wont this just push people to getting steam/valve
Ahh yes, steam renowned for its physical media.
Hopefully it just keeps them using old consoles and punishing them by not buying the digital games.
But we all know everyone will just roll over.
The problem isn’t digital the problem is digital only.
Obviously they mean that in a digital-only world, consoles are not worth it and gamers should just switch to PC.
Yeah the big advantage of disc is Sony can’t randomly take it away. And given the fact that they have literally just done that with a bunch of movies it’s kind of a problem.
It would be trivial to add online only drm with a killswitch to physical media. If that’s the problem, discs aren’t the solution. What we actually need is legal protection for consumers.
I was already planning to abandon Sony even before they shot themselves in the foot (or leg? groin? time will tell I guess)
I bought the PS5 solely to play one specific game, but I still expected to get some other games. And I’ve gotten a few at least: The Finals is amazing, Baldur’s Gate is amazing, Battlefield 6 is great… and that’s about the end of my list.
The one specific game I bought the PS5 for, No Man’s Sky, has tons of stuff you can do with mods and save editing. Same for Baldur’s Gate as far as mods go. The Finals and BF6 are FPS games so no mods, but still… 100% of the games I like could just be played on PC instead, and 50% are significantly better for doing so.
In the last few generations of consoles / handhelds, Sony has:
- Removed the ability to back your data up via USB as of PS5 (ostensibly because scary ol’ North Korea hacked them, but really because they want to force you to buy PS+)
- Removed the ability to use custom themes as of PS4
- Removed the ability to play online for free as of PS4
- Removed the ability to set a background for your console ffs as of PS5, then gave us like 10% of that back by letting you set a background specifically and only for the screen you see after the console starts
- Jacked up PS+ prices repeatedly and offered like 99% games that I never play again (granted I’m a very picky gamer but still. Shoutout to Jurassic World and some Resident Evils tho)
There’s so many reasons to ditch them even separately from the disc drama
Huh their own survey doesnt even say people are not ready to let physical games die. It just says that 71% of people say they miss physical games but doesnt suggest any intention to buy physical games. There has been no time to miss physical games so the only reason you’d say that is if you werent buying them when they were available.
Actually kill me, this must hell. An entire subreddit dedicated to windows updates and xbox updates. I cannot think of anything more depressing. These people have had a rough decade https://www.reddit.com/r/windowscentral/
Actually revive me, most of the comments are people saying they’ve switched to linux and only use windows because they’re forced to for work. Sanity restored.
“Gamers push back.” Just like they pushed back against $70 and $80 games by lining up around the block to buy a Switch 2 so they could buy $70 and $80 games to play on it. Like Rockstar will make a mint selling $100 copies of GTA6.
Yeah if they aren’t ready we would see GTA 6 flop hard. Personally I’m not getting it until pc release, and even then we’ll see if I have to buy on their shitty launcher.
I hate Nintendo as much as the next guy, but I’m pretty sure they were the last to adopt $70 games. Then you had Mario Kart World at 80, which is indeed dumb. Not as dumb as shitty yearly sports titles being $70.
And it’ll STILL be $80 20 years from now.
Push back but won’t boycott. Tread on me harder daddy.
This is the song of the world, a ton of angry voices but then the vast majority of them still buy (in both meanings) the thing. People want to be mad but never inconvenienced. They’ll spend so many hours being angry both internally and externally but then still use their vote, be it a political or wallet one, for that specific thing they’re angry about. “I’m mad this costs so much, that it’s so bad, that it doesn’t align with my views but there’s no way in hell I’ll miss out on it”.
Fucking cowards.
I suppose if any game is worth $100 it’ll probably be a game from Rockstar. Personally I’m waiting for reviews since there’s literally no point pre-ordering.
Nah, not all of us. When switch 2 came out (and because I wanted a hand held) I looked at it, poked at in the shop and decided to buy a DS instead. $80 vs $650. If I’d been feeling more generous, I would have gotten a Retroid pocket 5 or something. I didn’t need it.
The switch 2 is shiny, but it didn’t fill any niche for me that one of my other rigs couldn’t do (Wii, Wii u, $100 emulation box I built).
“Bigger, better, faster” is a mug’s game. It cannot be won and it’s the lynchpin of capitalism. The way to win is to not play.
Gaming is a luxury good. If the big players are going to go full retard, let them. Let it all burn while you find greener pastures.
This goes for all tech (and luxury goods), IMHO. Do more with less.
Reject the status ladder → identify the actual function → satisfy it with the smallest tool that works = you win.
Then enjoy the absurdity of $650 Switch 2 (and marvel at the cost of Switch 1 increasing in price. Lol no).
Fun fact! PlayStation Plus, Xbox Live, and Nintendo Online subscriptions go directly to them and none of that supports the server costs game developers have to pay to host online games. This is why most online games are forced into the games-as-a-service model, which makes zero sense to me as a game developer. It’s also why most indie games do not bother to add online multiplayer support as it’s far to expensive to pay for server hosting, let alone the cost of development.
Maybe they should have bought physical games instead of going almost entirely digital then?
They voted with their wallets already, and digital was the winner.
It’s probably more accurate to say Sony is misrepresenting the data.
The vast majority of games that get released these days are digital-only, indies, or semi-indies that never get a physical release in the first place. And it’s not reasonable to trust that Sony isn’t including these purchases in their reported stats. If they were giving us figures that included only games that got a physical and digital release, I imagine the narrative would be different.
The gaming industry wants licensing to be universal and ownership to be a thing of the past so it’s easier to price-gouge as they like.
Every single publisher has shown that the vast majority of their sales are digital. Sony themselves are one of the lowest digital percentage sales wise since they bundle their games heavily, and bundled games, even digital ones, count as a physical game sale.
Even if Sony are misrepresenting the numbers, Sony are in the money making business. If physical sales made up any significant amount of sales, to the point where they wouldn’t make as much money dumping them, they wouldn’t. It wouldn’t make sense.
Bad take. They’ll give you an install disc and then make you enter an account locked code to access it anyway.
Demand digital rights instead, before a big player goes bust. Because at some point that will happen, and you’ll lose more than a handful of discs.
As long as you still have tens of millions of people pre-ordering GTA6, nothing is going to change. People bitch and whine but they keep eating the slop.
Sony and Microsoft say bad luck we are doing it anyway, and we know you will still buy our consoles.
The VAST majority of gamers don’t identify as “gamers”. They don’t read gaming media, they don’t engage in online discourse about video games, and they don’t give two shits about any of this sensationalist nothing burger fear mongering.
If YOU are a “concerned gamer”; physical media is dead. Acknowledge that you are an INFINITESIMALLY MINISCULE minority and get over it, or find a new hobby.
A couple thousand chronically online whiners don’t get to decide the future of the industry.
It’s important to remember, there’s no point in fighting against a worse future. Especially if you are in the minority, since you’ll lose anyway. Resign yourself to things getting objectively worse because nobody likes a whiner.
The commitment to physical media has crossed the line from nostalgia into change resistance, driven by manufactured conspiracies. This transition is in the best interest of the majority of gamers; the vocal minority is just out of touch with how the broader community actually consumes that media.
For millennia, non-static art (song, theater, performance, and oral storytelling) existed purely in ephemeral mediums without physical storage. The concept of “owning” a physical piece of interactive software is a historical anomaly that has existed for barely forty years.
Economically and technologically, video games are the cheapest and most accessible they have ever been. Simultaneously, the depth, breadth, and quality of content are light-years ahead of what was imaginable in the 80s. We are living through the golden age of the medium, yet critics are lamenting the hypothetical loss of the 99% of games they were never going to replay in ten years anyway.
Like it or not, software IS fundamentally a service now. A modern video game is not a static painting or a collectible display piece like a Funko Pop to put on your shelf; it’s a dynamic, adaptive, and interactive ecosystem shaped by ongoing player data and developer iteration. Holding a plastic disc hostage provides no value when that disc only contains an unpatched, broken, Day 0 build of the game at its literal worst.
The romanticization of physical games is no different than audiophiles insisting that vinyl is the only “pure” way to experience music. It is an aesthetic preference masquerading as a consumer rights crusade.
driven by manufactured conspiracies.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. I know I’m in the minority, but there are legit reasons to resist recent changes with video game hardware, like how manufacturers have made it so they can brick people’s consoles remotely.
Can’t remotely brick my PC.
I do agree that some people are over-wrought about it, but pretending that all of their concerns are unfounded is itself a tad silly too.
“I’ll miss buying physical games” is not exactly a measurement of outrage.
Man, I couldn’t give two shits. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What good is a disc when you’re dead? I’m here for a good time, not for a collection of plastic boxes with shiny round discs in them, uh, time. I mean, who earnestly gives a flying fuck? These days most game discs are as good as a game-key anyway as you can’t play the game before installing a massive day one patch.
It’s only 8:00 where I am so it’s possible I will read a more stupid less informed comment today, but I wouldn’t put money on it.
Have a nice day. Try not to get angry for no reason.
Don’t make more moronic comments and I’ll be happy
Your happiness is very fickle.
Most gamers have steam libraries and not a single disc to show for it. They’re not sad about it…
You should burn your faux outrage to a goddamn disc and add it to your priceless collection. Im sure it will look great beside your Star Craft II box and some cobwebs.
Better than the padded cell you belong in
Lol disagreeing with your perspective is insane? Alrighty…
No just observing your insane behavior
Actions speak louder than words. And money screams. 71% absolutely do not buy physical media.
The number is actually closer to 25%
old games? https://www.romsgames.net/
used to play these free years ago. ymmv
DRM is the issue not physical. No drm means I can just keep replicating my product when physical fails
Yeah that’s my problem with it as well. People keep going “but steam does the same thing” but with steam I actually have the install on my computer, a computer which valve does not control and they cannot take things off me after the fact.
Yesnt. Steam can absolutely remote remove your library.
They never did and probably won’t do it. But they could
How can they do that? I’m curious
You agreed to it in the TOS
They can take a game off sale but they can’t take something from me that I’ve already downloaded.
In most European countries yes. They can’t legally. But they can technically.
They cannot if you back it up to a folder outside of the steam directory. Provided of course the game doesn’t use Steam’s DRM.
Removing options is an issue
I’m fine with digital for convenience. I just don’t want physical to disappear. Having both options is better for everyone.
I would be fine with digital only, but only if there was no DRM.
IDK, second market games are cool.
I mean, yes that would be ideal, but its never going to happen, unfortunately. Even physical media has DRM and has had it for a long time now.
If it was possible to lend/borrow and resale digital media that would solve most of the problems. You could still have DRM that makes sure the game is only installed on a single console at a time and what not.
Another problem would also be that the servers could shut down which would mean you can’t download the game indefinitely. But that is kind of already the case, even with physical media, as a lot of games already require Day 1 patches to be playable. So its a related and also important but somewhat separate issue. I hope Stop Killing Games is successful in that department.
The difference isn’t digital vs physical. Either medium can have DRM. It’s whether you own your copy or not.
Physical DRM like the classic dial-a-pirate is owned by you. You can choose to hand someone a copy of the game and the physical DRM, and they can play it. Nobody can take that right away from you.
Online DRM will always have the flaw of someone being able to take away your rights, for any reason. Thus, you don’t own a copy of the game. Since digital games can’t have physical DRM, the only way to truly own a digital copy of a game is DRM-free.
And alternative stores with alternative servers so I don’t have to buy a subscription for online capabilities and the ability to install whatever software I want… I guess a PC will do just fine.
