Comment by bigfishrunning
1 month ago
That's true, the CD is a license in the same way steam is. But practically it's different, because in many cases there's no mechanical way to revoke the license from that CD; it'll keep working after music rights expire or the game producer gets cancelled on Twitter or whatever. The game won't just evaporate like it can on steam
The main difference is that the license you get when you buy a CD is transferable, that is you can sell it to someone else when you are done with it, while Steam explicitly disallows this.
Transferable licenses create a second hand market which keeps prices in check, which of course publishers don't like at all.
You can just back it up though.