Comment by CM30
21 hours ago
Well, if Nintendo and Microsoft go the same route (and sadly, I see that being almost inevitable at some point), that's probably the end of my interest in gaming as a whole. I generally refuse to 'rent' or 'license' things on a temporary basis, and have decided in this generation that every game I'll get for Switch 2 will be a physical game on cart version, without exception.
And the reasons for that are pretty simple. I like being able to resell games when done with them. I like being able to lend them to friends, or play them on as many consoles as I want. I like the idea of having something that companies (generally) can't remove due to licensing changes or an always online requirement.
This sort of change just feels like yet another step towards constantly renting rather than owning, or streaming games and media without any control over how or when you can use it.
Counter-argument: I have a Steam account associated with a day 1 purchase of Half Life 2 (so, 25 years or so). Every game I've ever purchased is still available for me to download, while I lost probably 50% or more of my physical games collection.
If I'm renting those games, it sure seems like a good deal.
I do appreciate that console online market places have not historically been as well managed as Steam.
But also, GoG exists: you can buy a PC game and get a DRM-free download that you can play offline and store forever.
People have got too used to Steam doing things well, but don't forget that: 1) that's not the norm, and 2) there's no telling when it will change. Gabe Newell will retire not too long from now. Will the next one in charge be so lenient? Don't forget what happened with Unity, for instance.
Right. License pulls happen extremely rarely for digital video games[1]
And delisting a game from a store isn't a license pull. Delisting prevents new purchases of the game, but owners of a game prior to delisting can still download and play[2]
For example, even though Sony is closing the PS3 store to new purchases after 20 years, existing owners of digital games can still download their digital copies. So my entire PSN digital library for the past 20 years is still downloadable and playable. Same for Steam.
I love GOG, and prefer a DRM-free digital copy for PC that I can backup redundantly, as it is the most future-proof option, IMO. Physical media can get damaged or lost and digital storefronts won't last forever (even Steam could shut down one day). Even my hard drives can fail and lose data. But even so, when I purchase a digital license for a game, I have good confidence it will be playable for years and years to come.
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1. Of course, many online multiplayer games have had their servers shut down, after which the game becomes effectively unplayable. But this is a separate problem that isn't solved by choosing physical over digital media.
2. As long as the digital storefront exists and as long the console hardware still works, if I purchased it for a console.
The other reason that a PC is a bit different for this is that the backwards compatibility for console generations is almost always going to be worse than the ability to run games (even if they came out on previous versions of Windows) on whatever the current OS you have installed. Plus, even when stuff doesn't work by default, you'll still likely have a much easier time modding it to get things working than on a console. For years before they re-released the older Sims games on Steam, there was forum post where someone had meticulously documented a process for working around various issues that would crop up when trying to install the Sims 3 on a modern version of Windows, and even though it was error prone and the game crashed a lot, it still worked (and tbh the game apparently just crashed a lot back in the day too, so it was arguably just being true to the original behavior).
I agree with this as a PC gamer.
Every game I have purchased on Steam still exists to be played, apart from those where multiplayer servers may have diminished naturally.
If I had these games as physical copies I'd need to have lugged around multiple boxes of games of which I'd probably have lost or damaged the disks.
Your library on steam is tied to you. When you die, it is gone. Your children or family using it is against terms of use.
This is partially false, Steam has an official system for children and families to share purchased games: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49...
In practice, Steam is likely not going to know or care if the owner of a Steam account has died and someone else is using the account credentials.
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I'm guessing you know this already, but I thought it's worth saying - some Switch 2 carts only contain a game key and not the actual game.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
Even that Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Card implementation still works better for parent’s game reselling use case (for a limited time) than outright removing the physical media option as Sony is doing.
From the link you posted:
“Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
After it’s downloaded, you can play the game by inserting the game-key card into your system and starting it up like a standard physical game card. An internet connection is only required when you launch the game for the first time. After this, the game can be started even without an internet connection. However, like regular physical software, the game-key card must be inserted into the system in order to play the game. A Nintendo Account is not required to download the game data.”
So lending and reselling game-key cards is still possible in the same way as physical media… at least until Nintendo’s servers stop serving the game, heh.
Are the download codes reusable then?
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Unfortunately some switch 2 games are only available as digital download codes (e.g. Split Fiction) even though Xbox and PS5 physical versions are real discs. For now.
At least they clearly label them and make them easy to avoid!
Yeah I've seen those, and I deliberately haven't bought any games only available in that format.
They're theoretically a tiny bit better than download codes, but the same applies. If this is the format going forward, I'm out.
If you care about owning what you buy then why accept consoles in the first place?
GOG will let you download the offline installer for every game they sell, IIRC.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, however, even buying physical games nowadays is a meaningless practice (one that I still do, mind you, physical over digital, that’s me any day). But with the sheer amount of updates, online checks, DLCs and whatnots, our physical media is nothing more than a pretty case to display on the shelves. They can pull the plug on all of that nowadays just as easily as any digital media.
The ideal solution would be an industry-wide change where games should always be required to be able to play as sold on disc—pipe dream though.
Even before the era where physical copies became nothing more than license keys, the copy of the game on the disk was a buggy 1.0 release that was expected to get a day one update. So if the download servers go offline, you’d never be able to download the updates to fix it.
Often those patches used to be installers that could be (and were) re-hosted on fan sites.
One thing I've noticed with other streaming media is that it keeps changing in often subtle ways that I just don't appreciate.
Albums will be replaced with remastered, "deluxe", or anniversary editions with different versions of the same songs.
Movies and TV shows will have different edits which aren't communicated. Songs from the soundtrack get replaced when digital rights expire. Jokes get censored[0].
None of this is communicated by the streaming platforms. You only notice it when you go to listen/watch to that media and realise it's not what you're familiar with. But you've already sold your CDs & DVDs so you have to take what you're given.
I'm sure this will start happening to games soon, if it hasn't already.
[0] https://i.redd.it/rvghujccsap21.png
> Microsoft go the same route
There's a reason Game Pass and the Series S exist, they just hadn't had the courage to say the quiet part loud yet.
What about PC gaming? There are stores that sell you the game and it's yours to keep
Like GOG? Yeah, I'm a bit more accepting of those, since they're DRM free. Being able to just copy and paste from one computer to another or what not is how I feel digital games should work, and how I know they don't work on console.