http://www.wetherobots.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2007-11-14-NotUnexpected.jpg

That's not really accurate. Streaming is certainly killing off DVDs and BluRays. It's just a years-long process, not an insta-death. DVDs and BluRays will be dead as a dodo in the coming years. It's only a matter of time. I'm not saying that's a good thing or that I want it to happen, just that it inevitably will.

From someone who remembers what gaming used to be, and how stores were full of beautiful boxes with lush manuals and extras...

DRM is what devalued games and continues to do so. Steam in particular has mesmerized people into buying games at greatly reduced prices, at the cost of control over the product they are buying. Worse, Steam has had a de facto monopoly over the PC gaming market for a decade+, so this way of thinking and buying is hopelessly entrenched. Other companies add on, compounding the problem with their own proprietary clients.

For those of us, like me, who want to avoid this junk and just buy bigger games DRM-free, GOG is basically the only place we can go. By the way, what we are asking for is not unreasonable. I will remind again that there was a time when retail chain stores sold shelves full of physical PC games, DRM-free, or at worst with "type in the code from page 2 of the manual" DRM which is nothing compared to what came afterward in the early to mid 2000s.

I would like GOG to offer more manuals, extras, and other goodies that they can harvest from the web (contents of a game wiki as an unofficial guide of sorts, et cetera). To replicate the more "complete" gaming experience that us older-minded customers continue to pine for. As it stands, I actually think the prices on GOG even for the higher priced games are an absolute steal because in most cases it is otherwise IMPOSSIBLE to buy and own the game anywhere else.

To me, ownership (continuing possession of the product I buy) is paramount. It is not necessarily antithetical to digital, as GOG itself proves; digital distribution does not have to include DRM, and does not have to lack all of the advantages of physical. In theory, digital can be even more advantageous than physical in that it can be more easily replicated, can be "made" into a physical copy (see the topic about DVD cases/artwork for GOG games).

In an ideal world, all of this stuff would live side by side and people would have the option of physical, digital, or outright streaming. The problem is that corporations have a vested interest in customers NOT OWNING products, and people fall for their schemes nearly every time anyway. It is easier to commit sunk cost fallacies and fit in with the herd than to stand alone on principles, particularly for people who haven't really thought through their principles yet.

That's a bit rose-tinted. Many games had disk copy protection. Which was really bad since you couldn't make backup copies and diskettes are pretty fragile. Most of my old Amiga diskettes don't work any more, so downloading the images and playing through WinUAE is the only way to go, even if I have the original hardware (and disks).

I looks like that currently. On the other hand, the streaming market is "diversifying" and nobody wants to pay for 3-5 services. I consider buying The Expanse on BD once it's finished since I don't want to pay for Amazon Prime when I already pay for Netflix.

aye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection#Early_ages

You just have to constantly switch between them and they'll shower you with free trials and discounts in order to win you back. ;P

That's the absurdity of these services, they always focus on winning new customers, not on catering to the regulars, which they take for granted.

Note, too, the rebirth of vinyl records.

What Steve Jobs et alia capitalize/d on is convenience. Just as PC gaming can be difficult (remember the tribulations of running games with HiMEM, VGA versus EGA, etc.?) and the console market was born, so too streaming is the "I don't care what it costs (me or the content creator/s) just give me the product" answer to laziness.

I note the price of movies and games has not decreased with (free) digital delivery (i.e., the zero marginal cost of duplication), and the revenue stream seems to stop at the distributors (starving the creatives) but I like to think there will always be a market for those who are not interested in renting their entertainment. Unless people stop buying and only rent there will always be a market niche to fill, however small. The worst result would be that ownership is expensive, but so it is for anything worthwhile (like property) and that means that quality will continue to be a differential in the market (nobody will buy crap when they can rent crap) which also points to the market segment surviving the current disruption.

Second-hand sales will keep the market segment alive, too.

The only roadblock is hardware; should the DVD player (or whatever) be discontinued, there would need to be someone step up to build a replacement device. But if the market is strong (even if it is small) I expect that will always be the case. (Apple was a tiny market segment in the decades before the iPod. They covered their costs with healthy profit margins and still kept a loyal customer base.)

Devalue in comparison to what? Market value is always the correct value, it's not like we have a baseline to compare the value of games to.