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Besides, if the "license" to use/play a title expired or was revoked, ANY actual use of it would be illegal and open to litigation - surely in the favor of the IP owner.
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$! 😂
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.
It's also on gog, after purchase you get an offline installer to keep forever just like a physical copy.
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.
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.