Physical media is massive for the global south and generally more impoverished people, you can buy used game discs much cheaper. Another reason why forced always-online for single player games is terrible, multiple reasons, but if you are poor you have less access to reliable data. If you are of lower wealth you more likely have less storage space and slower internet speeds also which makes it more inconvenient. I agree with the idea of digital only in that it takes less resources to produce but it benefits the corporate profits while hurting already disadvantaged people.
Another argument separate is preservation of media. By removing physical media publishers can maintain control of the property and cause the loss of media which could have historic, social or educational value. It would still be possible to preserve the data but with more difficulty either physically or legally.
Also public libraries can carry discs and cartridges, but they can’t somehow distribute “digital licenses” for games. (I’d say “yet” but publishers would probably start flinging poop over that one.)
They have platforms to do this with ebooks, and it is an assache that also thoroughly underlines the absurdity of pretending that IP is 1:1 analogous with tangible items. Can’t “borrow” a digital file for six weeks because two people have already done so and five more put their names on a list before me?
We gotta support creators, I get that, but copyright itself was always a hack based on literal scarcity of books.
It generally works very well for ebooks, but yes, I think digital licensing is just as silly as “Web 3.0” before it was a thing.
The reason for my comment was that acquiring and checking out physical copies is easy: You catalog it and they circulate.
But for a digital platform with the AAA games industry? They’d probably demand some incredibly obtuse monolithic licensing platform with a ton of convoluted restrictions, not to mention the vast data difference between a simple ebook vs. a 100+ GB game.
So discs and cartridges are good to have in this case, multiple people can experience games, the people behind the games still get paid, for now until we reach Star Trek economy, it works.
Physical media is massive for the global south and generally more impoverished people, you can buy used game discs much cheaper. Another reason why forced always-online for single player games is terrible, multiple reasons, but if you are poor you have less access to reliable data. If you are of lower wealth you more likely have less storage space and slower internet speeds also which makes it more inconvenient. I agree with the idea of digital only in that it takes less resources to produce but it benefits the corporate profits while hurting already disadvantaged people.
Another argument separate is preservation of media. By removing physical media publishers can maintain control of the property and cause the loss of media which could have historic, social or educational value. It would still be possible to preserve the data but with more difficulty either physically or legally.
Also public libraries can carry discs and cartridges, but they can’t somehow distribute “digital licenses” for games. (I’d say “yet” but publishers would probably start flinging poop over that one.)
They have platforms to do this with ebooks, and it is an assache that also thoroughly underlines the absurdity of pretending that IP is 1:1 analogous with tangible items. Can’t “borrow” a digital file for six weeks because two people have already done so and five more put their names on a list before me?
We gotta support creators, I get that, but copyright itself was always a hack based on literal scarcity of books.
Oh yeah, agreed on all points!
It generally works very well for ebooks, but yes, I think digital licensing is just as silly as “Web 3.0” before it was a thing.
The reason for my comment was that acquiring and checking out physical copies is easy: You catalog it and they circulate.
But for a digital platform with the AAA games industry? They’d probably demand some incredibly obtuse monolithic licensing platform with a ton of convoluted restrictions, not to mention the vast data difference between a simple ebook vs. a 100+ GB game.
So discs and cartridges are good to have in this case, multiple people can experience games, the people behind the games still get paid, for now until we reach Star Trek economy, it works.