I fell down the lost media YouTube rabbit hole a couple of months ago while procrastinating on studying for my finals last semester. A video about dark lost media popped up in my recommended videos list, and I was hooked. A simple Google search will tell you that lost media is essentially media that no longer exists anywhere or media that has been completely forgotten. 

I’d never considered the idea of labeling media as “lost” before. After all, the internet is forever, isn’t it? Considering the myriad commercials, television segments, and other digital odds and ends that the incomprehensibly vast cyberspace has buried, I was naive to think that anything could last forever — even on the internet.

Recently, I’ve started to develop a peculiar guilt after purchasing digital games. It’s not the same ashamed guilt I feel when buying cosmetics in “League of Legends” or “VALORANT” but, rather, a guilt tinged with anxiety. 

When you primarily play games on a PC, most if not all of the games you buy come from a digital store, like Steam. Buying games on Steam is entirely digital, with no physical counterpart to keep on hand in case something goes awry with the platform. 

The lack of true ownership sticks to me like bad energy. I’ve always been someone who wants to physically possess everything I own. It’s why I’m so obsessed with collecting vinyl and CDs. So, the fact that I have hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars worth of video games that could slip through my fingers at any second is terrifying. The day Steam shuts down — though I do not think this day is anytime soon, maybe not even a day in my lifetime — will be a dark one. I think about it every time I open the application. 

What does it truly mean to own something? Sure, I bought all the games in my Steam library and I technically own them, but if the platform ceased to exist, so would my games. I would be able to find them again in physical copies and shitty online emulators, but the money I spent would still be gone and so would my ownership of the media. If these games can be ripped away from me at any second, it makes me question whether I truly own them in the first place.

What happens to purely digital games when their services cease operation and delist them from their stores? Dedicated fans will always find a way to download games and illegally upload them to the internet, but these pieces of media lose the certainty of a game with a physical disk that can be popped into a disk drive.

The gaming industry continues to push toward an entirely digital future. As we’ve phased out physical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray, gaming companies and retailers look to do the same. Recent releases like “Alan Wake 2” did not and will not have a physical release, remaining entirely digital. PlayStation 5 even offers a console option without a disk drive, since so many modern gamers seldom buy physical copies of their games.

When I bought my PS5 last year, it came with a copy of “God of War Ragnarök.” Tearing open the box, I was met with a bit of printed cardboard lying lamely at the bottom of the box rather than a disk — an activation code to be entered into my PlayStation4 account. Disappointment and irritation washed over me as I thought back to the days when physical games were the standard, not the deviation. 

Forbes contributor Mitch Wallace joked about the impending doom of an inevitable digital game rapture in his 2023 piece about the coming digital apocalypse — and I’m inclined to accept his anxieties. The digital age of gaming may be cleaner, removing the extra “stuff” lying around, but it sure does bring into question the meaning of ownership and the inexorable expiration of purely digital media. 

I don’t think that any games with an inch of influence will ever truly become lost media. Some games have left an indelible mark on the internet that will never fade. However, I feel for the games that will fade into obscurity over the years, consumed by a void of constant shape and noise. 

For the sake of game developers and players, I pray physical gaming never entirely phases out of view. Unfortunately, though, prayer can only take me so far. I fear the future we’re approaching is dominated by false ownership and a tipped balance of power toward the corporations that loan us their games.

Aubrie Cole is a sophomore writing about video games in her column, “Downloadable Content,” which runs every other Tuesday. She is also an arts & entertainment editor at the Daily Trojan.