I had a sneaking suspicion but was too busy to follow up on it until now. Thanks for going the extra mile!

Yes, they are! When you buy something, it is yours! But you don't buy software. Software is usually licensed.

"But it says 'buy' in the game store!" you say. True. "Buy" makes you believe you will own the game. They would make less money if the button was correctly labelled. Also, "licensing" carries with it the notion that the other end of the deal needs to provide support and updates and so on. They don't want that, they want the best of both worlds. As you noticed, they usually get them.

Yeah, you're getting me. But it's not just that software is licensed.. it's that a mere part of it is licensed, a binary artefact that you can only do so much with. They are, in essence, telling everyone (without actually telling anyone) that no, you can't fix your game. No, we won't fix it for you either. It has bugs, all software has bugs, suck it you lowly gamer dog. Just give us yer money and be happy with whatever you get. Game won't run tomorrow? Too bad, haha, you should've known better. At least we got yer monies. *EvilGrin*

So, what you're saying is you want to "own" it the way you own your pizza when you pay for it, instead of experiencing it the way a play at the theater is experienced?

You were only able to just listen to music, watch movies or TV shows in the past. At some point they discovered hard copies for you to "own". You owned the actual vinyl, Beta, cassette, tape, CD, DVD, but never the actual content. If you didn't like something on it, you couldn't "fix" it. It was available for you to experience it if you liked it over and over again.

Why are you entitled to the software?

You want to experience or be entertained by what they made, they need to put food on the table. At which point are you entitled to anything concerning this?

Eh? So let's say I want to experience the game. But it has bugs in it and doesn't run properly or at all. Whoops. Fuck me, think the devs. Nobody is entitled to have the game fixed, think the devs. They already got the money.

That's why software is so different at least as compared to non-DRM'd music or movies. They don't bit rot at all the same (and you can make bit perfect copies, do format conversions, etc.).

So your problem all along was the bugs? Read user/reviewer reviews before-hand. Or support indies. Avoid developers known for testing insufficiently. Whar's with the drama? "They're gonna kill the poor woman."

Deleted

No, that's not true. That's impossible!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl-KGn9dNK0

This may come off as a bit of a tangent, but here are my problems with reviews (games and otherwise).

First, if everyone waited for the reviews, no sales would be made. Then, well, you can never know if a review was made by the cousin of one of the developers.
Not every setup is the same and not everyone enjoys the same things. Yeah, we all despise bugs but what about game balance? Or good music?

With non-software items by the time you get enough good reviews and you can measure its reliability, the model is out of production and replace by another model. With software you have there to deal with support. How are updates being handled? Are they coming to GOG? Will an update break something?

We are already used to navigate this world with its pitfalls that we often times forget that things could be better.

Op is about 1,000 times correct.