this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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This is yet another nail in the coffin of physical media. Or, in other words games you actually own instead of long term lease.
More anti-consumer stuff from corporate bigwigs
Death by a thousand cuts
It's not like physical media makes any difference anyway these days.
Actual disk often gets just a glorified installer, and even if it includes the entire game you're likely to have to activate it online anyway.
The "own your games" ship has sailed long ago, unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups.
Is it possible for modern games to fit on a disk?
I think it would be an interesting change if brand new games had a hard limit on file size so they can fit on and play from an actual disk.
They still have to install.
Disks are too slow.
If they use a good, 12X bluray drive, it will be quicker to install from a disk than to download it unless you're lucky enough to have a good fiber internet connection. Even then, the servers you download from will often be overloaded and slow on release day.
That's not my point. Most games do install fine from the disk.
He's talking about playing from the disk, too, and that's a problem.
The issue isn't the game engine, it's the texture files.
If you don't care what it looks like, you cut 80-90% or more from any modern game subbing low quality textures.
This in my opinion is one of the valid use cases of a blockchain/NFTs: they provide provable ownership of digital goods. This means that if implemented, in the future we could actually own games music movies ebooks etc. The only remaining step would be a decentralized torrent-like system that allows the users to download the licensed content that they own via their nft.
I mean, I can actually own a bunch of stuff as long as it doesn't have some sort of proprietary DRM bullshit attached to it.
The problem isn't that there's no way to obtain media in a non-bullshit way. The problem is that distributors don't want to provide media in a non-bullshit way.
Sure, you can still own digital media, but you can't sell or trade it like you can with a physical copy.
Meh. If life weren't so focused on material gains and losses, I wouldn't need to.
It would also mean potential losses for the distributors, as people are (supposedly) less likely to buy directly for them.
So, again, the problem isn't the media, it's the distributors.
If you can't modify it, sell it or know what the game software is even doing then calling that "ownership" would be rather lacking. I mean in terms of traditional ownership, not the modern definition: "page 69 of the EULA defines "purchasing" (the software) as a limited, non-transferable lease which can stop working at any time due to dependency on a proprietary server code we will never share I fucked your mom".
You could sell the NFT and lose access to the game just like a disc
You wouldn't be able to modify it as the nft would just allow you to download the game.
Edit: But allowing people to freely resale their digital copies would be a big win for people. No gatekeepers just like with discs
As long as the network exists
If it's a networked game, but there's no reason a offline game shouldn't work other than incompetence.
Also since the NFT is the DRM the game could be available for download outside of the publishers purview, such as a public torrent site.
But if the game has to call home every time it starts and there is no server your game won't work. StarCraft can be played offline, as it was created, but you need to connect to play because Blizzard.
How would an NFT help in any way? We're not lacking the means to prove you bought the game. We're lacking companies willing to sell you games and laws that prevent companies from saying "buy" when they mean "rent". If we got to a place where torrenting software you've bought in the past is legal, we don't need NFTs to accomplish it...
The difference is the price of buying discs vs. buying from a digital store that has no competitors.
I've bought almost exclusively second-hand discs for my PS5, because they're like half the price for the exact same content.
Sadly it'll probably be just a matter of time before those will be phased out as well, one way or another.
Steam keys can be found dramatically cheaper than all of that.
They can, difference is a vast majority of people don't want to buy/build a PC, or deal with a PC setup in general, they just want to press one button to make it work and sit on the couch. So the easy option for them is buying a console, it's plug and play, while a PC requires quite some setup.
So we need Steam Box. Steam Deck just works 99% of the time. I can only complain about the desktop mode being buggy and non-steam games being a pain in the ass to install.
Then we return to the topic of not owning your games with Steam. Try installing non Steam games via the Heroic launcher and use Bazzite OS instead
Try getting non-playstation games on your Playstation. What about games from older Playstation? Can't get most of those on there. And let's not pretend you "own" Playstation games anymore when so many require online and patches anyways.
Steam is more value for money and improved services and support. I used to be a die hard Playstation fan but it got old being treated like shit.
You can get generally up to PS3 games working on PC and you'd be owning those games too. Value for money is good and all but owning vs leasing is clear cut and I'll take owning my stuff everytime, as that is valuable to me.
For $700 they could at least throw in a 4k Blu-ray player.
Then again, I ponied up extra for the disc version of the original ps5 for that exact reason, only to find out the media player software is a giant piece of garbage that was clearly given no effort. So I can't say I'm too surprised.
Sony doesn't put much effort into most things.
It does if you rent
I've been using gamefly for a while, I can't rent digital only games
or you straight up pirate it.
There’s not a lot of brave souls doing this as a passionate hobby any longer. Now it’s for the clout, to inject malware, or to receive monetary donations. Or all three!
I hope I am wrong, and we can get back to the passionate hobby, but it’s looking kinda grim from my point of view.
its always been for the clout in the scene. but ive been pirating shit for a couple of decades now, no malware so far.
Yeah. Piracy is alive-and-well. You can even acquire and play PS5 games right now if you wanted to.
If you have been doing it for a decade, then surely you’ve noticed the drop in active crackers…?
you can still pirate games without getting malware, even if a little late.
I remember thinking it was bs when half life 2 required a steam account and now everyone loves it.
Thing is, that’s not how it works on PlayStation. On PS5 you can download and play games without ever connecting to wifi. The whole glorified installer is mostly an Xbox thing ever since the XB1. I’d know since I own both and usually get discs to play my games.
Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer. I try to buy games there instead of Steam, purely for this reason.
Note that this is a major selling point for GOG and available on most of their library, but unlike their early days, not everything is DRM-free.
Piracy is the only way, clearly capitalism doesn’t give and inch.
Nor a funk
Maybe but look what happened to Stellar Blade
IDK. Between the price tag and lack of the disc drive IDK how many people are gonna buy this thing. It's probably just for people who HAVE to have the highest graphics, to keep them from getting a gaming PC until the PS6 is ready for them.
I'm not sure. If that is their strategy they're dancing on a razor. I mean, the market is pretty slim. Basically, you can get a pretty sweet gaming PC for the price they're offering. And if you project the amount of games you'll get and estimate the price differential with prices of the same games on a PC you might be able to uprate the specs a few times. I would say that a PS5 with a reasonable amount of games is probably worth a similar amount to a $1k PC.