The future depends on how many customers this pisses off to look at "alternative" alternative options when it comes to games, both new and old, that aren't just different games or purchase methods.
There's a very wide cracking network for almost anything, even GoG, where eventually any game with enough popularity gets cracked and released to the wider world web, in part because a lot of the practices by the devs associated with the cracked games are just that fucking greedy some players/crackers go out of their way to crack the game out of spite rather than any intention to play the games.
To use both an older and currently "ongoing" game as an example, Stellaris came out in 2016, it's still updated as in about a month will receive it's 4.0 update yet again drastically changing how everything works. Originally the payment plan was base game and then DLCs which were split into general "content" and "cosmetic" categories where the former was actual game mechanic stuff like Leviathans while the latter was species packs. Content packs usually priced higher than cosmetic packs and various options exists for people to buy them either directly or through other distributors as well as waiting for sales.
At some point in the games history the shift to "seasons" was made as seems to be an ongoing plague in a lot of games now. However not only was the game cracked before that but it's still getting cracked whenever new updates come out so those who don't want to shell out quite frankly stupid amounts of money for a game at this point will continue to just use the cracked versions and potentially spread the awareness of such methods to others.
WoW is another example, there are not only quite a few legacy servers that run older expansion content like Wrath and Legion, but also a server which is only a year behind retail for a service game that usually runs an expansion for 2 years.
As most of the crackers and software involved are in Russia there's next to nothing the devs can do, similar to why a lot of forums based around porn leaks are also based in Russian since DMCA takedowns and similar actions mean sweet fuck all to the hosters there. This does of course mean further "Russia bad" from some but for their own reasons rather than whatever other $CurrentThing might happening in the news cycle.
All of this also comes with a lot of gamers simply getting off the ever moving development train and sticking to both games and eras preferred for higher quality products in a similar way to many tv shows and films now, but also related to how as people grow up they tend to stay relatively close to the music types they enjoyed earlier in life rather than indulging in newer genres and fads although at least in this case it's more about nostalgia and familiarity since both good and bad music is inherent to the field regardless of era.
So you get gamers going back to NES emulators or any other particular gaming era you can think of with games libraries so vast nobody is ever going to run out of things to do before the heat death of the universe, let alone a human lifespan. Modding also adds years to many games no longer officially active providing servers are something that can continue to be sourced.
While this doesn't all seem like much vs the current gaming zeitgeist that is itself slowly changing and not for the better from the POV of the various triple A dev studios. Games with multi-million, multi-year long developments are imploding so badly there are games either dying in the same quarter they were released or flat out cancelled mid-production because it's going to bomb that badly.
It's still going to take time for a full on industry crash to happen but the shift in response is already starting and in the end it will hopefully mean the current crop of corrupt devs are no longer pushing utter shit on a consumer base either too stupid and simp-minded or similarly corrupt to deny en masse the garbage they are being served and told to be grateful for.
The future depends on how many customers this pisses off to look at "alternative" alternative options when it comes to games, both new and old, that aren't just different games or purchase methods.
There's a very wide cracking network for almost anything, even GoG, where eventually any game with enough popularity gets cracked and released to the wider world web, in part because a lot of the practices by the devs associated with the cracked games are just that fucking greedy some players/crackers go out of their way to crack the game out of spite rather than any intention to play the games.
To use both an older and currently "ongoing" game as an example, Stellaris came out in 2016, it's still updated as in about a month will receive it's 4.0 update yet again drastically changing how everything works. Originally the payment plan was base game and then DLCs which were split into general "content" and "cosmetic" categories where the former was actual game mechanic stuff like Leviathans while the latter was species packs. Content packs usually priced higher than cosmetic packs and various options exists for people to buy them either directly or through other distributors as well as waiting for sales.
At some point in the games history the shift to "seasons" was made as seems to be an ongoing plague in a lot of games now. However not only was the game cracked before that but it's still getting cracked whenever new updates come out so those who don't want to shell out quite frankly stupid amounts of money for a game at this point will continue to just use the cracked versions and potentially spread the awareness of such methods to others.
WoW is another example, there are not only quite a few legacy servers that run older expansion content like Wrath and Legion, but also a server which is only a year behind retail for a service game that usually runs an expansion for 2 years.
As most of the crackers and software involved are in Russia there's next to nothing the devs can do, similar to why a lot of forums based around porn leaks are also based in Russian since DMCA takedowns and similar actions mean sweet fuck all to the hosters there. This does of course mean further "Russia bad" from some but for their own reasons rather than whatever other $CurrentThing might happening in the news cycle.
All of this also comes with a lot of gamers simply getting off the ever moving development train and sticking to both games and eras preferred for higher quality products in a similar way to many tv shows and films now, but also related to how as people grow up they tend to stay relatively close to the music types they enjoyed earlier in life rather than indulging in newer genres and fads although at least in this case it's more about nostalgia and familiarity since both good and bad music is inherent to the field regardless of era.
So you get gamers going back to NES emulators or any other particular gaming era you can think of with games libraries so vast nobody is ever going to run out of things to do before the heat death of the universe, let alone a human lifespan. Modding also adds years to many games no longer officially active providing servers are something that can continue to be sourced.
While this doesn't all seem like much vs the current gaming zeitgeist that is itself slowly changing and not for the better from the POV of the various triple A dev studios. Games with multi-million, multi-year long developments are imploding so badly there are games either dying in the same quarter they were released or flat out cancelled mid-production because it's going to bomb that badly.
It's still going to take time for a full on industry crash to happen but the shift in response is already starting and in the end it will hopefully mean the current crop of corrupt devs are no longer pushing utter shit on a consumer base either too stupid and simp-minded or similarly corrupt to deny en masse the garbage they are being served and told to be grateful for.