The console industry has made its decision: by 2028, physical media is effectively dead. For those of us who grew up with games that lived on a shelf rather than a server, the trend is clear. We are shifting from an era of “owning” to an era of “licensing.” Your library is no longer a collection of assets; it is a subscription that can be revoked.
I’ve been thinking about whether we can push back against this in the PC and Linux handheld space.
I’m exploring the idea of a boutique publishing model that treats games as archival artifacts rather than ephemeral services. The concept is simple: ship indie games on high-speed, durable microSD cards.
This isn’t just about selling a plastic card. It’s about three pillars:
Physicality: Providing a tangible, high-quality object that serves as a permanent home for the software. Think steel booklet.
Portability: Shipping games as self-contained, DRM-free bundles that run on Linux and Windows handhelds like the Steam Deck or ROG Ally without needing a persistent internet connection.
Verifiability: This is the most important part. I don’t want users to take my word that the binary on their card is complete or secure.
The goal is to provide a public manifest and build log with every release. Using an open-source toolkit, a user should be able to independently compile the source code and generate a hash that matches the binary on their physical media bit-for-bit.
If the hashes match, you have mathematical proof that you have exactly what the developer intended, with no hidden telemetry, no “day one” server-side hooks, and no backdoors.
I’m not looking to replace digital storefronts. I want to build a standard for software provenance - a way to ensure that digital culture survives long after the original servers are turned off.
I’m currently treating this as an experiment. I want to build the tools for a truly sovereign library, and I’m looking for feedback from the community - especially those of you who have worked with deterministic build pipelines or packaging dependencies for cross-distro Linux compatibility.
If you’re tired of “service-oriented” gaming and care about long-term archival, I’d love to have you follow along as I figure out the technical feasibility of this model.