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You can keep your coaster for 500 years. Thats not want you wanted when you bought it. What if the full game isn’t on the disc? How are you going to play it in

by MBCook 2mo ago

You can keep your coaster for 500 years. Thats not want you wanted when you bought it. What if the full game isn’t on the disc? How are you going to play it in five years when the servers are gone and you can’t download the rest. What if the game isn’t on the disc at all? What if it’s basically a magic unlock code and then the whole thing gets downloaded. Like Nintendo’s game key cards. No one can ever take away your right to stick your disc into the console. And it will always do whatever it did if you did that when the console was not connected to the Internet. Today you can’t always play the game in that situation. Which means that having the thing in your hand already isn’t good enough. Digital download makes that fact obvious. People think discs are still in PS1/2 days where they're always enough. Thats gone.

movedx 2mo ago
Yes, I want the console to last as long as possible. That is ordinarily why people buy durable goods: ownership carries a reasonable expectation of continued use. We don’t throw away our plates and cutlery after three to five years simply because the manufacturer has moved on to a newer model, or they've shutdown, or they've said you're not allowed to. > What if the game isn’t on the disc at all? What if it’s essentially an unlock key and the entire game must be downloaded, like Nintendo’s game-key cards? That is precisely the issue being debated. People object to games ceasing to be self-contained products and becoming revocable permissions—dependent on a publisher’s servers and continued cooperation. Physical media matters because it can, in principle, preserve a game as something its owner can use repeatedly without requesting permission each time. Downloads themselves aren’t the problem. I love the extreme convenience of buying a game and playing it within hours without leaving home. It's crazy to me that we can do that today, when just 30 years ago my friend and I were ripping demo discs off of the front of PC Zone magazine. But that model remains acceptable only while platforms such as Steam, reinforced by consumer protections such as those in Australia, preserve a reasonable expectation of continued access to what people have purchased. What you’re describing is a form of generational amnesia—or shifting-baseline syndrome. If you grow up with ownership steadily being replaced by conditional access, conditional access begins to feel like the natural and inevitable meaning of ownership. It isn’t.

by MBCook 2mo ago

movedx 2mo ago

Yes, I want the console to last as long as possible. That is ordinarily why people buy durable goods: ownership carries a reasonable expectation of continued use. We don’t throw away our plates and cutlery after three to five years simply because the manufacturer has moved on to a newer model, or they've shutdown, or they've said you're not allowed to. > What if the game isn’t on the disc at all? What if it’s essentially an unlock key and the entire game must be downloaded, like Nintendo’s game-key cards? That is precisely the issue being debated. People object to games ceasing to be self-contained products and becoming revocable permissions—dependent on a publisher’s servers and continued cooperation. Physical media matters because it can, in principle, preserve a game as something its owner can use repeatedly without requesting permission each time. Downloads themselves aren’t the problem. I love the extreme convenience of buying a game and playing it within hours without leaving home. It's crazy to me that we can do that today, when just 30 years ago my friend and I were ripping demo discs off of the front of PC Zone magazine. But that model remains acceptable only while platforms such as Steam, reinforced by consumer protections such as those in Australia, preserve a reasonable expectation of continued access to what people have purchased. What you’re describing is a form of generational amnesia—or shifting-baseline syndrome. If you grow up with ownership steadily being replaced by conditional access, conditional access begins to feel like the natural and inevitable meaning of ownership. It isn’t.