No, you don't own a game just because you have it physically. Just because you chose not to read the legalese in the manual or in the game itself doesn't magically grant you ownership. Physical media IS memuch harder to revoke the license for, nearly impossible. This applies to all software, not just videogames.

Superdistribution was one of the earliest forms of DRM, invented in 1983. Even before that there were videogames that came with physical objects and codes the user had to input.

You're splitting hairs a bit here with Early Access vs Beta, but fair enough I should have specified that HALO 3 had early access. There was a multiplayer, unfinished version of the game available for purchase before the game was finished.

No one is saying that releasing unfinished products is good for consumers, but that happens both with and without early access. Look at Superman64 or Cyberpunk2077. Just because the dev chooses to slap a 1.0 version number on a piece of software doesn't mean it's a fair deal, and just because they use a 0.X version number doesn't mean it's a bad deal.

At the start of 2015, Steam hit a record of 8.47 million concurrent users. . Just a couple of months ago, Steam set the current record of 41.6 million. That's basically a 5x increase. For reference, the PS2, DS, and Switch EACH sold more than 150 million units in their lifetimes. Steam was just a tiny fraction of gamers back in 2015, and it's still only a small chunk.

The Australia lawsuit was NOT because Valve was refusing to give refunds, but because they did not have a written policy fully informing Australian consumers of their rights and did not have statutory guarantees that the goods would be of acceptable quality. The lawsuit itself between Valve and the Australian government for not following the full letter of compliance and having the correct legalese on the storefront, not because Valve was some sort of anti-redund advocate.

You're just going to call Valve charging for their services predatory? That's a bold claim. Is Valve colluding with other storefronts? Have they captured regulatory bodies to put rules in place that prevent new competitors from entering the industry? Have they started buying up their competitors to form a horizontal monopoly, or their suppliers/customers to form a vertical monopoly?

Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2 were both updated 3 days ago. Counter-Strike 2 was updated LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS. It's hard to imagine having a worse take than this lol.

TF2 had a long and prosperous life. It's 18 years old at this point. There are a few live service games (usually with subscriptions) that have survived longer, but TF2 had its run, and it was a good one. I bought it as part of the Orange Box and I absolutely got my money's worth and then some from it.

As for physical media - I don't know if you were around for it, but there was a period before Steam took over the industry when most major PC game releases had CD keys you had to input and validate before you could play the game. Do something the publisher doesn't like? The key gets revoked and you can't play the game any more unless you buy another license. There were entire underground communities devoted to cracking the CD key validations in games. Now you just use Luna or Steamless and call it a day.