Sooo hot take I really don’t understand the extent of outrage about physical media. I don’t want physical media. It’s outdated. It feels like at this point we are just making up reasons to be angry, and millenials entering the “back in my day” age is feeding into this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m angry too, but I’m also a contrarian piece of shit and very pedantic about being angry for the right reasons. A used market is important for physical tech and all kinds of things to prevent waste and encourage re-use, but that doesn’t make sense for digital goods. I dunno am I way off base here?
Physical goods aren’t here for nostalgia, they’re here for media that can’t be remotely recalled the moment the corpos decide for whatever reason you can’t own it anymore.
Its very important in the legal space. On the high seas, a HDD thumb drive or archival mdisc/tape drive are the same.
I’ve bought plenty of games that turned out to be dogshit, and the only solace they’ve provided is the ability to recoup some of the money by selling or trading the games. The physical games I do own are carefully curated, and I can still play all of them. I don’t want to be put in a position where I can’t get my money back AND I’m stuck with some shitty Hogwarts game.
You aren’t off-base, you just aren’t taking Sony’s, Nintendo’s, Microsoft’s tendencies to say “You don’t own that game you bought anymore” into account. Games are way too expensive to be able to brush off the full price of a game that you have every reason to be able to go back to after years of not playing them. Don’t put your trust in companies, especially after decades of eroding consumer trust.
Steam doesn’t do this (anywhere nearly as often). The lesson you should be getting from this new game sales trajectory is that if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft. Don’t reward companies for clawing back any benefits you have of buying something. All you’re doing is ceding ground that you won’t get back.
The issue is removing another option for acquiring a game as well as a lack of ownership.
Physical media allows you to do whatever you want with your copy of the game. It allows the market to determine the price of the game instead of just sitting at whatever price they want on the digital store.
There is also the issue of download speeds. There are still many people in the world who have awful download speeds and/or data caps. Those people will lose the option to have the entire game on the disc.
I agree with the theory. the reality is that there is no structure to resell digital goods and doing so isn’t in the favour of the corps controlling it.
if there were a third party way to transfer ownership of digital goods? absolutely. but there isn’t, you’re at the mercy of the corp that wants more money and fuck you give it to them
You’re not way off, digital is superior and less wasteful in theory, and in a progressive society we’d have already realised that digital goods should be transferable and should not expire (= should not have DRM), certainly not sooner than physical goods! We do not live in that society atm (:
A practical example from experience: a steam game can only be gifted (aka transferred) to another account if you buy at least a second copy/key. The first copy is therefore less valuable than a game on a physical copy, that I can lend or gift to a friend.
I do have that childhood nostalgia for cartridges, but that aside the modern joy of physical media is usually something like works offline, works 20 years from now, can’t be remotely disabled. But I’ve found that once you’re paying $599 for a brick with a 5 year expiration time bomb built-in, $70 per game, 20GB downloads before you can start playing, the dark patterns don’t end there, and the whole ecosystem just isn’t worth all the hassle.
My view is that with a physical copy I own it for life and there’s no way for Sony to come and take it away after they decide to “end support” or something. I can (and do) still plug in my ps2 and boot up any of my games from back then perfectly fine, and barring age/wear and tear I can continue to do so as long as I want. I’m also able to go buy old ps2 games from anyone who’s selling them, I don’t have to hope Sony has Mercenaries 2 on sale for $69.99 even though it’s older than a decent chunk of PlayStation users.
Sooo hot take I really don’t understand the extent of outrage about physical media. I don’t want physical media. It’s outdated. It feels like at this point we are just making up reasons to be angry, and millenials entering the “back in my day” age is feeding into this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m angry too, but I’m also a contrarian piece of shit and very pedantic about being angry for the right reasons. A used market is important for physical tech and all kinds of things to prevent waste and encourage re-use, but that doesn’t make sense for digital goods. I dunno am I way off base here?
Physical goods aren’t here for nostalgia, they’re here for media that can’t be remotely recalled the moment the corpos decide for whatever reason you can’t own it anymore.
Its very important in the legal space. On the high seas, a HDD thumb drive or archival mdisc/tape drive are the same.
2026: Sony erases digital content from libraries; we’re reminded we don’t own what we buy
2024: PS5 owners lose access to hundreds of games as digital purchases wiped from their accounts
2023: PlayStation Is Deleting Purchased Shows From User Libraries, And People Are Furious
I’ve bought plenty of games that turned out to be dogshit, and the only solace they’ve provided is the ability to recoup some of the money by selling or trading the games. The physical games I do own are carefully curated, and I can still play all of them. I don’t want to be put in a position where I can’t get my money back AND I’m stuck with some shitty Hogwarts game.
You aren’t off-base, you just aren’t taking Sony’s, Nintendo’s, Microsoft’s tendencies to say “You don’t own that game you bought anymore” into account. Games are way too expensive to be able to brush off the full price of a game that you have every reason to be able to go back to after years of not playing them. Don’t put your trust in companies, especially after decades of eroding consumer trust.
Steam doesn’t do this (anywhere nearly as often). The lesson you should be getting from this new game sales trajectory is that if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft. Don’t reward companies for clawing back any benefits you have of buying something. All you’re doing is ceding ground that you won’t get back.
The issue is removing another option for acquiring a game as well as a lack of ownership.
Physical media allows you to do whatever you want with your copy of the game. It allows the market to determine the price of the game instead of just sitting at whatever price they want on the digital store.
There is also the issue of download speeds. There are still many people in the world who have awful download speeds and/or data caps. Those people will lose the option to have the entire game on the disc.
People just want physical discs so they can own what they buy.
I agree with the theory. the reality is that there is no structure to resell digital goods and doing so isn’t in the favour of the corps controlling it.
if there were a third party way to transfer ownership of digital goods? absolutely. but there isn’t, you’re at the mercy of the corp that wants more money and fuck you give it to them
You’re not way off, digital is superior and less wasteful in theory, and in a progressive society we’d have already realised that digital goods should be transferable and should not expire (= should not have DRM), certainly not sooner than physical goods! We do not live in that society atm (:
A practical example from experience: a steam game can only be gifted (aka transferred) to another account if you buy at least a second copy/key. The first copy is therefore less valuable than a game on a physical copy, that I can lend or gift to a friend.
I do have that childhood nostalgia for cartridges, but that aside the modern joy of physical media is usually something like works offline, works 20 years from now, can’t be remotely disabled. But I’ve found that once you’re paying $599 for a brick with a 5 year expiration time bomb built-in, $70 per game, 20GB downloads before you can start playing, the dark patterns don’t end there, and the whole ecosystem just isn’t worth all the hassle.
My view is that with a physical copy I own it for life and there’s no way for Sony to come and take it away after they decide to “end support” or something. I can (and do) still plug in my ps2 and boot up any of my games from back then perfectly fine, and barring age/wear and tear I can continue to do so as long as I want. I’m also able to go buy old ps2 games from anyone who’s selling them, I don’t have to hope Sony has Mercenaries 2 on sale for $69.99 even though it’s older than a decent chunk of PlayStation users.
I don’t want it either, but look at this and look at gog.
I like being able to touch the things. The tactile feedback of something in my hands is nice.
Also: Don’t have much digital storage.