Guys, y’all did this to yourselves. You didn’t have to use Steam when it launched, but you did because it was convenient.
Physical media started dying the moment people flocked to Steam for PC gaming.
The public wanted this. A niche minority doesn’t. The overwhelming majority of game sales are now digital. Why would companies keep manufacturing discs when almost everyone is downloading their games?
And I know, I know, physical media is better for the consumer. I know about the EULAs, licensing, and the ownership issues. I’m not defending digital media. I’m simply saying: y’all made your bed, now sleep in it.
For the record, my entire game library is digital too, aside from some old Xbox 360 and PS4 games I still have on disc. I’m in the same boat. I’m no better than anyone else.
I just see reality for what it is.
If you want physical media back, stop buying digital games. Stop playing them. Delete your Steam account. Uninstall your games.
What the hell did you think these companies were going to do?
But when I download a game on steam, I can do whatever I want with the file, and play it whenever I want. I can’t say the same thing when I download a game on my PlayStation
Correct. Sony is pure crap.
To say that Steam is the one solely responsible for this is misleading. That would mean only gaming is switching to digital only. Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc are also responsible for killing physical media outside of gaming
Agreed. Streaming services are a whole different can of worms that contribute to this issue.
Physical media has the inherent benefit of being difficult to remove from the customer. Because of the several thousand years of precedent and “argument” has lead to the current protections many countries have.
Digital distribution of Digital goods has significant benefits to the customer and producer over physical distribution. A lot of physical game media at this point is basically a license key and a mostly working game that needs downloaded patches they were still developing while the discs were being printed. The downsides are the current legal mechanisms and that a lot of people involved in the producing would like to continue to eat and pay rent.
Don’t act like this guy.
Yes, I understand. This is the most common talking point I see when discussing this topic, and it’s completely valid.
Ownership is an important consideration. Unfortunately, the buying public has either decided, through ignorance or because they’ve been convinced, not to care about it.
Digital downloads are, by a massive margin, the preferred way to acquire games. The market has spoken.
Like I said, delete your Steam account. Don’t purchase digital games.
Otherwise, accept the fact that we’ve willfully surrendered our leverage to the corporations.
Some of them are still around just not as big anymore
They still make CDs and Blu-Rays you know
No! Sony bad!
Both of those are dying unfortunately
I like blurays but at some point we need go acknowledge the truth
And DVDs (movies get released as DVD, BR and UHD4K) and Floppies (New Amiga releases with a physical release) and Cartridges (evercade)
Also cartridges (switch 2)
true, forgot about the switch (2).
It is just a license though
Some of them, not all of them iirc
I think all games, even those in physical media, are licenses to play them, is what OP means. You might be thinking of download carts, which doesn’t contain game data, but makes you download games.
Well yes that’s what I assumed they meant, a non-download cart wouldn’t be just a license, it would be the license and the game data
Right, gotcha. My bad.
I miss HDDVDs. Their better error correction will be missed more, soon, as this stuff degrades a bit.
Bluray is higher quality than all the streaming bullshit that’s usually lower than default settings x265. Also for anime the bluray is a great way to support the creator and used as a metric for deciding if a series gets picked up for more releases.
Pirated digital backups.
With storage redundancy, of course. Because eventually, your hard drive will fail.
Three places!
Across two medium!
With one of the backups off-site!
Sure pal, yea, cd is dead…
Regular Show has multiple episodes about this exact topic.
DVDs still exist. DVD players still exist.
so do dvd burners
My library is still lending cd dvd and blueray…
And i am still ripping them all to use on a digital consumer device thanks to a specific local law that ruled people who own an mp3 player can rip cds from libraries to listen on the go.
thanks to a specific local law
Following local laws? Don’t be a pussy. Upload those cd and dvd rips to Pirate Bay.
Its not that i care personally but its nice to know i am legally protected and my library isn’t going to care with how often we come lend new a new stack.
My personal conspiracy theory is that Sony is trying to kill Blu-ray before it enters public domain. (2028-2030 or so). Single-layer Blu-rays are invaluable for my cold storage backups. So I’m going to keep buying them. And thanks to them, entering public domain, innovation will be possible once again. So, in all honesty, I don’t have that much to fear, as mega corporations also use blu-rays heavily for backups, together with tape.
How’s the long-term stability of Blu-Ray? I know we’re running into problems with magnetic tape and CDs degrading.
There’s M-Discs which are supposed to last 100 years I’ve heard.
I have 30+ year old CDs still readable.
Magnetic tape depolarizes over time. CDs were organic and they would literally rot away. But as long as your Blu-ray discs are high to low (HTL)/inorganic Then you’re really set for at least 30 years as well, just like professional tape, but at a fraction of the price.
don’t worry, it will vanish soon and everything will be “in the clouds”
aren’t you excited?
Brother, I have those 40tb raid arrays at home. None of this crap will affect me. Oh and for games I don’t play those. But if I did I would stop buying Sony crap.
There are open-source PC games, completely free, and they are awesome.
Do you mind sharing some of your favourites?
Many mentioned already, but also CDDA, 0AD, Beyond All Reason, Battle for Wesnoth
OpenTTD for transportation management is a favorite of mine.
Mindustry, Friday Night Funkin’, Xonortic, Luanti(former minetest), doom
There is an awesome list too which has a ton of stuff that would take me ages to list https://github.com/michelpereira/awesome-open-source-games
Neat!
Wouldn’t that still be digital though? Just not on your computer and not in your direct control?
digital is pure semantics here, we are talking about control
Physical mediums aren’t gone - they are just all HDD and SSD now.
I switched from CDs to HDDs two decades ago. HDDs are still great as physical long-term storage.
Your digital is just HDDs and SSDs in someone else’s computers.I’ve still got my tapes.
Where’s MiniDisk?
*MiniDisc.
UMD you mean, i don’t think MiniDisk were ever used to distribute games or even general software.
True, but there’s bad digital like Amazon Video, and good digital like GOG.
Yes. The thing people actually don’t like is DRM, which can also exist on discs.
I’m torn. Like, there are two online medical equipment shops covered by my insurance. The one I use and Amazon. I’m the unusual event my supplier is having delays I can usually get equipment from Amazon in their standard delivery window.
Like, we’ve gotten bipap parts on there when a family member traveled across the country and left half of their ventilator at home. It was not cheap, but it was quick and that’s what they needed.
Like, there’s a good, necessary service under all the bullshit that other companies seem to be unable to match for reasons I don’t understand, probably having to do with paying and treating labor more fairly. If it weren’t life and death sometimes
I still buy any new music on CD and regularly buy DVDS. I buy more new DVDs than Blu-ray actually.
Me two! Except without the Cds or Dvds or buying
