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[-] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 139 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 94 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups

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.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 37 points 2 months ago

Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer.

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.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago

Piracy is the only way, clearly capitalism doesn’t give and inch.

[-] whostosay@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago
[-] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

Steam keys can be found dramatically cheaper than all of that.

[-] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

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

[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 2 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] webhead@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

If you wait for a good sale, digital is sometimes cheap or cheaper. I just go with whatever is cheapest at any given moment.

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[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

I remember thinking it was bs when half life 2 required a steam account and now everyone loves it.

[-] pivot_root@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago

For better or worse, the landscape has shifted since then. I can't imagine people love Steam for being Steam, but rather for being the most consumer-friendly platform on PC.

Refunds? No questions asked if it's within 2 weeks and 2 hours of playtime.

User reviews and ratings? Yes, and even comments on those reviews.

Community content? Steam discussions, guides, art, etc. Even mods with the workshop.

Bribes development studios for exclusivity deals? Nope! Devs can release games wherever the fuck they want.

Platform support? PC. Not just Windows, but going out of their way to make Linux a first class citizen. They even support Crapple despite its miniscule market share among PC gamers.

[-] IcePee@lemmy.beru.co 4 points 2 months ago

You're right. But, all this good stuff is to obfuscate the central fact that you don't own the property you bought. Sure, Valve has claimed that should they go away, as their last act, they'll provide the ability for users to own their purchases, but who actually believes them?

[-] dmention7@lemm.ee 12 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

Sony doesn't put much effort into most things.

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I'm glad some companies are going full media and the younger Gen is buying physical media. It's creating a counter culture that smart companies are using to their advantage.

[-] criticon@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

It does if you rent

I've been using gamefly for a while, I can't rent digital only games

[-] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

Sure you can. wink wink 🏴‍☠️

[-] B312@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Absolutely. It just depends a lot on the game of course. A blueray disk can contain over 100 GB. But a game could be split over several disks too. It was rather common to do that with CDs on the original PlayStation.

[-] Maultasche@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

A lot of Xbox 360 games came on multiple discs

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

They still have to install.

Disks are too slow.

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] bufalo1973@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Maybe someone could do the numbers and see if a memory (USB, SD*, ...) can be cheaper than a BR for this case.

[-] Sat@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 months ago

Maybe but look what happened to Stellar Blade

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups

or you straight up pirate it.

[-] LucidNightmare@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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