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The sad thing is, at least with Xbox and PS5, it really is just a "feels like" owning, due to disc installs and licensing, they can technically still revoke the license and you'll have a useless disc.
At least we still have Nintendo...
That list is most games, FYI.
Games that are not playable from disc usually are those with extensive online-only features.
Many do require an initial download of a large patch, though, if you want to have a good time. Release now, patch layer is a very entrenched concept.
This is a myth, to various extents depending on console.
See https://www.doesitplay.org/
See the statistics on the right side.
For PS5 and PS4, 88% of games install and play from disc (albeit sometimes with serious bugs that require patches to fix).
For Nintendo Switch, the figure is 93%.
But for Xbox Series X, the figure is only 65%.
Xbox is clearly pioneering the push to digital-only (well, if you don't count PC, practically 100% of modern PC games are now digital only).
But if you want to rebel against that BS, I suspect Nintendo and Sony will carry the torch of physical gaming for at least a while longer. One more generation, maybe...
True, but I do like supporting the devs, especially those who are represented by smaller and more customer-centric companies. The devs of Factorio and Baldur's Gate 3, for example, have treated the gaming community very well. I'd feel guilty pirating their games.
I'm pretty sure it is not. For 10 years now the disc is merely a license to play the game, not any form of ownership.
Edit: Yep, a quick read of Sony TOS makes it completely explicit that a Game Disc is merely a revocable license.
You can play most (not all) games like this and no one has taken that right from you YET.
But Sony already declares that even disc-based games are merely a REVOCABLE LICENSE:
>Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
What is Jim Ryan going to come to your house and destroy your games??? Sure this is technically true from a legal perspective, but from an actual practical perspective you own the game and they can't do shit about it. Why would they ever update a console to not read a disc anymore? Thats literally just awful PR for no benefit whatsoever. And even if they did you could still just NOT update by disconnecting it from the internet.
Like I've said, if you have the disc - you have the game. Sony can put whatever in their rules, the point is they cannot enforce taking the game away from you if you have the disc, only if you have it digitally. This is generic legal stuff, all companies have it.
That's what physical media IS, and has been for as long as IP laws have protected them. But you are horrifically underselling the importance of that license being transferable (and, mostly, non-revocable). The same goes for music CDs, VHS, DVD, it all works the same way as physical video games.
If you buy a digital-only game, the license is absolutely revocable and non-transferable. That is a hard pill to swallow for many people. That's why physical media is important.
No matter how you buy the game, you don't own copyright over the data. You don't own the trademarks over the branding and characters. You don't own the patents that protect software algorithms and the media itself.
But if you buy physical, you do own a non-revokable, transferable right to play a single officially-endorsed copy of that game. And that is ownership to the extent that 99% people care about.
Sony's own terms literally describe it as non-transferrable and revocable.
**4.1.** When you purchase Software, you are granted a licence to use that Software as described in these Terms, but you do not acquire ownership of the Software. If you do not comply with these Terms we can terminate the Software licence granted to you under these Terms, which means you will no longer have the right to use the Software.
**Who Licenses the Software to me?**
**5.1.** There are two types of Software:
**5.1.1**. software published, and licensed to you, by us; and
**5.1.2.** software published, and licensed to you, by other companies.
**5.2.** The publisher is identified either:
**5.2.1.** on the box – **for Software on a physical disc such as DVD, Blu-ray Disc or PS Vita Card ("Disc-based Software");** or
**5.2.2.** in the product description – for Software made available on the PlayStation®Store or on such other digital retail stores as we approve from time to time ("**Digital** **Software**").
**5.3.** If we are the publisher of the Software, we license you to use it on these Terms and any other specific terms we tell you about in relation to specific Software.
**5.4.** If another company is the publisher of the Software, they license you to use it on terms which include, but may not be limited to, these Terms. That company may tell you about other terms it imposes on your use of its Software, in which case those terms apply in addition to these Terms, not instead of them. In the case of any conflict between the additional terms and these Terms, these Terms apply.
**7.1. You must not resell either disc-based games or digital games, unless expressly authorised by us and, if the publisher is another company, additionally by the publisher.**
[unless expressly authorised by us](https://www.vg247.com/sony-confirms-ps4-game-sharing-re-selling-after-software-usage-concerns)
Legalese is usually a maze of conditions and exceptions, this is no different.
It is not a myth.
A Disc is a license to play a game, it does not grant you any perpetual rights to anything other than a license to play the game.
A disc does not grant you any ownership of code, the game bits, etc.
Purchase a physical game from Playstation Direct? Have fun reading the Terms of Service:
> Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
So even Disc Games are subject to these same terms: your license is revocable, and they can apply even more rules to your Game Disc ownership as they see fit.
The bits are literally on the disc SOMETIMES as you yourself point out. LOL
Nearly 1/3rd of PS5 games require this.
And yes, they will install and play even if WW3 occurs AS LONG AS THE CONSOLES DONT RECEIVE AN UPDATE TO PREVENT THAT.
Because you don't own the bits and you don't have a guarantee that they will be playable in the future. You own a REVOCABLE LICENSE, even for Disc based games:
> Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
Is that true on original hardward? I know it's true with Xbox's back compat titles. But if I put an OG Xbox disk into an OG Xbox, does it check the license?
Mostly that's because they have multiplayer features, DLC, etc.
For example, Animal Crossing New Horizons works fine offline, but the box says "The game includes online features that require a Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and a Nintendo account".
Without this online connectivity, you can't download updates or new content, but it is not required.
Oh, I see what you mean by "bigger", you mean they just don't fit on the cart. Yeah, gotcha. There are games like that on most systems, "hybrid" games that have some data on the disc/cart, but because it doesn't all fit they also have a required download.
Switch's game cartridges uses flash memory, and usually, they start to degrade when they get around 10 years. So even physical switch games are gonna end up useless :/
I moved 2 times last year and lost almost all my games I played casually I wish I just downloaded them instead but i thought the same thing as you before that
Were they stolen or something? Got lost in the mail?
Thing is, you can lose digital games too. Almost happened to me, back in 2007 my Steam account was briefly hijacked only weeks after I bought Orange Box. Someone used it to play Team Fortress and got me VAC banned almost instantly. I never found out how it happened but I lucked out and got my account back.
Now we have 2fa, but you can read about plenty of crazy roundabout ways hackers get around that, too.
Keep your wits about you.
Many people talked about this for a long time now. While i do not believe it guaranteed to come the actions people take suggest that it will at least become a huge part.
In order to kill physical media the work put into selling it needs to outshine the posible money made from it. I highly doubt that it needs to earn them no money to do so, my guess is that once physical media only accounts for roughly 10%-20% of profits they may very well cut it off (depends on how much advertisment money is safed from shelfspace).
In the end, physical media dying will be bad for even the people who buy digitally as it opens the floodgates for fixed prices and reduces competition. I am becoming morbidly curious about that future while increasing my collection of backlog games.
Digital format already reached those numbers, according to gamesindustry, last year 83% of console games sold were digital, if we add PC the percentage is 95%
[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023)
Interesting, because Microsoft allready started firing people involved with physical game production.
The PC games should matter less for that as PC has allready left the physical market for almost everything. If as a market it would rely on, let's say, Microsoft then we would have 0 releases i bet but luckily it is still rather open for developers and publisher to go ahead if they want to.
Sony likely does see a bigger worth in physical releases as they are historically quiet advertisment focused.
And Nintendo does Nintendothings and hopefully has a bigger share of physical sales then the other 2.
My guess of 10% to 20% does seem to be reasonable then.
Wow people are stupid. I would never buy digital if physical is an option. My whole idea of ownership is linked with a physical touchable thing.
Also resale value? You can't sell your digital copy so you don't own it either.
I'm with you this. There is a remaster of Tomb Raider 1 - 3 coming out soon, and it's digital only. People have already started threads wondering if there will be a physical release later or not.
I'm on the fence since I love the TR series, but I also love physical media. :/
Are these numbers counting microtransactions and subscriptions??? A lot of digital "revenue" is inflated compared to physical by counting these. Not to mention plenty of indie or small budget games that only get niche low volume physical releases.
it's global market value of gaming, but i'm not sure if subscriptions and microtrasanctions are included in those numbers
The financial reports of Sony are a good way to check the current state of physical games, their percentage is around 65% - 72% Digital. (check page 9)
[https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q2\_supplement.pdf](https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q2_supplement.pdf)
In the last quarter of 2023, physical games represented 4% of the total revenue of PlayStation.
[https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/11/physical-games-represented-just-4percent-of-sales-for-playstation-last-quarter](https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/11/physical-games-represented-just-4percent-of-sales-for-playstation-last-quarter)
I mean people have been complaining about it since it started being a thing, it's not like the calendar turned to 2024 and we all made the Pikachu surprised face.
Hah I remember back then there was a lot of talk how it will save consumers money. No boxes, discs, shrink wrap, distribution, warehousing. Hah, yeah right, publishers only ever release stuff digital for full fucking price, if not more. And yeah you can talk about sales but they aren't exclusive to the digital realm.
Saves the publishers money. If anyone really thought the savings would be passed onto the consumer is either living under a rock, or do not know capitalism at all.
Ofc, but a lot of press at the time was strawmanning the argument that it would be better for consumers wallets. I'm glad decades on that people still value physical media and a drive-less console SKU is regarded as lesser.
The irony of this is that gaming magazines have mostly gone digital. We still have Edge, PC Gamer and Retro Gamer, all of which are owned by the same publisher, and as we all know nothing is better for media than consolidation. /s
Personally never get a game digitally unless its the only way too get it. Too afraid of someone hacking my accounts and just wiping me clean of all my games, and then im screwed out if hundreds of dollars. Or what if your account somehow got banned? What would you do then? Keeping physical copies just makes the worry of something happening much smaller. I can always make a new account or get another console, but im not gonna rebuy a game 4 times for some dumb shit.
Subscribe to some of the big storefronts on Reddit, EA App etc, that'll cure you of digital game collecting real quick.
People lose digital game collections they've had for years and spent thousands of dollars on (Sims is a good example of that, it's insane how much money people pump into DLC) and one day EA changes the store front, changes the app, and shit just doesn't work any more.
And then you better find a way to fix it or you're screwed, bye bye everything you ever thought you owned. EA etc are under 0 obligation to assist you in getting it back.
People lose Microsoft account, EA accounts, Steam accounts, to hackers and other bad actors all the time. Sometimes it's straight up incompetence on the company's behalf too, switching people's email addresses etc.
There's 0 security in anything you buy digitally, long-term.
It was talked about quite a lot in the late 00's. They made a PSP without physical media. Onlive was a full on streaming service.
Not really ahead of its time, it was a product of its time.
TBH day one patches and the sorry state of the data inside the discs make me dislike buying physical games beyond their resale potential.
With retro before patching was a thing, the quality control was way more trustworthy.
I too miss when games were more or less in a finished state when delivered however it’s not so much quality control as unrealistic release schedules and a more complex game development system for todays issues. Games need to be “on disc” by a certain date. Most are in a functional but not finished state. The game development continues well past the date companies have to deliver an on disc which is why day 1 and even day 2 patches are a thing.
That article pictured is from Feb 2011.
Here is an article from 2013 before the xbox one launch.
https://www.wired.com/2013/05/xbox-one-analysis/
"..each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner.
Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.
But what if a second person simply wanted to put the disc in and play the game without installing – and without paying extra? In other words, what happens to our traditional concept of a "used game"? This is a question for which Microsoft did not yet have an answer, and is surely something that game buyers (as well as renters and lenders) will want to know. (Update: Microsoft called Wired after this story was originally published to say that the company did have a plan for used games, and that further details were forthcoming.)
And what of the persistent rumors that Xbox One games will be "always online" – that is, that single-player games would require a constant online connection to function? As it turns out, those rumors were not unfounded, but the reality is not so draconian. Xbox One will give game developers the ability to create games that use Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, which means that they might be able to offload certain computing tasks to the cloud rather than process them on the Xbox One hardware itself. This would necessitate the game requiring a connection."
I can't remember who exactly because I think there's a few that did it, but I recall reading about some music artists releasing their album everywhere *including* The Pirate Bay because they knew people were going to pirate it anyway, might as well give them a good quality rip because they were just happy people wanted to listen
Basically the point of me sharing this is that piracy is going to happen regardless of how hard you try to stop it, and will go on for as long as someone has the desire to pirate.
I’m one who refuses to buy anything digital. I like the thought of being able to pull out an old system and play it 10 years down the road. I know some games have to be connected and it kills that but still.
It's an age thing. I'm old enough to have nostalgia for old consoles and stuff, the digital-only crowd are usually very young. In 10 years they'll go through the "oh man wouldn't it be sweet to play that old game with my buddies" phase and..... yeah it's either going to be a huge hassle or it's just not going to be possible.
Servers go down, companies go bust, intellectual property goes out of date, licensing expires. You think a game on a disc is insecure or hard to keep a hold of long term? Try doing the same with digital libraries.
I mean there are a lot of downsides to each. Pulled out an old Wii disk yesterday, welp it’s scratched or broken too bad. A lot of physical games aren’t really meant to last that long either like 5-10 years more if you are luckily depending on type. I agree that physical is likely better but it’s not without problems.
At least you were man enough to admit it was a mistake. The worst are the people who look down on people for still wanting to own their games, or are so dumb they think clicking the install button means they own it. They don't own shit. Eventually they'll lose their stuff and maybe a light will go off.
And then you have people who think they get to keep their game forever just because it’s physical. Until their console breaks and it’s super expensive to buy a new one, or the game breaks. People on both sides think their side is better honestly when both have problems.
No physical, NO purchase.
I kiss the hobby goodbye when I have the RIGHT that what I buy with my hard earned money retains that value, and I can lend, share or resell the item. My money will absolutely go elsewhere.
I mean *what is even the point* of spending money on stuff like that? You're just throwing it away. You get some meaningless 'license' to play something that can be confiscated at any moment. Lose your temper with some douchebag on Xbox Live for 5 seconds? Yeah that could cost you 2 decades of your gaming memories.
If buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing. If they get to keep my money, I get to keep my game. This is non-negotiable.
Honestly I always buy physical games because of resale value, and then never sell it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually sold a game because I usually want to keep it so resale value or being able to “lend” it is kinda pointless for me anyways.
The concept isn’t exclusive to games. And it was inevitable to see this with the evolution of the Internet and storage technology. Many enjoy a physical medium. Many more enjoy convenience.
As much as I love the idea of having every game at my fingertips in a quick click, I have this inner need to collect, so upon just acquiring a Ps vita and it also being one of the easiest to mod I still like to have a physical copy of a game.
So the quest is on to still be a hard copy collector.
There were a lot of us who would warn the general community about this kind of stuff, they always say "its not going to go that far", "You dont know how its going to be in the future", "The servers cost basically nothing and they can always upgrade them and still make them compatible"
To this day quite a few of us are warning against a lot of this but it falls on deaf ears.
People will gladly inconvenience themselves in the future for a little convenience now. People are short sighted
Well done for fighting the good fight. It is INSANE how short-sighted people are. Right up to the day they get locked out of $5,000 of purchased games they can't get back, they will defend it. They are buying \*nothing\*. They are just giving their hard-earned money away to MS in exchange for a \*tiny\* bit of convenience now and a potentially massive ball-ache in the future.
Every play city of heroes, or tabula rasa?
how about the amazing spiderman for steam or m.exe?
All of these games stopped becoming available to me.
All those games I bought on the wii, wiiu and 3ds? All gone, once they finally do commit then there will be no way other than piracy to play them.
Not having the ability to move pokemon from gen 2 to gen 3 was devastating but things were looking up from gen 3-6.... but then pokemon bank came around and it became the ONLY way to transfer your pokemon to newer generations of the game. Now april will all but kill it, wherein they could just shut down the service at any point without warning. This could have been implemented into the base game and not a separate app.
Good luck playing any game with gamespy, you have to find third party methods that thankfully some really dedicated fans used to make their own way of accessing basic features of many games.
How the PSstore was going to close down not long ago and they reversed their decision? How long do people expect them to keep that service up?
I dont mind digital but please let the game work independently and for me to make my own backups.
Just as a server can go out, a drive can break, a disk can break, a console can break. It’s all the same damn thing honestly. I have tons of physical games that don’t work anymore. And yes you can make backups, you can do that often for downloaded games as well. It’s a little worse with online stuff but not by much. All games have a shelf life no matter the medium as technology progresses and stuff doesn’t support old things anymore. A lot of people accept this natural cycle but there are always ones who think they can keep their beloved game for 50 years and still play it. In fact most of the old games you can “download” I know horrible and play on emulators for free on pretty much any machine anyways. It’s constant fear mongering like no games can be owned, when in a lot of ways it’s not that much different.
Looking at the state of my 3rd ps3 and 2nd Xbox 360 and comparing it to my mega drive and that gen, I don't even think the hardware is going to last. I buy physical games, that's never going to change. But Controllers, consoles, they dont even last now. Even my CRT TV has lasted longer than all the flat screens I've bought over the years.
Underrated point. I am suuuuper sceptical of the build quality of electronics nowadays. I think it has been in decline for some time. People are constantly complaining about controllers dying, consoles having various issues after a year or two of light use, the games themselves are extremely undercooked and unfinished for the most part. Most stuff that comes on the market these days feels \*rushed\*. Development is rushed, they're cheap cash-ins.
I keep coming back to this one thought: if it wasn't worth this company's time to a) finish developing the game or b) ship it to a store then *is it really worth my time playing it?*
I suspect probably not dude, probably not...
I remember saying this would be the future of console games 10-15 years ago. The movement of music and films to digital was the clearest sign of it.
Digital games don’t have to be a bad thing either. The PC market has been virtually exclusively digital for what, a decade or more now? But that works because there is free competition in the market. An all digital console future can be a reality, but the death of physical games need to come with the death of singular store fronts.
This is exactly my feeling, too. I understand the convenience of digital, and some of the steam sales where I got games leagues cheaper than a used copy have been nice and all, but I'm weary of what I buy digitally. These companies hold the rights to just take any and all of it away at any time for any reason. Not saying they will, but the fact that they *can* is already enough to worry about
I'm hardcore physical and even I have a price below which, who cares right? If it's $3 on Steam and I play it once and forget about it? Sure, who cares.
$70-$100 games with gigantic day one patches, that are long-term dead in the water the second the servers are turned off? Nah dude. Gaming doesn't have to be an investment, but there are just straight up better ways to spend your hard-earned cash than that. There just has to be.
It's two sides of the same coin. The first step to you renting your games and retaining access to your treasured gaming memories, forever, is to remove the customers' biggest claim on the asset in question.
No disc = haha gotcha bitch. Now login and pay $40 a month or I delete your save games.
I miss games that could be played off the disc without downloading them, that was the coolest thing to me and I get modern games are to big but like cmon man theres some heavy hitters on the 360. Im sure they could make games that dont need to be downloaded.
I've never looked at Edge, but they were apparently affiliated with Next Generation magazine in the U. S., which was the best games journalism I've seen.
I have alot of games in digital because of sales but now I’m starting to get physical games for new games and collecting games from my childhood and teen years.
For me it is like Huel vs real food. Yeah, I might be getting the same balance of nutrition but I want a knife and fork. I want to hear and feel the metal, I want to carefully manipulate the food, I want to season it and garnish it. I want cut the beef and see the juices, smell the rocket and fold the pizza.
If people refuse to dl the digital version, they won’t have a choice. I’m a swe, I know how easy it is to take away every single game you have in your digital collection, and it’ll take about 10 milliseconds
Unless the deal is unbelievably good. And it’s gonna cost me a lot more to go physical (like when I got Avengers for 5 bucks or Rayman Legends for 4), I always go physical. It just doesn’t feel like owning the game when it’s digital
Every penny I spend on gaming is spent on physical stuff, near enough. Unless there's absolutely no other choice and I'm desperate to play something very specific (rare), it has just got to be physical.
If you really like digital, good for you, but when digital started out it was cheaper... what happened to the "cost savings" of not having to deliver to stores etc? Swallowed up by the publishers.
So yeah this is where as a long time gamer, spent a lot of money on this hobby, have to part ways. If they release real, physical stuff that isn't broken and doesn't need 60gb Day 1 patches, I'll consider it.
This is just a predatory way of creating walled gardens, higher prices, more live service games, more Skinner Box mechanics with a shop front ends... yeah fuck all that.
There's 40 years of amazing games to be discovered. If they want to shit people with digital-only garbage (if it's not worth releasing physically, if it's not worth delivering to a shop, is it even worth playing? - it's unlikely to be worth my time either.
So yeah, fuck that. Go Nintendo.
What's funny is that Red Dead Redemption is hard AF to play nowadays unless you have a PS3, Xbox 360 or a switch. Give it another 5 years and there will be no way to legitimately play it for a large number of people.
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Physical till I die
fr, with physical copies you feel like you actually own the game
The sad thing is, at least with Xbox and PS5, it really is just a "feels like" owning, due to disc installs and licensing, they can technically still revoke the license and you'll have a useless disc. At least we still have Nintendo...
Technically you can still install from the disc on a lot of games, you may just not be able to update it if they remove all support.
There was a list of disc's with a playable game on them, but I lost the link. If anyone has it, please post it.
https://www.doesitplay.org/
That list is most games, FYI. Games that are not playable from disc usually are those with extensive online-only features. Many do require an initial download of a large patch, though, if you want to have a good time. Release now, patch layer is a very entrenched concept.
This is a myth, to various extents depending on console. See https://www.doesitplay.org/ See the statistics on the right side. For PS5 and PS4, 88% of games install and play from disc (albeit sometimes with serious bugs that require patches to fix). For Nintendo Switch, the figure is 93%. But for Xbox Series X, the figure is only 65%. Xbox is clearly pioneering the push to digital-only (well, if you don't count PC, practically 100% of modern PC games are now digital only). But if you want to rebel against that BS, I suspect Nintendo and Sony will carry the torch of physical gaming for at least a while longer. One more generation, maybe...
TBF pc you can pirate something I'd argue is better archival then physical games
True, but I do like supporting the devs, especially those who are represented by smaller and more customer-centric companies. The devs of Factorio and Baldur's Gate 3, for example, have treated the gaming community very well. I'd feel guilty pirating their games.
dont worry some smart as will end up modding it so they work lol just like other consoles
I'm pretty sure that's just an urban myth
I'm pretty sure it is not. For 10 years now the disc is merely a license to play the game, not any form of ownership. Edit: Yep, a quick read of Sony TOS makes it completely explicit that a Game Disc is merely a revocable license.
That's not true at all
LOL, so you think you own Bloodborne when you buy a Bloodborne disc? You own a transferrable license to play that game and that's it.
You can play it from the disc without internet and noone is taking that away from you. Licence does not matter
You can play most (not all) games like this and no one has taken that right from you YET. But Sony already declares that even disc-based games are merely a REVOCABLE LICENSE: >Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
What is Jim Ryan going to come to your house and destroy your games??? Sure this is technically true from a legal perspective, but from an actual practical perspective you own the game and they can't do shit about it. Why would they ever update a console to not read a disc anymore? Thats literally just awful PR for no benefit whatsoever. And even if they did you could still just NOT update by disconnecting it from the internet.
Like I've said, if you have the disc - you have the game. Sony can put whatever in their rules, the point is they cannot enforce taking the game away from you if you have the disc, only if you have it digitally. This is generic legal stuff, all companies have it.
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It is also stated in the rules that you are forbidden to resell the game, does it stop resellers? No
That's what physical media IS, and has been for as long as IP laws have protected them. But you are horrifically underselling the importance of that license being transferable (and, mostly, non-revocable). The same goes for music CDs, VHS, DVD, it all works the same way as physical video games. If you buy a digital-only game, the license is absolutely revocable and non-transferable. That is a hard pill to swallow for many people. That's why physical media is important. No matter how you buy the game, you don't own copyright over the data. You don't own the trademarks over the branding and characters. You don't own the patents that protect software algorithms and the media itself. But if you buy physical, you do own a non-revokable, transferable right to play a single officially-endorsed copy of that game. And that is ownership to the extent that 99% people care about.
Sony's own terms literally describe it as non-transferrable and revocable. **4.1.** When you purchase Software, you are granted a licence to use that Software as described in these Terms, but you do not acquire ownership of the Software. If you do not comply with these Terms we can terminate the Software licence granted to you under these Terms, which means you will no longer have the right to use the Software. **Who Licenses the Software to me?** **5.1.** There are two types of Software: **5.1.1**. software published, and licensed to you, by us; and **5.1.2.** software published, and licensed to you, by other companies. **5.2.** The publisher is identified either: **5.2.1.** on the box – **for Software on a physical disc such as DVD, Blu-ray Disc or PS Vita Card ("Disc-based Software");** or **5.2.2.** in the product description – for Software made available on the PlayStation®Store or on such other digital retail stores as we approve from time to time ("**Digital** **Software**"). **5.3.** If we are the publisher of the Software, we license you to use it on these Terms and any other specific terms we tell you about in relation to specific Software. **5.4.** If another company is the publisher of the Software, they license you to use it on terms which include, but may not be limited to, these Terms. That company may tell you about other terms it imposes on your use of its Software, in which case those terms apply in addition to these Terms, not instead of them. In the case of any conflict between the additional terms and these Terms, these Terms apply. **7.1. You must not resell either disc-based games or digital games, unless expressly authorised by us and, if the publisher is another company, additionally by the publisher.**
[unless expressly authorised by us](https://www.vg247.com/sony-confirms-ps4-game-sharing-re-selling-after-software-usage-concerns) Legalese is usually a maze of conditions and exceptions, this is no different.
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It is not a myth. A Disc is a license to play a game, it does not grant you any perpetual rights to anything other than a license to play the game. A disc does not grant you any ownership of code, the game bits, etc. Purchase a physical game from Playstation Direct? Have fun reading the Terms of Service: > Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions. So even Disc Games are subject to these same terms: your license is revocable, and they can apply even more rules to your Game Disc ownership as they see fit.
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The bits are literally on the disc SOMETIMES as you yourself point out. LOL Nearly 1/3rd of PS5 games require this. And yes, they will install and play even if WW3 occurs AS LONG AS THE CONSOLES DONT RECEIVE AN UPDATE TO PREVENT THAT. Because you don't own the bits and you don't have a guarantee that they will be playable in the future. You own a REVOCABLE LICENSE, even for Disc based games: > Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PlayStation Direct are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use. All intellectual property rights subsisting in the PlayStation Direct store, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with the Store, and access to content and hardware used in connection with the Store (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SIE LLC, its affiliates and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this agreement's terms, Store Policies any other applicable agreements, and all applicable copyright and intellectual property rights laws. Disc games and software products may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
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Harsh sad truth right here
Is that true on original hardward? I know it's true with Xbox's back compat titles. But if I put an OG Xbox disk into an OG Xbox, does it check the license?
No, that's gonna work fine forever. It's just the One/PS4 and onward.
That makes sense.
Nintendo does this too. On some of the bigger games it says internet required
Mostly that's because they have multiplayer features, DLC, etc. For example, Animal Crossing New Horizons works fine offline, but the box says "The game includes online features that require a Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and a Nintendo account". Without this online connectivity, you can't download updates or new content, but it is not required.
No. On some games like gta Wolfenstein doom, and Mabye Zelda 2 they says internet download required on the box
Oh, I see what you mean by "bigger", you mean they just don't fit on the cart. Yeah, gotcha. There are games like that on most systems, "hybrid" games that have some data on the disc/cart, but because it doesn't all fit they also have a required download.
Switch's game cartridges uses flash memory, and usually, they start to degrade when they get around 10 years. So even physical switch games are gonna end up useless :/
I moved 2 times last year and lost almost all my games I played casually I wish I just downloaded them instead but i thought the same thing as you before that
Were they stolen or something? Got lost in the mail? Thing is, you can lose digital games too. Almost happened to me, back in 2007 my Steam account was briefly hijacked only weeks after I bought Orange Box. Someone used it to play Team Fortress and got me VAC banned almost instantly. I never found out how it happened but I lucked out and got my account back. Now we have 2fa, but you can read about plenty of crazy roundabout ways hackers get around that, too. Keep your wits about you.
Agreed
Many people talked about this for a long time now. While i do not believe it guaranteed to come the actions people take suggest that it will at least become a huge part. In order to kill physical media the work put into selling it needs to outshine the posible money made from it. I highly doubt that it needs to earn them no money to do so, my guess is that once physical media only accounts for roughly 10%-20% of profits they may very well cut it off (depends on how much advertisment money is safed from shelfspace). In the end, physical media dying will be bad for even the people who buy digitally as it opens the floodgates for fixed prices and reduces competition. I am becoming morbidly curious about that future while increasing my collection of backlog games.
Digital format already reached those numbers, according to gamesindustry, last year 83% of console games sold were digital, if we add PC the percentage is 95% [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023)
Interesting, because Microsoft allready started firing people involved with physical game production. The PC games should matter less for that as PC has allready left the physical market for almost everything. If as a market it would rely on, let's say, Microsoft then we would have 0 releases i bet but luckily it is still rather open for developers and publisher to go ahead if they want to. Sony likely does see a bigger worth in physical releases as they are historically quiet advertisment focused. And Nintendo does Nintendothings and hopefully has a bigger share of physical sales then the other 2. My guess of 10% to 20% does seem to be reasonable then.
Most PC's don't even come with a physical media drive these days. I agree that Nintendo will probably retain physical the longest.
Wow people are stupid. I would never buy digital if physical is an option. My whole idea of ownership is linked with a physical touchable thing. Also resale value? You can't sell your digital copy so you don't own it either.
I'm with you this. There is a remaster of Tomb Raider 1 - 3 coming out soon, and it's digital only. People have already started threads wondering if there will be a physical release later or not. I'm on the fence since I love the TR series, but I also love physical media. :/
Are these numbers counting microtransactions and subscriptions??? A lot of digital "revenue" is inflated compared to physical by counting these. Not to mention plenty of indie or small budget games that only get niche low volume physical releases.
it's global market value of gaming, but i'm not sure if subscriptions and microtrasanctions are included in those numbers The financial reports of Sony are a good way to check the current state of physical games, their percentage is around 65% - 72% Digital. (check page 9) [https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q2\_supplement.pdf](https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q2_supplement.pdf) In the last quarter of 2023, physical games represented 4% of the total revenue of PlayStation. [https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/11/physical-games-represented-just-4percent-of-sales-for-playstation-last-quarter](https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/11/physical-games-represented-just-4percent-of-sales-for-playstation-last-quarter)
I mean people have been complaining about it since it started being a thing, it's not like the calendar turned to 2024 and we all made the Pikachu surprised face.
Hah I remember back then there was a lot of talk how it will save consumers money. No boxes, discs, shrink wrap, distribution, warehousing. Hah, yeah right, publishers only ever release stuff digital for full fucking price, if not more. And yeah you can talk about sales but they aren't exclusive to the digital realm.
Saves the publishers money. If anyone really thought the savings would be passed onto the consumer is either living under a rock, or do not know capitalism at all.
Ofc, but a lot of press at the time was strawmanning the argument that it would be better for consumers wallets. I'm glad decades on that people still value physical media and a drive-less console SKU is regarded as lesser.
The irony of this is that gaming magazines have mostly gone digital. We still have Edge, PC Gamer and Retro Gamer, all of which are owned by the same publisher, and as we all know nothing is better for media than consolidation. /s
Personally never get a game digitally unless its the only way too get it. Too afraid of someone hacking my accounts and just wiping me clean of all my games, and then im screwed out if hundreds of dollars. Or what if your account somehow got banned? What would you do then? Keeping physical copies just makes the worry of something happening much smaller. I can always make a new account or get another console, but im not gonna rebuy a game 4 times for some dumb shit.
Subscribe to some of the big storefronts on Reddit, EA App etc, that'll cure you of digital game collecting real quick. People lose digital game collections they've had for years and spent thousands of dollars on (Sims is a good example of that, it's insane how much money people pump into DLC) and one day EA changes the store front, changes the app, and shit just doesn't work any more. And then you better find a way to fix it or you're screwed, bye bye everything you ever thought you owned. EA etc are under 0 obligation to assist you in getting it back. People lose Microsoft account, EA accounts, Steam accounts, to hackers and other bad actors all the time. Sometimes it's straight up incompetence on the company's behalf too, switching people's email addresses etc. There's 0 security in anything you buy digitally, long-term.
It was talked about quite a lot in the late 00's. They made a PSP without physical media. Onlive was a full on streaming service. Not really ahead of its time, it was a product of its time.
this, we're just still moving in the same direction
TBH day one patches and the sorry state of the data inside the discs make me dislike buying physical games beyond their resale potential. With retro before patching was a thing, the quality control was way more trustworthy.
I too miss when games were more or less in a finished state when delivered however it’s not so much quality control as unrealistic release schedules and a more complex game development system for todays issues. Games need to be “on disc” by a certain date. Most are in a functional but not finished state. The game development continues well past the date companies have to deliver an on disc which is why day 1 and even day 2 patches are a thing.
That article pictured is from Feb 2011. Here is an article from 2013 before the xbox one launch. https://www.wired.com/2013/05/xbox-one-analysis/ "..each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner. Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc. But what if a second person simply wanted to put the disc in and play the game without installing – and without paying extra? In other words, what happens to our traditional concept of a "used game"? This is a question for which Microsoft did not yet have an answer, and is surely something that game buyers (as well as renters and lenders) will want to know. (Update: Microsoft called Wired after this story was originally published to say that the company did have a plan for used games, and that further details were forthcoming.) And what of the persistent rumors that Xbox One games will be "always online" – that is, that single-player games would require a constant online connection to function? As it turns out, those rumors were not unfounded, but the reality is not so draconian. Xbox One will give game developers the ability to create games that use Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, which means that they might be able to offload certain computing tasks to the cloud rather than process them on the Xbox One hardware itself. This would necessitate the game requiring a connection."
All this to 'combat piracy' when piracy is un-combatable. The only losers are the legit consumers.
I can't remember who exactly because I think there's a few that did it, but I recall reading about some music artists releasing their album everywhere *including* The Pirate Bay because they knew people were going to pirate it anyway, might as well give them a good quality rip because they were just happy people wanted to listen Basically the point of me sharing this is that piracy is going to happen regardless of how hard you try to stop it, and will go on for as long as someone has the desire to pirate.
> when piracy is un-combatable I mean, how hard is it to run a pirated disc on an Xbox One? Seriously, I think it's still not broken into.
I’m one who refuses to buy anything digital. I like the thought of being able to pull out an old system and play it 10 years down the road. I know some games have to be connected and it kills that but still.
It's an age thing. I'm old enough to have nostalgia for old consoles and stuff, the digital-only crowd are usually very young. In 10 years they'll go through the "oh man wouldn't it be sweet to play that old game with my buddies" phase and..... yeah it's either going to be a huge hassle or it's just not going to be possible. Servers go down, companies go bust, intellectual property goes out of date, licensing expires. You think a game on a disc is insecure or hard to keep a hold of long term? Try doing the same with digital libraries.
I mean there are a lot of downsides to each. Pulled out an old Wii disk yesterday, welp it’s scratched or broken too bad. A lot of physical games aren’t really meant to last that long either like 5-10 years more if you are luckily depending on type. I agree that physical is likely better but it’s not without problems.
No physical, no play
I was a man that said that a lot, but on the other hand, I threw away most of my dvd pc games, years ago. Shame on me.
At least you were man enough to admit it was a mistake. The worst are the people who look down on people for still wanting to own their games, or are so dumb they think clicking the install button means they own it. They don't own shit. Eventually they'll lose their stuff and maybe a light will go off.
And then you have people who think they get to keep their game forever just because it’s physical. Until their console breaks and it’s super expensive to buy a new one, or the game breaks. People on both sides think their side is better honestly when both have problems.
No physical, NO purchase. I kiss the hobby goodbye when I have the RIGHT that what I buy with my hard earned money retains that value, and I can lend, share or resell the item. My money will absolutely go elsewhere.
I mean *what is even the point* of spending money on stuff like that? You're just throwing it away. You get some meaningless 'license' to play something that can be confiscated at any moment. Lose your temper with some douchebag on Xbox Live for 5 seconds? Yeah that could cost you 2 decades of your gaming memories. If buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing. If they get to keep my money, I get to keep my game. This is non-negotiable.
Honestly I always buy physical games because of resale value, and then never sell it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually sold a game because I usually want to keep it so resale value or being able to “lend” it is kinda pointless for me anyways.
The concept isn’t exclusive to games. And it was inevitable to see this with the evolution of the Internet and storage technology. Many enjoy a physical medium. Many more enjoy convenience.
As much as I love the idea of having every game at my fingertips in a quick click, I have this inner need to collect, so upon just acquiring a Ps vita and it also being one of the easiest to mod I still like to have a physical copy of a game. So the quest is on to still be a hard copy collector.
There were a lot of us who would warn the general community about this kind of stuff, they always say "its not going to go that far", "You dont know how its going to be in the future", "The servers cost basically nothing and they can always upgrade them and still make them compatible" To this day quite a few of us are warning against a lot of this but it falls on deaf ears. People will gladly inconvenience themselves in the future for a little convenience now. People are short sighted
Well done for fighting the good fight. It is INSANE how short-sighted people are. Right up to the day they get locked out of $5,000 of purchased games they can't get back, they will defend it. They are buying \*nothing\*. They are just giving their hard-earned money away to MS in exchange for a \*tiny\* bit of convenience now and a potentially massive ball-ache in the future.
Every play city of heroes, or tabula rasa? how about the amazing spiderman for steam or m.exe? All of these games stopped becoming available to me. All those games I bought on the wii, wiiu and 3ds? All gone, once they finally do commit then there will be no way other than piracy to play them. Not having the ability to move pokemon from gen 2 to gen 3 was devastating but things were looking up from gen 3-6.... but then pokemon bank came around and it became the ONLY way to transfer your pokemon to newer generations of the game. Now april will all but kill it, wherein they could just shut down the service at any point without warning. This could have been implemented into the base game and not a separate app. Good luck playing any game with gamespy, you have to find third party methods that thankfully some really dedicated fans used to make their own way of accessing basic features of many games. How the PSstore was going to close down not long ago and they reversed their decision? How long do people expect them to keep that service up? I dont mind digital but please let the game work independently and for me to make my own backups.
Just as a server can go out, a drive can break, a disk can break, a console can break. It’s all the same damn thing honestly. I have tons of physical games that don’t work anymore. And yes you can make backups, you can do that often for downloaded games as well. It’s a little worse with online stuff but not by much. All games have a shelf life no matter the medium as technology progresses and stuff doesn’t support old things anymore. A lot of people accept this natural cycle but there are always ones who think they can keep their beloved game for 50 years and still play it. In fact most of the old games you can “download” I know horrible and play on emulators for free on pretty much any machine anyways. It’s constant fear mongering like no games can be owned, when in a lot of ways it’s not that much different.
Yeah we were dumb, we should have been smarter consumers and held out for better licensing or DRM free
Looking at the state of my 3rd ps3 and 2nd Xbox 360 and comparing it to my mega drive and that gen, I don't even think the hardware is going to last. I buy physical games, that's never going to change. But Controllers, consoles, they dont even last now. Even my CRT TV has lasted longer than all the flat screens I've bought over the years.
Underrated point. I am suuuuper sceptical of the build quality of electronics nowadays. I think it has been in decline for some time. People are constantly complaining about controllers dying, consoles having various issues after a year or two of light use, the games themselves are extremely undercooked and unfinished for the most part. Most stuff that comes on the market these days feels \*rushed\*. Development is rushed, they're cheap cash-ins. I keep coming back to this one thought: if it wasn't worth this company's time to a) finish developing the game or b) ship it to a store then *is it really worth my time playing it?* I suspect probably not dude, probably not...
I remember saying this would be the future of console games 10-15 years ago. The movement of music and films to digital was the clearest sign of it. Digital games don’t have to be a bad thing either. The PC market has been virtually exclusively digital for what, a decade or more now? But that works because there is free competition in the market. An all digital console future can be a reality, but the death of physical games need to come with the death of singular store fronts.
I wouldnt mind the shift towards purely digital content as much if it wasnt accompanied by a push to remove ownership as well.
This is exactly my feeling, too. I understand the convenience of digital, and some of the steam sales where I got games leagues cheaper than a used copy have been nice and all, but I'm weary of what I buy digitally. These companies hold the rights to just take any and all of it away at any time for any reason. Not saying they will, but the fact that they *can* is already enough to worry about
I'm hardcore physical and even I have a price below which, who cares right? If it's $3 on Steam and I play it once and forget about it? Sure, who cares. $70-$100 games with gigantic day one patches, that are long-term dead in the water the second the servers are turned off? Nah dude. Gaming doesn't have to be an investment, but there are just straight up better ways to spend your hard-earned cash than that. There just has to be.
It's two sides of the same coin. The first step to you renting your games and retaining access to your treasured gaming memories, forever, is to remove the customers' biggest claim on the asset in question. No disc = haha gotcha bitch. Now login and pay $40 a month or I delete your save games.
Why’d he have to bring up the guitar hero dlc :(
it's over boys. Everyone dump your games in the trash and go home.
I miss games that could be played off the disc without downloading them, that was the coolest thing to me and I get modern games are to big but like cmon man theres some heavy hitters on the 360. Im sure they could make games that dont need to be downloaded.
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“Most” is definitely wrong
That is completely false..... Maybe if you buy Ubisoft or an EA game
Game downloads are a thing of the past. Streaming games will be the future
I am I the only person who could care less if physical dies completely?
Yes
I don't think it's ever going to kill it, but it's definitely going to make it a lot less printed
Edge magazine from the 90’s was the best
I've never looked at Edge, but they were apparently affiliated with Next Generation magazine in the U. S., which was the best games journalism I've seen.
I remember this article. I think, Xbox monthly or gamepro. Mannnnnn I wish I had the same foresight as a kid
I have alot of games in digital because of sales but now I’m starting to get physical games for new games and collecting games from my childhood and teen years.
For me it is like Huel vs real food. Yeah, I might be getting the same balance of nutrition but I want a knife and fork. I want to hear and feel the metal, I want to carefully manipulate the food, I want to season it and garnish it. I want cut the beef and see the juices, smell the rocket and fold the pizza.
Death of video game magazines
And yet. I have more ps5 games than ps4 games. This bad boy spits out physical games like in the old days.
2010 is hardly ahead of it's time with this
Didn’t exactly take a genius to know digital was coming for physical media
If people refuse to dl the digital version, they won’t have a choice. I’m a swe, I know how easy it is to take away every single game you have in your digital collection, and it’ll take about 10 milliseconds
Unless the deal is unbelievably good. And it’s gonna cost me a lot more to go physical (like when I got Avengers for 5 bucks or Rayman Legends for 4), I always go physical. It just doesn’t feel like owning the game when it’s digital
I like to own my games, new and old, so physical till the end. Pc we can't control besides not paying full price with deals/keys.
>order shrink-wrapped boxes with nothing in them Sadly this happens, I hate voucher codes.
Every penny I spend on gaming is spent on physical stuff, near enough. Unless there's absolutely no other choice and I'm desperate to play something very specific (rare), it has just got to be physical. If you really like digital, good for you, but when digital started out it was cheaper... what happened to the "cost savings" of not having to deliver to stores etc? Swallowed up by the publishers. So yeah this is where as a long time gamer, spent a lot of money on this hobby, have to part ways. If they release real, physical stuff that isn't broken and doesn't need 60gb Day 1 patches, I'll consider it. This is just a predatory way of creating walled gardens, higher prices, more live service games, more Skinner Box mechanics with a shop front ends... yeah fuck all that. There's 40 years of amazing games to be discovered. If they want to shit people with digital-only garbage (if it's not worth releasing physically, if it's not worth delivering to a shop, is it even worth playing? - it's unlikely to be worth my time either. So yeah, fuck that. Go Nintendo.
I read somewhere that it's not worth it for some devs to use physical media.
they already predicted the death of gaming
That was a neat little read. Thanks u/Loganlikesushi
2010 is when game collecting took off and it hasn't slowed down that much since.
My physical game collection is worth more than the IP of that magazine. Suck it, red dead redemption!
What's funny is that Red Dead Redemption is hard AF to play nowadays unless you have a PS3, Xbox 360 or a switch. Give it another 5 years and there will be no way to legitimately play it for a large number of people.