TL:DW Steam has now changed its language from buy game to A purchase of a digital product grants a licence to the product on steam. This may also be non compliant with the new regulation as it still uses the word purchase. Also GOG used this opportunity to let you know their games come with an installer that they cannot take away from you.
It was technically always licenses for every video game ever commercialised. It’s just that a publisher has no practical way to control what happens to someone’s floppy/optical disc/cartridge/whatever physical media.
Same for almost every book you’ve ever read, every CD you’ve ever listened to, and every movie you’ve ever watched. You owned the leaves of paper the book was printed on, or the plastic disc the music or movie was stamped into, but never the words, the songs, or the movie itself.
We’ve only ever had licenses to consume.
Like Kichae mentioned, every media we buy is technically a license. License to use. However we own the physical part of it and we can use (read, watch, play etc.) it whenever we please. Should be like this with games as well. At least GOG does this. As long as an installer is in our hard drives, it’s a physical media.