I haven’t played any of those, but it does look like it might be doable then.

Ah, gotcha. That sounds like it might work!

Anyone here played Shadow Gambit The Cursed Crew?

It looks lively, but I’m not quite sure how the game plays, specifically on a gamepad. The tags say it’s real time strategy, but doesn’t look like any real time strategy I’ve played.

I’d be interested regardless, but if it’s not a great on a gamepad I’ll wait until I have some time to game on my desktop.

“Always on” and similar extreme DRM measurements I believe are more of an issue compared to physical vs digital media. DRM free digital copies for example can have way longer lifespans than a physical copy (potentially “infinite”). But as soon as you add the requirement for some company server to be up, the game has a hard expiration date. But that’s an altogether different discussion.

I hadn’t though much about your first point, it is true that specially the input devices can change the feel of the game drasticly. I suppose people with special interest will seek out some of the classic gamepad clones that are available nowadays, but most people will just play with the console default.

The biggest issue imho is digital-only games that have been delisted. I’m not to worried about people not being able to play them to relieve memories since pirating them will probably be easy enough. But pirating does defeat the whole point of collecting I assume. I guess people can still assemble a full collection of physical releases only. IDK how collectors of the 3DS are doing it right now after the closure of the digital store, for example.