In June of this year, the Resident Evil community was abuzz when a tweet from Gematsu revealed that the 1996 original had been rated for PC in Europe. This was significant, insomuch there hadn’t been a PC release since its initial run under a previous rating system, suggesting that something big was in the pipeline. Though it may have been a false alarm that demanded caution, we couldn’t help but speculate the potential meaning of this development.

The popular consensus was that Capcom were jumping on the revival bandwagon, and on the threshold of revealing a Resident Evil classics collection, in the same vein as Konami recently had with Metal Gear Solid — or perchance even Aspyr’s remastered Tomb Raider compilation, complete with updated visuals and quality-of-life improvements.

And so, we waited anxiously. There were misfires, of course, such as misguided prognostications that that week’s Nintendo Direct would be the moment of truth, but thankfully, we were not left in the dark for long. Later that month, we learnt that the platform would in fact be GOG (formerly known as Good Old Games).

Indeed, we were receiving a modern PC port of Resident Evil as we had so hoped, and better still, the complete PlayStation trilogy was locked in, with RE2 and RE3 to arrive at a later date.

Survival horror enthusiasts were elated for the most part, though there were some detractors who voiced their disapproval of the medium. Many wanted these titles to hit home console storefronts — the Switch’s portability offering a particularly attractive option for zombies on the go — while others would have rather received their bounty on Steam.

Admittedly, when the PC rating had first surfaced, I had earnestly been hoping for a Steam edition myself. The primary reason for this is continuity; Valve’s intuitive launcher is the platform where I play all of my Resident Evil games from, complete with achievements, a robust community board, consistent controller integration, game progress comparisons, and all of the usual bells and whistles of the modern era.

I’d heard of GOG before, but never considered trying it, on the mere basis that I preferred to have all of my games in the one place. It’s a simplistic viewpoint, but I’m a simple fellow, you see — I’ll go with what I know until I’m forced into an alternative.

But of course, if GOG was the only gig in town, I was going to acclimate. So I merrily dropped my funds into the bundle, and explored the world of Good Old Games. You can fire up your games via the GOG Galaxy launcher, if you so desire, but most intriguingly, you can simply install the game to your hard drive, DRM-free.

I won’t profess to understand the specifics of digital rights management, but the shorthand version is that it allows the original copyright owner to limit distribution of their intellectual property. This prevents unsolicited copying or sharing of said property, which is fair enough — but much more prickly, it also allows the copyright holders to “set expiry dates on media”.

Digital ownership has long been the norm on PC, and is fast gaining traction on home consoles, too. It offers convenience and immediacy; no longer do you have to swap physical media in and out, or even venture to a brick-and-mortar store to purchase it in the first place. You can effectively arm yourself with a library of games, without concerns of clutter or potential deterioration.

On occasion, individual items will get pulled from the digital storefront for whatever reason. Resident Evil’s own Operation Raccoon City, for example, can no longer be purchased on Steam as a result of issues with the outdated Games for Windows LIVE system. In 2021, the asymmetrical multiplayer game Dead by Daylight removed content related to Netflix’s Stranger Things, supposedly as a result of the license expiring.

It wasn’t so much of an issue, because existing purchases would be honoured. If you were the proud owner of a Demigorgon prior to the cutoff date, you could still wield it in the aftermath. But this is not always the case.

Way back in the days when iTunes was king, I bought the film White Men Can’t Jump. I can’t remember, why, exactly, I needed to own it outright as opposed to just renting it. I guess it delighted me so much at the time that I needed an option to watch Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson exchange barbs on the basketball court whenever I so desired.

2013 was a different time, man. The heart wanted what it wanted.

So you can appreciate my dismay some years later when I navigated my library to find the purchase missing entirely. This was becoming disturbingly commonplace as copyrights changed hands and storefronts lost their rights to distribute content, effectively putting your legally purchased copy at the mercy of corporate shenanigans.

This injustice has since been rectified, and I can now enjoy White Men Can’t Jump at my leisure on Apple TV, alongside the handful of South Park and Simpsons episodes I splurged on over the years. Fuck yeah, it’s hard goddamn work being this good. But the damage had been done, and I’ve been too spooked to ever buy a digital copy of a movie or TV show since. Nor do I purchase music nowadays, instead settling on Spotify’s subscription-based surface, and taking what comes if and when it does.

Circling back to Steam, I wonder whether I’ll ever fall victim to the same fate. It does offer an offline mode as a temporary means of playing games without the need for a consistent internet connection, but once again, based on the mandates of DRM, you do not own whatever you buy; merely the right to access it.

Some games even require you to log back in every few weeks as a precaution, and gaming as a whole is becoming frustratingly tethered to the need for constant internet access. And no, this is not a new issue.

I am a self-professed fanatic of Resident Evil, and I have purchased 15 RE games on Steam, alongside some DLC for select titles. Were Valve to ever shutter its services (not at all realistic at present, but theoretically plausible), I would lose access to all but two of those games; Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil 0, which I also own on the Switch.

It’s snakebitten behaviour, future-proofing for a scenario that may never even happen, but it’s commonplace amongst gamers. Some cite this as a valid excuse for emulation, which is a slippery slope that renders ownership and entitlement as subjective. For every person who legitimately strives to conserve lost media, there are others who believe it’s their inherent right to emulate new releases — exacerbated when major media outlets outright celebrate such theft until they’re forced to hastily retract their original stance.

Sorry, but I don’t buy the notion that “Kotaku does not promote or encourage piracy” when the original article closed with the glowing endorsement, “Thank God for pirates, emulators, modders, and hackers.”

Own your editiorial fuckup, as numerous as those may be.

Anyhow, this all goes to say that I want to support developers and publishers by not giving into the temptation that comes with emulation, but at the same time, I don’t want that trust to be betrayed when my legitimate purchases are yanked from my library. Valve is a reputable company, and they haven’t pulled such a stunt on me yet, but I didn’t anticipate Apple would, either.

Thanks to GOG, I have my classic Resident Evil games stored safe and sound, forevermore. Short of some kind of technological breakdown where PCs become antiquated, I won’t have to worry about logging on someday to find them purloined overnight with the cruel stealth of a cat burglar.

Regardless, if they eventually make their way to Steam, I’ll gladly purchase them once again, to support Capcom and to reaffirm the notion that we do want these older games to remain playable. While I don’t expect all RE fans to be quite as frivolous as myself, I am hopeful that they will at least make the jump to GOG for the opportunity to preserve these timeless experiences.