So recently, Ubisoft has taken away a game on Steam and you can't play it anymore even if you bought it. I thought Valve assured us that we would be able to play games even if it delisted, but apparently this not going to be the case. Microsoft has DRM issues and Nintendo is the only one from the Big 3 still "actually" pushing physicals. However I doubt even Nintendo would continue for too long, and the industry is clearly going in the direction of digital. My motto is that there is a pros and cons for everything. I think modern gaming has a lot of pros, but at the same time there are a lot of cons. I think we can all agree with this, it just depends on whether you as an individual have more cons or pros in the current state. I hate to say this, but I think most are on the pro side, majority of gamers are casual and majority wouldn't even care if the future is digital.

Actually Ubisoft posted an update saying you can still play the games even after being delisted.

But yea, DRM is still very shitty though.

Oh ok, thanks for the confirmation. I only read a post on Twitter and some Youtube videos claiming it wasn't so my bad. 

It's still horseshit we have to look to find this information. A physical game is out of print no problem I still can find it used. Hell I been looking at Ridge Racer 7 on Ebay for PS3 new for $20. 

Nope, never heard of shareware, shown how much indies are willing to use it nowadays. For indie developers digital distribution is a Gods send, much easier to release and distributed their games worldwide. That's why so many games were never released outside some markets in past (many never released outside Japan)

I'm perplexed that you listed using big publishers (at risk of losing their legal rights) as a truly viable way to publishing. Seems something hard to hear if you're a small developer. 

From those games I know Doom and Wolfstein, which I'm surprised to discover to be indies. 

This is largely dependent on where you live and how successful was the game. Less successful games are pretty hard to find. 

The odds of a game being removed from digital stores are pretty much noexistintent. They getting out of print in other hand is the standard. It's in fact so common that right now the industry is living from remakes and remasters. It's a direct consequence of the absence of digital stores to preserve older games getting sold years later, with some upgrades in resolution and framers framerates they can be sold 60 USD again 

Digital is just much better to ensure a game can be found permanently... well at least in theory. Nintendo and Sony keep shutting down their stores and they should get more backslash for this. I mean... games purchased 15 years ago on Steam are still possible to find and download. Digital is not really the problem, the problem are console makers. It's not hard to understand why PC gaming is so superior.

Well, that's the thing, the name indies didn't exist, Doom had a normal sized team for the times. Doom was released under the Shareware model, meaning the first of three episodes could everyone copy for free and include on discs on magazines (remember, internet wasn't a thing everyone had back then). For Doom the shareware version contained the first of three episodes. At the end you got this message:

That was pretty usual, about a third of the game as shareware for free copying, so that the game reached a lot of people and paying for the full version. This often involved mailing actual money bills inside a letter and getting a disk back the same way.

Doom was self-published (Doom 2 got another publisher and released without shareware as boxed version), but prior id games including Wolfenstein 3D had one of the biggest publishers at the time: Apogee Software. So was it any less "indie"? Well Apogee also released their games via the shareware model and Apogee at the time were like 10 people. So also indie after todays standards. Because pretty much every game was indie if we apply modern standards. Lot's of the "big" game publishers operated from the garage of private homes. Because gaming was so niche back then.

And that is why todays indies still have it better todays than all game devs in the 90s, as you noted. They can reach a lot of customers via digital distribution. Payment these days can be made via online payment options, not mailed in a letters as dollar bills.

Gaming was extremely expensive back then. Adjusted for PPP, the games cost more than twice as much as games today. 

Until you factor in subs, passes,MTX,DLC, Premium editions,gold editions,day one editions. overslept editions,my dog sparky edition,late for the dentist edition,the game has 15 different currencies. buy these skins, coins,health packs, EXP boosters,cards,levels, go buy candy bars to get exclusive DLC (FF7R) different ISP gives different DLC (Avengers) lootboxes. Star Wars Battlefront II being basically unplayable unless you bought into all that shit.

I got a complete game back then.

Well this is just not true.  Just today I was looking for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 for PC.  Go ahead.  See if you can find them digitally anywhere.  You can't.  They have been removed from Steam and every other store.

Ubisoft has already delisting a couple of games, and more are coming very soon.