How Conservative Gamers Could Lose It All

I was thinking about the Canadian trucker protests the other day. I remember how the Canadian government was so hellbent on stopping the protesters from sticking around in downtown Ottawa that it took the insane step of freezing their bank accounts.

Many were horrified that Prime Minister Trudeau had done this, but some cheered it on as an appropriate response to what they viewed as a fascist occupation. Since the money in the accounts theoretically didn’t physically exist — it was all ones and zeros in a central banking computer — he was able to get away with it and prevent the truckers from accessing their funds. Had they been able to use liquid cash in their hands, things may have gone differently.

I bring this up because I’m envisioning a potential universe where property rights are steadily destroyed by the proliferation of digital media. Put another way, you could lose access to something you legally purchased and should own the rights to based on the fact that whoever runs the service you’re using to get the product removes your ability to access it.

“Alan Wake II,” the upcoming sequel to the 2010 horror sleeper hit, was recently announced as an Epic Games Store exclusive — meaning if you want to experience the game yourself, you have to buy it on their platform and then play it through their game launcher. Short of piracy, Epic Games has a monopoly on access to that game.

Now,