Gaming

Will Gaming Libraries Be The End of Games?

by
PRG
October 19, 2026

Remember when owning ten video games made you feel positively spoiled? Maybe you had Sonic the Hedgehog permanently lodged in the Mega Drive, Street Fighter II waiting nearby for when somebody came over, and a couple of cartridges you’d already finished so many times that you could find all the easter eggs playing backwards with your eyes closed.

Sure, we had small gaming libraries, but all those individual games mattered. Getting a new one was an event… and it only happened a few times a year at most.

Nowadays, we’re all logging into the likes of Steam and Game Pass. But have you ever sat down and counted the total number of games you’ve got access to?

There are likely hundreds sitting there, waiting for you to choose them. Maybe even thousands, if your Steam account’s been quietly accumulating questionable sale purchases over the past decade.

In 2026, playing digital games is very much like trying to watch a good TV show on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Most of the time, we’re turning the machine on without even having a specific game in mind. Instead, we rummage around, reading synopsis after synopsis, and work it out from there.

When exactly did playing video games become more about the gaming library than the game itself?

Casino Gaming Was Building Libraries Before The Rest Of Us

A really big clue about what prompted all that shift can be found in a surprising corner of the gaming industry. Back in the 1990s, while most home gamers were still swapping cartridges and arguing over whose PlayStation memory card it actually was, online casino gaming was out there being a veritable pioneer.

One of the earliest documented online platforms launched as far back as 1995, with no less than 18 different games available through the service. Pretty radical, right?

Over in mainstream gaming, the original PS had barely launched in North America, while the Nintendo 64 was still on the horizon. A live-service title like Fortnite might as well have been a concept dreamed up for a sci-fi movie.

Fast-forward three decades and that early experiment has grown into a full-fledged global sector. We’ve got casino classics, crash games, poker, and slots all sharing the same wider lobby, giving players an overwhelming array of choice… sound familiar?

And, of course, these libraries haven’t just got bigger; they’ve got weirder and more technically ambitious too. Take a look at the mBit casino games library, and you’ll see not just familiar casino games, but crypto-first systems that would’ve sounded completely alien to anyone logging into one of those first online casinos in the ’90s.

Interestingly, though, even in this sector, the individual games themselves still very much seem to be the point. Roulette’s still roulette, for instance. Blackjack still revolves around beating the dealer by reaching 21 first. But there have been all sorts of mechanics built around the core gameplay that have allowed those familiar formats to keep growing without losing what made them work in the first place.

Then Our PC Libraries Got Completely Out Of Hand

For a while, PC gaming followed the same approach. Then, everything got out of hand!

How many games are sitting untouched in your Steam library right now? Ten? Fifty? Are we into triple figures and pretending not to notice?

Digital storefronts simply waived all the limitations and accessibility issues of stores and shelves, while an almost continuous trip of sales and offers made adding one more title just so, so easy.

What’s that? More choice?

Enter: Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, the leading lights of subscription services!

Nobody at Microsoft is expecting gamers to sign up just because of one particular title. The appeal of the service is in having an enormous collection there at the click of a mouse that can cover every type of genre and gameplay experience imaginable.

Of course, even browser games have been pretty much following the same principle—only without demanding the hard-drive space.

But all of this, though, was bound to have an impact on how we play. And that might just be the whole point…

Back when your collection consisted of whatever cartridges happened to be in the bedroom drawer, giving up on a game after twenty minutes wasn’t always much of an option. If Battletoads was making you miserable, bad news: you probably had more Battletoads in your immediate future.

Now, if the RPG you started yesterday isn’t grabbing you, what happens? You jump into a racer, or there’s a deckbuilder you’ve been meaning to try. Maybe you finally open that obscure roguelite you have absolutely no memory of purchasing.

More Games Isn’t Killing The Old Ones

So, in the age of overconsumption and endless choice, does having thousands of games at our fingertips mean the older formats that can’t be neatly packaged into a splash screen are done for?

Not really.

If anything, in this climate, they’re granted more room to evolve. It’s why the simple 3-reel video slot’s been able to morph into a bleeding-edge live dealer experience. And why Fortnite has grown from one battle royale into a wider collection of creator-made worlds.

The size of the library definitely isn’t spelling the end of games as we know them. Instead, it’s giving us so many different ways to keep playing the games we love.