You only license the game, you do not own the files.

You cannot find any software, going back to… well, since I learned how to read, that isn’t distributed this way. The practice of using end user license agreements predates the trend towards software-as-a-service, predates Steam, predates official game servers (not that 7 Days to Die has those anyway), and predates the web. I’m not saying that makes it perfect. I’m saying there’s no sense in singling TFP out on this.