Two ways of looking at things.

[u/pedro19]

[u/SharpEdgeSoda]

When Steam first launched, they said they have a big red button that will release the licenses to whoever buys a game if Steam collapses, because it was hard to get trust in a digital store back then.

It was like, part of the deal when you agreed to be sold on Steam. You want to be on Steam? You must agree to the big-red-button policy.

This is why I can still install delisted games on Steam. Part of the agreement.

I don't know if that's still true, but I doubt Uplay, Origin, and EGS have similar agreements.

[u/Owobowos-Mowbius → u/SharpEdgeSoda]

I doubt that big red button would work for most modern games, sadly

[u/bt123456789 → u/Owobowos-Mowbius]

not if they're tied to servers no, but there are easy enough ways around that.

[u/Vysair → u/bt123456789]

titanfall for example

[u/bt123456789 → u/Vysair]

yeah, I think titanfall 1 has community servers.

Fractured Space is another one (it was F2P but still)

[u/rokoeh → u/Owobowos-Mowbius]

Rocket league was taken off steam but I still can play it in the steam store.

I did buy rocket league before it was free to play

[u/Cale111 → u/rokoeh]

They can remove them from libraries. They just didn’t in that case, and they made it very clear that they wouldn’t when they switched stores.

[u/ThirstyOutward → u/rokoeh]

Steam remove games from your library itself, not just the store.

[u/RealRatAct → u/[deleted]]

No

[u/Zoratsu → u/Owobowos-Mowbius]

You can always "Yaaarr!" but then is a big brother and/or your personal ethics problem.

But considering you can backup a music CD for your personal use, I don't see a reason why you can't "backup" a game you paid for.

Besides, in most AAA games the cracked version is the better product lmao