I imagine they will just switch to offering cloud gaming exclusively. It allows them to sell to anyone with a screen, regardless of specs. It also aligns perfectly with the ongoing death of local gaming hardware.
Perhaps game developers already have the tools they need: try distributing your browser version of a game anybody cares about instead of a 20 year old game. This game isn't even available on Steam/GOG.
> yet people still go out and buy the official game.
Not all people, especially not if piracy is easy.
The same reason you buy any game. Why did anyone pay for Runescape when it ran in the browser? Btw, with webgl/webgpu/wasm you can make high fidelity, high performant 3D games. The top games on Twitch are World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and Minecraft -- all trivial to build in the browser.
But browser gaming isn't relevant to the point. It's just piracy. The only reason this is on HN is because "click here to play this pirated game" is a lot more interesting than "download this pirated game".
Piracy didn't kill the gaming industry. I think the bigger threat is indie games that are trivial to clone with AI.