Hacker News Reader

After two or three years, neither would the owner.

Edit: More seriously, if they took this approach, people would regularly lose their codes, which would necessitate a backup means of obtaining it. Which would no doubt require the purchaser log into their Google account. And we're back at square one.

View on HN

> After two or three years, neither would the owner.

It might surprise you, but back before games where always online everyone had to keep track of license keys. Still have a box with all of them. Only those that required feedback from activation servers are now useless because the companies killed the servers.

And I misplaced a few CD keys over the years, and sometimes even repurchased the game for $20-50.

Modern phones are closer to $1000.

Some I still have, too. But even back then, I just looked for a key online, than bothered searching. That was way quicker ... you didn't even had to go to any dark sites. Google showed them right upfront.

(for single player games)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com