Why is it ok for PC to be all digital? I don’t remember the last time I’ve even seen a physical version of a PC game. Everything is through steam, While console it’s not ok? I can’t remember the last time I purchased a disc version for xbox.
Like I used to have the physical versions of Deadpool and both marvel ultimate alliances but I lost the discs in a move I wish I could purchase them digitally again but that’s about the only downside I’ve encountered with digital only is some license rights gets a revoked
PC hardware is not vendor controlled. They can’t delete your game because sales of the sequel are low or a license agreement ran out. Buying is owning on a pc where the game can be backed up, reinstalled on new machine etc. without any need for the agreement or permission of the publisher. You bought it. Can’t do any of that on console. Cant back up to your own systems, cant copy and if the console vendor decides to withdraw it from your library and delete from your device, you cant stop them (short of never connecting the device to the internet again) Historically console physical media has had a good second hand market, no such thing without physical media.
You’ll hand your money over, own nothing and have no recourse.
The arguments are all over the place but in quick. You can’t resell digital games. Also PC is an open platform, Xbox and Playstation are not. Steam might feel like a monopoly but they have to keep in mind the competitors like Epic and can’t rip you off too much.
Just looked at my physical games. The last game I possibly purchased was either red dead redemption 2 or halo mcc.
Thinking back to PC the last physical game I purchased was unreal tournament 2003.
Speaking of Unreal really should make a comeback. Also a CnC red alert 4
I remember being pissed off when I bought The Orange Box and it only came with a key I could enter in some platform called Steam.
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Maybe it’s ok, because it is not “Everything is through steam”. I have digital copies from different stores. It’s basically the same fight against closed platforms in the mobile ecosystems. And I am really curious whether the EU will force Sony to open up their platform as well.
This just in the newest os update of your <gaming console that has a disc drive> maybe getting bricked…
You mean that corporations are going to collude to do the thing that nobody fucking wants?
No way.
Really overblowing this aren’t you
I almost never play games but I’ve bought a bunch of physical copies of games I want to play. There’s already SO MANY good games I haven’t played yet that If new games are digital only I’ll either go back to older consoles or piracy.
“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.
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.
Push back but won’t boycott. Tread on me harder daddy.
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.
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.
Actions speak louder than words. And money screams. 71% absolutely do not buy physical media.
The number is actually closer to 25%
::eyeroll:: 71% percent of people we asked an obvious leading question, but mostly already buy their games online and will mindlessly buy all their yearly copies of FIFA, Maden, and CoD regardless.
I mean, I hate Sony and this BS too, but the stink over this “change” is complaining about a horse that left the stable years ago.
Yeah, I can’t think of the last time I bought a physical copy of a game. Hell, I haven’t had a PC in over a decade that could load a physical CD/DVD any longer.
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.
First off, your PC can 100% be bricked remotely, go read up on Stuxnet…
The problem is the assumption that there is nefarious intent behind this move.
Sony and Microsoft tried to give us digital entitlement sales AND friend loaning with Xbox One and PS4 and a whiny minority of “core gamers” kicked up such a fuss during E3 2013 that Microsofts stock tanked and both of them backpedalled… It was senseless then, and it’s even more senseless now.
The whole point of a console is ease, I pop in the disk, I play. If you take away that ease, it becomes just a locked down PC… why would you want that when you could just have a full PC?
Isn’t it easier to turn it on and simply select the thing you want to play?
Yes. This is mixing up console advantages. The “game just works” one will still exist - in fact, it will pretty much be the only advantage left. Not worth the much higher cost of games and playing online.
Even at $100, it’s still cheaper than games of yesteryear. If you take an average PS1 game, most sold for $50 in 1996, so $110 today. Games themselves are cheaper than ever, and consoles still have major advantages of just hooking it into a TV, and it simply works.
That whole “adjusted for inflation” thing is BS because the average wages haven’t kept up.
consoles still have major advantages of just hooking it into a TV, and it simply works.
That’s part of the “game just works” thing. It’s not worth the higher cost of games and playing online to me, but you do usually have to have some tech-savvy to use a PC that way.
Depends on how you take it, but wage growth has matched for core services and grown. Now if you are talking about education or housing costs, then no, they have went beyond wage growth. But electronics and energy? Wages have outpaces their costs and inflation quite a lot.
Okay, general cost of living, then. How much the average person can afford to buy has not kept up.
I don’t want to make digital seem better, but for this argument it is… you don’t even need the disc, you just turn on the console and select the game. All from the comfort of your sofa. Hell, you don’t even need to go to a store or wait for a delivery in the first place, all those bytes just come to you.
I think something to realize here is that A.) The above is why the majority of people just use digital at this point, and B.) Inserting a brand new game disc into your console still requires downloads, installing and often being online to do so anyway. Modern games rarely even fit on one disc, so the disc is less useful that it was in the XBox OG and PS1 days. It’s more like what Nintendo is doing with the Game Key Carts.
THIS 100%
Modern game discs are literally just Mountain Dew Verification Cans™
I think the point us more tied to the eol for the ps3 when everyone lost all their digital content, whereas the same player on pc would still have all their titles playable on steam or gog.
You are correct. Which is why at this point you might as well go PC. Console games used to be playable without internet, just pop in and enjoy. I am not referencing the terrible experience it has become today (guess I am old). Nostalgia I suppose for an era that did already die.
Sorry, no. My video drivers fucked up while installing somehow and I had to blow them out with DDU and reinstall everything to get normal functioning back on my PC. I’ve had countless random errors, performance hangs, and more due to just random stupid Windows 11 shit that had to be identified and solved by repeated web searches and in a few cases obtaining and running specialized tools to cleanse my system of the filth W11 is full of.
NONE of this is part of the usual console experience. Exceptions exist, yes. And technical support when they occur is dramatically simpler because they’re all the same.
I think you’re forgetting just how fucking stupid the average person is, and how lazy they are. We’re in the era of cognitive surrender to chatGPT. You think these drooling morons want to web search how to fix a driver installation somehow getting corrupted?
You’re conflating the PC experience with the Windows experience.
You think Linux is going to be a better experience? What do you think someone will think the user will think when they encounter a program or game that simply refuses to run on Linux?
You’re too deep in the sauce, man. I have to reiterate that the average gamer is both horribly stupid and extremely lazy. You gotta keep that in mind. People smart enough and dedicated enough to go through the hurdles associated with gaming on a PC are likely already using one as their primary or sole platform.
As someone who daily drives Linux since '96, I can say that while it’s a much better OS and way less enshitified, driver issues, hardware issues, compatibility issues, and everything else above is just part of PC gaming as a whole. The problems I’ve had to fight with over the years most people would have given up and installed windows.
Console gaming is definitely way less problematic and when problems do arise, much simpler to troubleshoot.
Umm, I mean you just turn on your console and play the game. Even easier than popping in a CD/DVD and zero worries about scratching and having to rebuy the thing.
Because a console will still be plug in and play.
If we’re going to transition to digital only, a couple things need to happen.
When we purchase a game, we own it. This is not a long term rental.
If we want to sell it or trade it, we can.
Lol, never going to happen.
I know, but it’s what should happen. People hold the power to make it happen but don’t have any restraint to follow through.
Both Microsoft and Sony had this exact infrastructure built ready to go for Xbox One and PS4 prior to launch.
We were going to get full digital collections with a marketplace that would allow entitlement sales AND the ability to loan entitlements to friends for set periods of time.
When Microsoft announced the plans at E3 2013, a whiny minority of “core gamers” kicked up such a fuss that Microsofts stock tanked and they backpedalled… Sony hadn’t made any announcements yet and presented the EXACT opposite of Microsoft’s plan literally 8 hours later despite the fact that their existing hardware DevKits and system software functioned exactly as Microsoft had described. Sony got to look like the “hero” while both of them then scrambled to completely reengineer their hardware and system software prior to launch…
We lost a bright future that day.
The Corps called they said no and fuck you.
Steam on pc shows that gamers can be okay with not having physical media - as long as they trust the vendor that the thing they pay for actually means a persistent access to the game.
Unfortunately this move also gives much more power to the vendor. Once he decides to withdraw access to the player, the ownership of the paid-for thing becomes useless (until a lawsuit were to be filed and won).
Physical media without mandatory internet servers (like in pre-internet consoles) means true ownership - after buying a game, the vendor has no longer any control.
The key point to me is not directly the difference between physical disk or cloud download, but between truly offline versus online-required games (or goods in general).
PC gaming all digital is ok because it’s not a closed ecosystem. I can install whatever platform I want, and buy games. And there are huge sales.
Also there are drm free shops like gog, a huge community with emulators, mods, and in the need pirated copies of the games I bought.
Trust is one thing, but monopolized market is another.
edit: today I found the List of DRM-free games that has many games that DRM free from many PC platforms (1867 games in Steam and 604 in Epic). Meaning that you can launch an installed game directly from the .exe and even make a zip the installed game as backup.
PC gaming all digital is ok because it’s not a closed ecosystem
This is the crux of the issue. I have a few games in my library that have been de-listed from the store but my access to those games is unaffected and I can still install and play them, and it’s a problem that Sony’s approach isn’t analogous to this.
PC gamers accepted the inability to sell and loan games and to have extensive DRM on a large number of games. The console players are the last holds against this anti consumer practice. Just because PCs has multiple stores it doesn’t change the fact Steam is a near monopoly and while its relatively consumer friendly we still don’t own games on it, they can not be passed to others in any way legally. People have a weird love for Steam but the basic facts are the same, it uses DRM, you can’t sell or loan games and you have a licence and don’t own them, you can’t pass them to someone else in a will. Steam is pretty anti consumer on the big items here compared to disks on the consoles.
PC gamers haven’t pushed back as hard because the basic facts are NOT the same. The ecosystem is entirely different. I’m not interested in defending Steam or its use of DRM, but the fact that something is illegal doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Piracy is one of the big reasons PC gamers aren’t nearly as affected by the lack of physical media being sold: you just make it yourself. I’ve even pirated games I already own just because it’s the easiest way to have an unmodded install alongside a heavily modded one.
But the lack of options for console gamers doesn’t stop there. Not only are the hardware and software environments completely locked down, but demographically, a much greater number of console buyers are going to be those with bad or no internet. They can’t just download whatever from wherever. If they lose the discs, they may lose access entirely.
PC gamers accepted the inability to sell and loan games and to have extensive DRM on a large number of games.
And one of the reasons for that is that the DRM can be removed from a large number of games. 🏴☠️
Folks like me love Steam because I have a huge backlog, and don’t care if I play the latest thing as soon as it comes out. Combine that with their sales every few months let me pick up older games at a steep discount, without having to deal with a Gamestop.
Leave PCs out of this console nonsense. On PC you can write whatever you want to whatever media you want by yourself, without kissing some Nintendo-Sony ass.
In practice doesnt everything basically get leaked/mass disseminated anyway regardless of the vendor/developers anti-consumer shit or best legal efforts/public meddling?
This is why we have governments and regulations. The current situation is one for consumer protections to step in. There needs to be a legal way to “burn” any game onto a physical media for archiving, preservation and transfer purposes. This needs to be written into law and enforced.
Without copyright and patents, none of this would matter at all.
i don’t think it matters though tbh. they will go ahead with the plan anyway.
The only thing that would make them consider changing course is if a significant portion of gamers refused to buy games unless they come in a physical format. Sony knows that’ll never happen. People will complain to their heart’s content and then happily plonk down $80 for the next big digital only game release. Capitalism largely works the way it does because people don’t want to go without.
A SIGNIFICANT portion of people who buy video games already have already abandoned physical media and done care…
Excluding Nintendo, ~5% of total video game sales are physical media.
people already weren’t buying physical media.
Which is gta. And yes, they will waste our time bitching about this and buy it anyways.
yeah i agree.
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.
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.
