While I agree, the average person doesn’t consider things like this (even though they should), and we should avoid getting close to victim blaming.

Was curious about how corporate compromised Reddit has become.

No, the games are also worse.

I mean, those games from the time you decided not to play games are extremely easy to access these days, with the exception of dead multiplayer titles. There is something to be said about being young and having much more of an ability to experience wonder and enjoyment than later though.

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

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.

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.

While there are a lot of reasons why getting rid of physical media is bad (such as physical media getting certain consumer protections that digital currently doesn’t) I’m going to try to make an argument I think you’d understand. From the image in the post Dead space digital version costs 69.99 but Dead Space physical version costs 18. Why does it cost 69.99 digitally and 18 physically? Because corporations like money. A physical disk cuts into their profit margin. They could’ve made 139.98 by selling the game to two people but instead they only made 69.99 (I know the numbers aren’t accurate and from physical sales corporations make even less but for the sake of the argument I’ll stick to those numbers) because only the first person paid the corporations and when that person was done they sold it to the second person who didn’t pay the corporations anything. In a sense physical media cost corporations a sale. But that’s one of the benefits of consoles for consumers. You can actually get old physical disks relatively cheap on the second hand market. Now you could argue that physical disk users are a minority and you’re probably right, but the fact that a physical market exists keeps corporations in check. If a game is priced too high you can always see if you can find a physical version for cheaper. But if there’s no physical version available you pay what they tell you to pay. Digital only on a closed platform is just giving corporations more control over the pricing of games and we know they want to jack up the price.

I’m with you, I prefer digital media over physical. But my digital media is also bought on an open platform so I can choose where I get the best deal when buying digital media. I don’t have to pay the price Steam gives me, I can buy the game on GOG or Itch or a plethora of third party sellers. Despite the media being digital I retain (some) control over the pricing. That’s not true for consoles so on consoles digital only is a horrible idea.

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

I don’t want it either, but look at this and look at gog.

I agree with you. I have zero need for plastic boxes and circles. They make NO sense to me at all.

I have never bought a game and thought: “is it worth it because I could sell it later?”

I remember when game stop’s dumpsters were full of used games, do we really want that to happen again?

At the same time: I would never buy a console. That seems ridiculous to me too.

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GOG games you download can be copied and played on any other computer without the need to connect to an external server. You do not even need the GOG Galaxy client to install the games you bought there.

Though Valve is a fair argument

GOG (not part of CDPR anymore) has no drm and gives you offline installers if you don’t use their client. Those games are yours forever.

Steam not so much, but Sony’s track record makes Valve look like saints in comparison.

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Valve makes drm easy but I’m pretty sure the developer can choose to not include it. It’d be on you to back up the files in that case, though.

Part of the reason Valve gets away with it is that PC is an open platform. If you don’t want to buy from Valve you don’t have to buy directly from Valve. If you find a better deal elsewhere you can buy the game elsewhere. That’s not true for consoles. When it comes to digital only on Playstation you pay the price Sony tells you to pay because nobody except Sony is allowed to sell on Playstation. If Sony decides to jack up the price you just have to deal with it. If Sony refuses to put their games on sale you just have to deal with it.

The argument about removing your library is true for Valve (less so for GOG because you can just download all your installers and store them locally) but I think that’s a problem of the law. I think the law should catch up to digital media and give it the same rights as physical media. I hope SKG movements makes enough headway to lay the groundwork for someone else to come along and establish actual ownership of digital media.

so wait, is valve supposed to sell physical CDs? is that what you’re getting at?