Let's imagine that the gaming industry pushes for strictly digital gaming and tries to remove physical. This would change many things that would be more prosperous for the publishers.
- People cannot buy used games.
- People could suffer hardware failures or losses of their accounts and require to buy the game again on a newer system.
- An old console/platform is shut down and you cannot access those digital goods any more.
All of which would lead to publishers/developers earning more money as people buy the games over and over again and they won't have to produce physical products saving on cost.
Now, let's imagine that the gaming industry pushes for strictly streaming games and tries to remove digital and physical.
- Gamers would have to pay for online on the platform.
- Gamers would have to pay for access to the streaming service.
- Gamers would have to pay for rental fees on that game and the server space it takes up.
- If the game is removed, there is a very good chance it is gone as there are no physical or digital versions.
None of this is good for the consumer, but it provides the publisher/developer more revenue. Developers won't have to deal with specific store fronts and could instead create their own streaming platforms, creating closed ecosystems that gamers would have to buy into and they would reap the profits.
Of course this is a very simplified view of some of the problems one may face with a digital/streaming world, but that doesn't make it any less of an issue that we, as consumers, should fight against.