to “own” a video game?

[Norion]

Wman1996 said:

Norion said:

I'd define it as having permanent unrestricted access to something outside of extreme circumstances like a house fire or home robbery. For ownership the real issue isn't physical vs digital but DRM since a digital game without DRM that has the files backed up on multiple external sources is the most secure form of game ownership out there.

And that's the kicker. Digital would be amazing with almost no faults if you could back it up. There are not many legal opportunities to do so. 

I imagine that'll change at some point. For now though I'm not worried about buying games on Steam since that is basically guaranteed to still be around 30 years from now with people in the 2050's still downloading and playing Half-Life 1 for the first time.