4 ms·

Due to new tariffs, many more physical game discs may "simply not get made"

46 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

akimbostrawman 2y ago
Game disk for a long time now didn't have anything on them anyways. They are glorfied DRM bootstrapper.
- yetihehe 2y ago
  It's worse than that. Now games are released on one or two dvd, but those have read speed of about 20MB/s. So you need to install from dvd to disk in console or pc and then you need to download several gigabytes of updates anyway. And my internet at 80MB/s (~600mbit) is already faster than dvd for installation. That dvd only works as "physical token of scarcity" for game.
  - bawolff 2y ago
    It is amazing to think about how we've reached the point where downloading data off the internet is significantly faster than physical media.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Years ago had very good connection(1Gb) and I discovered that for some specific games deleting and redownloading whole game was faster than patching it in place...
    - rincebrain 2y ago
      Part of the problem is that optical media development more or less stalled when a high enough % of people had enough internet connectivity to make it the more effective option. I'm sure the fact that this kills the ability to resell the games is in no way a consideration for companies aggressively migrating this way.
Nevermark 2y ago
> While Trump and others in his orbit argue that these tariffs will encourage companies to bring manufacturing and production back to the United States, observers see this as unlikely. "Completely reshoring technology manufacturing operations back to the United States is simply not practically or economically feasible given the scale and complexity of required resources and underlying economic production structure If reshoring manufacturing was an honest goal, the way to do it with tariffs would be to start them at some very low amount, to get the systems in place running smoothly without real money being involved. Then have tariffs rise on a schedule designed specifically to give importers time to adapt economically, and provide horizons for existing & new manufacturers to plan and execute expansions. Tariff rates rise and target rates would vary for classes of products based on the relative challenges of and urgency of rehoming. Given all the tension with China, and the realization of our vulnerabilities & dependencies, I would think a sensible restoring of manufacturing to the US would have broad bipartisan support. Sudden tariffs cause disruption and losses for everyone, except the recipient of the tariffs. I.e. Gov. But economic disruption can stall economic activity too, so that “return” isn’t simple or guaranteed.
- nlitened 2y ago
  > If reshoring manufacturing was an honest goal, the way to do it with tariffs would be to start them at some very low amount ... > Then have tariffs rise on a schedule designed specifically to give importers time to adapt economically What were the examples of scheduled-increase tariffs that resulted in successful reshoring of manufacturing in the recent history? It does not look obvious that gradual increase would work better. It does look as if it would give manufacturers more time to adapt, but also it would give them more time to counter-lobby/circumvent/sabotage the tariffs, and the certain growth of costs would still be priced-in from day one.
  - dummydummy1234 2y ago
    Maybe, but the issue is that it does not seem serious. If he was serious about restoring industries, then we would have targeted tariffs. Tariffs on coffee is not useful, and is silly. Similarly a lot of raw commodities, we will not be smelting the amount of aluminum the US needs because we do not have the same low cost power as iceland. They could have gone slower, and planned things out, but chose not to. And are doing exceptions based on who can talk to trump. If you are a business that does international business that might be onshored, how confident are you that the tarrifs are here to stay? That you should invest 200 million in American manufacturing, and that government policy will not change in 6 months,or 3 days, or 4 years. Thats the problem with these tariffs is that they rely on the belief of business that they are here to stay.
_mitterpach 2y ago
With this, there is a loss of a large culture of game boxes. They used to contain so much physical art, manuals and secrets, which do seem to have been left behind. Current process is very simple and direct, and you can go from seeing a game on Steam to installing it in under a minute. That is a huge win for customers and publishers both. I do wish there was still a way to replicate it, and I do laud the few game developers who do put their manuals on Steam, as the service definitely offers it.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >With this, there is a loss of a large culture of game boxes. Where have you been living? Big-box releases of PC games have been dead for at least 10-15 years now since digital downloads like Steam took over and people stopped queuing en-mass for midnight launches of physical copies. Only special editions still come in boxes now but those are mostly for AAA games and for enthusiasts and collectors of the franchises as they come with a hefty markup.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    What boxes do you mean? HL2 was not in a big box but "dvd case" and that was released in 2004.
    - Lightkey 2y ago
      MobyGames is a helpful website to search for physical releases, as they include box scans. Sometimes not just of the cover but also the sides.. and top and bottoms of big boxes, where the system requirements were printed back in the day: https://www.mobygames.com/game/15564/half-life-2/cover/group-16318/cover-346510/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/15564/half-life-2/cover/group...
      - rightbyte 2y ago
        Ty
    - 2y ago
coreyh14444 2y ago
Yeah, and then the game studio bosses will need to shell out $5M to have a "candlelit dinner" with Trump and they'll get an exemption. Exactly as designed.
Symbiote 2y ago
This would add about two cents to a disk, so it's just being used as an excuse.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  It depends on whether the 25% tariff applies to just the price of the disk itself, or the entire game, software included.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    It applies to the whole box Unless you would be bringing only the disks and putting everything together yourself (including paying the licensing fee separately from the disk cost)
    - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      Then I expect it'd be adding more like $15 rather than $0.15.
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      It's the declared value of the box, which at this point could reasonably be the production cost of the box, disc and manual. I don't know if the license value must be included.
bawolff 2y ago
Of all the things that will be affected by tarrifs, physical game media seem the least important.
zombot 2y ago
Once Trump is through, America will lie in ruins. The only question is whether his followers will have the guts to acknowledge that.
- otikik 2y ago
  Why acknowledge anything when you can simply point to a scapegoat.
- hyperman1 2y ago
  To be honest, I start to see some advantages to Trump, and that's while seeing him as a horrible human. Western countries, including US and EU, are on a slow path of decline. The lessons of WW2 about the value of cooperation are forgotten. Trump creates a lot of mini crisisses, but these are as easily resolved as they were made by the next president. As a result, a lot of captains asleep at the wheel are getting a rude wake up. Meanwhile, there is a sanity to go back to. The EU finally gets serious about defence. Countries start doing thing without asking US permission first. In the US, the left is still in denial, but they keep getting whacked. They are also under shock and awe from the ongoing Trump legal blitzkrieg. But that won't stay. What's happening now will start a counter reaction, it's just too bizarre and extreme. Once they get themselves organized and fighting, they'll be a huge counterforce. Congress might start working again, and maybe some new amendments will even happen. I don't think the USA will return to absolute top dog status again, rather I think we end up with a multipolar world. But hardship will teach some much needed lessons.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ozmodiar 2y ago
    I largely agree with this so far, but my worry is that it's only been two months (though it may seem like an eternity). I'm worried he has much worse in store that won't be so easily circumvented, and we may already be seeing some of it with his buddying up to Russia against Europe. Between the military and corporate control the US has over other countries, there's much worse they could start doing. From my understanding of the current state of constitutional interpretation, the president has essentially unchecked power if they're willing to ignore any sort of decorum (which he certainly is), and he's already started huge purges of anyone not aligned in the government, intelligence and military. What do things start looking like when these purges are complete?
nottorp 2y ago
... and on the console side, you'll end up paying more for games, because on consoles they don't do discounts as often and as deep as on Steam for the digital SKUs.
erelong 2y ago
sounds more like they would just charge more to cover it

46 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

akimbostrawman 2y ago

Game disk for a long time now didn't have anything on them anyways. They are glorfied DRM bootstrapper.

yetihehe 2y ago
It's worse than that. Now games are released on one or two dvd, but those have read speed of about 20MB/s. So you need to install from dvd to disk in console or pc and then you need to download several gigabytes of updates anyway. And my internet at 80MB/s (~600mbit) is already faster than dvd for installation. That dvd only works as "physical token of scarcity" for game.
- bawolff 2y ago
  It is amazing to think about how we've reached the point where downloading data off the internet is significantly faster than physical media.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Years ago had very good connection(1Gb) and I discovered that for some specific games deleting and redownloading whole game was faster than patching it in place...
  - rincebrain 2y ago
    Part of the problem is that optical media development more or less stalled when a high enough % of people had enough internet connectivity to make it the more effective option. I'm sure the fact that this kills the ability to resell the games is in no way a consideration for companies aggressively migrating this way.

Nevermark 2y ago

> While Trump and others in his orbit argue that these tariffs will encourage companies to bring manufacturing and production back to the United States, observers see this as unlikely. "Completely reshoring technology manufacturing operations back to the United States is simply not practically or economically feasible given the scale and complexity of required resources and underlying economic production structure If reshoring manufacturing was an honest goal, the way to do it with tariffs would be to start them at some very low amount, to get the systems in place running smoothly without real money being involved. Then have tariffs rise on a schedule designed specifically to give importers time to adapt economically, and provide horizons for existing & new manufacturers to plan and execute expansions. Tariff rates rise and target rates would vary for classes of products based on the relative challenges of and urgency of rehoming. Given all the tension with China, and the realization of our vulnerabilities & dependencies, I would think a sensible restoring of manufacturing to the US would have broad bipartisan support. Sudden tariffs cause disruption and losses for everyone, except the recipient of the tariffs. I.e. Gov. But economic disruption can stall economic activity too, so that “return” isn’t simple or guaranteed.

nlitened 2y ago
> If reshoring manufacturing was an honest goal, the way to do it with tariffs would be to start them at some very low amount ... > Then have tariffs rise on a schedule designed specifically to give importers time to adapt economically What were the examples of scheduled-increase tariffs that resulted in successful reshoring of manufacturing in the recent history? It does not look obvious that gradual increase would work better. It does look as if it would give manufacturers more time to adapt, but also it would give them more time to counter-lobby/circumvent/sabotage the tariffs, and the certain growth of costs would still be priced-in from day one.
- dummydummy1234 2y ago
  Maybe, but the issue is that it does not seem serious. If he was serious about restoring industries, then we would have targeted tariffs. Tariffs on coffee is not useful, and is silly. Similarly a lot of raw commodities, we will not be smelting the amount of aluminum the US needs because we do not have the same low cost power as iceland. They could have gone slower, and planned things out, but chose not to. And are doing exceptions based on who can talk to trump. If you are a business that does international business that might be onshored, how confident are you that the tarrifs are here to stay? That you should invest 200 million in American manufacturing, and that government policy will not change in 6 months,or 3 days, or 4 years. Thats the problem with these tariffs is that they rely on the belief of business that they are here to stay.

_mitterpach 2y ago

With this, there is a loss of a large culture of game boxes. They used to contain so much physical art, manuals and secrets, which do seem to have been left behind. Current process is very simple and direct, and you can go from seeing a game on Steam to installing it in under a minute. That is a huge win for customers and publishers both. I do wish there was still a way to replicate it, and I do laud the few game developers who do put their manuals on Steam, as the service definitely offers it.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>With this, there is a loss of a large culture of game boxes. Where have you been living? Big-box releases of PC games have been dead for at least 10-15 years now since digital downloads like Steam took over and people stopped queuing en-mass for midnight launches of physical copies. Only special editions still come in boxes now but those are mostly for AAA games and for enthusiasts and collectors of the franchises as they come with a hefty markup.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  What boxes do you mean? HL2 was not in a big box but "dvd case" and that was released in 2004.
  - Lightkey 2y ago
    MobyGames is a helpful website to search for physical releases, as they include box scans. Sometimes not just of the cover but also the sides.. and top and bottoms of big boxes, where the system requirements were printed back in the day: https://www.mobygames.com/game/15564/half-life-2/cover/group-16318/cover-346510/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/15564/half-life-2/cover/group...
    - rightbyte 2y ago
      Ty
  - 2y ago

coreyh14444 2y ago

Yeah, and then the game studio bosses will need to shell out $5M to have a "candlelit dinner" with Trump and they'll get an exemption. Exactly as designed.

Symbiote 2y ago

This would add about two cents to a disk, so it's just being used as an excuse.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
It depends on whether the 25% tariff applies to just the price of the disk itself, or the entire game, software included.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  It applies to the whole box Unless you would be bringing only the disks and putting everything together yourself (including paying the licensing fee separately from the disk cost)
  - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    Then I expect it'd be adding more like $15 rather than $0.15.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    It's the declared value of the box, which at this point could reasonably be the production cost of the box, disc and manual. I don't know if the license value must be included.

bawolff 2y ago

Of all the things that will be affected by tarrifs, physical game media seem the least important.

zombot 2y ago

Once Trump is through, America will lie in ruins. The only question is whether his followers will have the guts to acknowledge that.

otikik 2y ago
Why acknowledge anything when you can simply point to a scapegoat.
hyperman1 2y ago
To be honest, I start to see some advantages to Trump, and that's while seeing him as a horrible human. Western countries, including US and EU, are on a slow path of decline. The lessons of WW2 about the value of cooperation are forgotten. Trump creates a lot of mini crisisses, but these are as easily resolved as they were made by the next president. As a result, a lot of captains asleep at the wheel are getting a rude wake up. Meanwhile, there is a sanity to go back to. The EU finally gets serious about defence. Countries start doing thing without asking US permission first. In the US, the left is still in denial, but they keep getting whacked. They are also under shock and awe from the ongoing Trump legal blitzkrieg. But that won't stay. What's happening now will start a counter reaction, it's just too bizarre and extreme. Once they get themselves organized and fighting, they'll be a huge counterforce. Congress might start working again, and maybe some new amendments will even happen. I don't think the USA will return to absolute top dog status again, rather I think we end up with a multipolar world. But hardship will teach some much needed lessons.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ozmodiar 2y ago
  I largely agree with this so far, but my worry is that it's only been two months (though it may seem like an eternity). I'm worried he has much worse in store that won't be so easily circumvented, and we may already be seeing some of it with his buddying up to Russia against Europe. Between the military and corporate control the US has over other countries, there's much worse they could start doing. From my understanding of the current state of constitutional interpretation, the president has essentially unchecked power if they're willing to ignore any sort of decorum (which he certainly is), and he's already started huge purges of anyone not aligned in the government, intelligence and military. What do things start looking like when these purges are complete?

nottorp 2y ago

... and on the console side, you'll end up paying more for games, because on consoles they don't do discounts as often and as deep as on Steam for the digital SKUs.

erelong 2y ago

sounds more like they would just charge more to cover it