The thing is for the most part we never owned our games and as long as they can get away with it they won't stop talking from us.

GamePass gets a "pass" IMO as you simply pay a low monthly fee to play a large library of great games, some of them day one like Clair Obscur:Expedition 33, for like $20 a month.  Compare this to having to buy them for $45-$80 EACH, it's understandable. It's like the Netflix for gamers that will pull older content as new content is made available. If you really love the game, go buy it so you have a license forever. I've done this for several games. If I want to own the game, I'll go buy it on Steam. FYI GamePass IS raising their rates up to $30 a month and getting a backlash from this.

It's also on gog, after purchase you get an offline installer to keep forever just like a physical copy.

Given that we saw for example 74% of Ghost of Yotei buyers choosing digital in the UK, we are now in a generation of peak stupidity and most people don't care about the technicalities of ownership as long as you hook them up to IV, slurping Mountain Dew and munching Doritos.

I bet you in 10yrs time these same people will cry what happened.

I'll just put this right here:

QuoteMicrosoft's AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, has stated that content published on the open web since the 1990s is considered fair use

Uhm... that goes both ways, M$! 😂

IMHO: the bottom line is that many IP owners wish to retain full control of their properties.

Re-releases & re-masters may often compete with earlier releases. However, if the IP owner is able to remove access to the earlier releases, THAT competition dissolves.

Given that studios & publishers are seemingly lacking in "new" creative effort or ideas, simply putting a "fresh coat of paint" on prior releases is becoming more popular.

Besides, if the "license" to use/play a title expired or was revoked, ANY actual use of it would be illegal and open to litigation - surely in the favor of the IP owner.