- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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I honestly don’t care. I understand why we moved away from it. My only issue is that we don’t actually own it. It’s a license that can be taken away whenever that company wants. I wish people would stop pushing for physical media when we’ve hit a real limitation there and instead push for regulation to get rid of this god awful licensing bullshit that has plagued the industry for over 10 years now.
You’re not wrong but I feel like getting rid of discs helps move things in the opposite direction. Yes it was licenses even with discs, but now we truly can’t resell or trade.
What I’ve preached time and time again is that optical discs are a dead technology for AAA titles. Even if you use quad layer discs it would take over an hour to transfer to your consoles hard drive, and they max out at 128GB. Games are only getting bigger and bigger. Plenty of titles surpass that. Most games that do ship on disc are dual layer due to quad layer being rare and expensive. So of course they’re phasing that out.
We really need a successor to optical media but unfortunately I doubt that will happen. However with regulation we could actually go back to owning games and not worry about big corpo delisting at their choosing.
As for used games, well……I don’t think we’ll ever go back to that in a digital format. Unfortunate circumstances all around.
One of the reasons they are so big is that they are poorly optimized no?
That is a contributor yes but you’re going to get large game sizes regardless due to high resolution textures being so prominent nowadays. 4K gaming is what really started all this. A lot of games are still 80GB+ and that’s only going to rise with each generation. Ultimately it’s unavoidable.
That said Activision with COD is a good example of poor compression and unoptimization. Particularly with the stupid ass high bitrate audio that they use and don’t bother to properly compress it.
Did any of that R* union busting controversy get resolved?
Still in court IIRC
Why do people think that gta6 content will be stored locally?
So it’s gonna be a live service (online only) and die one day just like The Crew did?
Of course, you will own nothing, and you will be glad for it
Considering this thing is bound to be a 500GB Clusterfuck with even more gigs of Day 1 patches I don’t even know what physical media would look like.
Might as well switch to NFC Cards with the license inside them at this point.
The physical media should be a 500GB M.2 SSD containing the game. Plug and play haha
They are building ssds like that that can be killed remotely, I could see games being bought that way
A disc with a licence on it is better than a single use download code.
I hesitate to ask but you know Nintendo already did that yeah? Like it sounds like you may know but just to make sure.
At least did more honestly (clearly put a “DO NOT PURCHASE” label on the box) than a fake 50mb stub that just tells the user “there’s a 200gb update to download, you need to go online and download it” that too many games are doing nowadays and there’s no way to know if the game is actually included or the purpose of the disc is to be a DRM
Oh for sure, it’s a real weird time for the industry in that way. I’m not a fan, but I guess when the world ends the 360 will reign supreme?
thumb drive? Should easily fit into a case
I’d imagine the games file size would be so large you’d need a full on binder to keep all the discs
You know Bluray disks can hold up to 100GB right?
Even if it requires a download, a license you can sell or trade is better than one you can’t.
Of course, but we’re never going to get there without regulation.
Gotta get that $5 trade-in
NFS most wanted was like 6 cds. Jokes on you I’m into that shit.
But it wasn’t too different as a concept: It installed everything on the local drive, then used the first CD exclusively as a DRM. Didn’t optimize the install size to leave the useless FMV on the optical media as the earlier PC games were doing
True story: as a kid I had a k6-400 MHz with 20gb HDD. Space was a constraint. I purchased state of emergency, it took 550 mb of space on the HDD AND it required the disc on the drive. I was shocked, what? All my previous games occupied a tenth of that, Virtua cop 2 was like 30mb. And installers usually asked if I wanted minimal or full install. Then I found out that there was a 500 mb intro.bik file. The useless intro video, the one that I would skip every single time was occupying 10x of the actual game and I was forced to have the CD in the drive as a DRM anyway… Why not load it from there?? Anyway, at the time they didn’t do file checksum, so I copied rockstar.bik (1mb spinning rockstar logo video) as intro.bik and enjoyed my game.
Then later when playing on a much newer computer with windows 7 it wouldn’t install anymore. It wasn’t the game itself that was incompatible, but the DRM. Found a no-cd patch on gcw, then the game didn’t require to be installed at all! I had copied the old drive on a DVD-r and the game would run very fine directly from the optical disc with ZERO install size…
While I am nostalgic for those days, they were also marred by the ilk of DRM like SecuROM. We discovered my disc drive was literally scratching our discs - the longer we played them, the more they deteriorated until the drive could no longer detect the disc. We purchased a new drive and still had to buy some of our games a second time. Paying twice for the same object was so abhorrent to me as a kid, that if I ever somehow lost access to a digital piece of media I had purchased, I’d just go sailing instead.
I’d imagine that the game would still be unplayable with physical media when it likely requires an Internet connection anyway.
They wouldn’t release it on floppy disks. It shouldn’t need more than a few blurays.
or just three, which is not unheard of
Wasn’t Half life 2 digital release only in 2004? I remember being pissed off I had to create a steam account and that is why my account name is rather rude.
No, Half-Life 2 came out as physical media. The controversy was that you had to have a Steam account to activate the copy. Which, when you think about it, is not a whole heck of a lot different than what’s going on here. But Steam has basically institutionalized the use of a platform to access games rather than simply having a physical copy for yourself. Which is why I’m glad companies like GOG exists.
The major difference here is that this game is a console only game. And typically with major console releases you would be able to take your physical copy and put it on a different machine and play on that instead if you liked. Whereas you can’t do that now. You download this game to your console and that is your copy. It is tied directly to your account. Which is essentially how steam works. Which is why I find it absolutely hilarious that Rockstar is locking out platforms like Steam because of their concerns over people hacking the game and distributing it.
I sincerely hope somebody finds a way to crack it in less than a year. These fucking companies need to get kicked in the balls a couple times.
That reminds me of my Microsoft account. I had to create a microsoft account for my windows VM (I need it because i develop crossplatform) and i called my account something along the lines of f4ckyoustup1dm1crosh1t.
@well_i_never_2004
Grand Theft Game there. What a fucking joke.
I’m sympathetic, I think media that can be borrowed, lent, sold and otherwise transferred is better. But I’ve given up on video games being that way years ago. I don’t have a “collection” of video games any more than I’d have a collection of used chewing gum.
The other side of that coin, though, is that I never pay more than $20 for a game. Almost everything I buy is even under $10. (I think the Orange Box was the last time I paid anything like a retail price for a game. And that was three games.) The games are ephemeral, they could stop working at any moment for any of a million different reasons, and I’d have no recourse. So I’m not going to pay crazy archival prices.
Saw someone else here or another thread about this make a great point: It’s not the digital nature of the thing, it’s where and who is storing it. Steam used to have a way of backing up installs yourself; if it’s still a thing, I have no idea where it’s hidden now. GOG is the only place I know that still allows this, with their DRM free installer executables.
I don’t necessarily need to buy the games on a disk, but I sure would like the ability to archive them myself in the event the business storing my shit goes under or randomly decides to no longer store my shit. That was my biggest concern with Steam back when it launched (i resisted moving to the platform until the very last hour of WON being shut down and Steam became the ONLY way to play CS), but, again, it used to let you do this hella easily.
Steam used to have a way of backing up installs yourself; if it’s still a thing, I have no idea where it’s hidden now.
Library -> Game context menu -> Manage -> Back up game files…
The game files are just directories you can archive however you want anyway. No stinky ‘installer executables’ necessary. (:
Glad to hear this is still a thing. Like a total unc I keep a txt file of every game I own in the event I need to “buy it again” later.
They’re less known, but ZOOM-Platform are DRM free for everything, and given you the offline installers.
You can back up your Xbox digital games at least via transferring them to an external drive. Not sure about PS, they’re always more restrictive.
How many games nowadays are available on a physical medium? Why would this be important?
Almost all of my Nintendo games are physical. If I had a Playstation or an XBOX I’d go for physical copies as well. Why? Collector and resell value, also you can’t just disable my physical game, you’d have to come by and physically take it away from me.
On PC, I care less about it. If Steam shuts down tomorrow, I download everything today and unlock it via Goldberg or just pirate it on demand. On console, I either can’t do that at all or it is quite challenging to do so (with some exceptions).
Its a line, some people like to buy and own. Remember this moment when you spend the rest of your life renting your media.
I mean it might just shift to services like GOG. I use Bandcamp for music and don’t buy physical CDs anymore because the files are DRM-free and easy to archive. Same with GOG for games I own on it.
Now, Rockstar is definitely not doing a DRM-free release though. Hopefully a cracked version circulates eventually.
We as a household have been Xbox a long time (and played GTA1 release day on PS1) but we are likely moving towards PC and GOG model. There’s just too many hoops, and too many greedy costs to continue with Xbox. It’s a sad time.
We want to have control of our devices and media. I want to ensure I have access on my terms. I don’t wanna turn on my interface to see a glorified advertising screen.
We don’t begrudge cost of games. It just get miffed at my rights as a purchaser continually being eroded and treated like I’m the issue for saying that’s not acceptable.
Not to ridicule your prior decisions, but it’s been obvious since at least the xb360 days that gaming on a locked platform (console ecosystem) would always lead to the revocation of ownership and the inability to do what you wish with your own hardware and games (unless you modded them, and I recommend modding your old consoles if you still have them).
There is no future for true game ownership on a locked platform. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft understand this quite well, which is why you are lured in to a walled garden with the cheaper “cost of entry”, and have no true exit that lets you keep your stuff as they gouge you further and further.
I don’t really care about owning for its own sake, but I know services only get worse for customers over time, so that makes me prefer owning some things.
“Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem”
Yep! I’ve gone back to the glory days of an iPod, but with an old iPhone I use just for local music when I want Bluetooth & modern conveniences. Soooo much better! I have my whole library and then some on it, 128GB iPhone 12 filled with opus music, on an app I built with AI help.
The app is just for myself and can’t be distributed as it uses some API stuff that can’t be posted to the App Store, but it took me about a solid 2 hours of work on Kiro (basically like cursor) to make my own perfect music app.
It works totally offline, scrobbles everything I listen to, and when I have internet again automatically uploads it all to lastfm. Deep listening stats, the works.
I’ve cancelled all of my music subscriptions now and have my own library of all the shit I like. For free! Want more music? Sail the seven seas!
You can also buy music directly from artists on Bandcamp Fridays where they still get 100% of the sale going to the artists. I was afraid that would stop when it got sold but it’s not dead yet.
Also, another option is to have a locally hosted Jellyfin or Plex (ha) server and stream to yourself. My music collection is over 600GB so there’s not many phones that can hold it all.
I also self-host a music scrobbling service with Maloja and Multi-Scrobbler docker containers so I can get similar types of stats as last.fm while also having more privacy. I was able to import my stats from last.fm to it as well.
Hell yeah I never knew that! I’ll do that for sure, I love supporting the artists directly & not having it go into someone else’s grubby hands. Thanks!
Also very interesting on everything being self hosted, might have to look into that myself as my collection is growing rapidly haha
The point of last.fm for me is the recommendations more than the stats themselves, are you able to run a similar recommendation engine based on some musician database or similar?
Yeah unfortunately it does not have the same recommendation engine, just listening stats. I haven’t looked for a recommendation engine because I hadn’t thought about it. I’ll look to see if there’s anything like that now.
EDIT: I always forget about ListenBrainz. Not self-hosted, but definitely a good last.fm alternative that includes artist recommendations.
I’m jellyfin but have my library local on a drive. Also gonna grab a newish music player for my car.
Since a physical copy would undoubtedly require day one updates to just work properly, you would just end up with an unplayable physical copy If they decide to not make these updates available.
Yes, but by the time GTA6 is no longer available to update it will be irrelevant anyway. You can still update the PS3 version of 5 13 years later.
You’re assuming they’re keeping it alive for just as long as GTA5, which is not a guarantee.
I don’t get it, you can have a DRM and online activation on a CD, and a DRM free digital copy.
Also you come about a bit snarky.
It’s not meant to be snarky. I suppose I just get frustrated at those who are willing to move towards a system where you don’t own a thing. I’m good, I can do without but I worry for the next gen tolerating bullshit from corps who have monopolised so much.
Fair enough!
I loved the cartridge era, just plug it in and switch your console on. Great for sharing too.
But I don’t get it with a, I guess, multi 100GB game, that will contain anti copy stuff, need patches, be made with DLC in mind and so on.
For me it’s just hipsterism or the need for some “feelgood”, as it doesn’t fix the problem with ownership.
I remember when the CD could be installed 3 times, and that’s it. I prefer a DRM free copy BTW, on my drive, what’s your thoughts about that?
I’m also a bit curious about all the downvoting 🤷🏻♀️ have we stopped discussing (this is not aimed at you of course)?
Because I like to actually own the stuff I buy. I don’t want to purchase access to a product for the same price as buying it outright.
I’m also salty every time I see a digital game available for pre-order. Pre-order is to make sure you get one of a limited set of copies. There are unlimited digital copies. The only thing pre-ordering a digital game does is ensure upper management is less stressed about bug fixes and botched releases.
Is that still possible with modern games? The last time I bought a physical game it came with a Steam key that locked it to my account. And that was 15 years ago. (Granted, it was Portal 2, so obviously it was on Steam. But I still couldn’t give the disc to someone to let them play it.)
You’re not wrong about wanting to actually own the stuff you buy, but your comment is predicated on the false notion that you don’t own a game you bought as a digital download. Everybody needs to quit falling for the copyright cartel shysters’ lies.
(This is also a reply to the sibling comment by @[email protected], BTW.)
It’s important for people who buy/sell games second hand…
Also it can be nice to find an old game you bought 20 years ago in a closet with your old console and have some chance to be able to just boot it up and play it without needing the servers to still be up and running…
NakeyJakey explains it better, if you have 6 minutes
Literally all of them because there is no way for a game to exist without physical media. If it’s on your SSD/HDD, it’s on physical media. If it’s in “the cloud” it’s in someone else’s SSD/HDD. It’s always on physical media, just not a nice little disk in a box.
Lol, best kind of true :-D
Physical media has been in trouble for a while now.
Physical media was already a car crash victim lol. Physical sales are like 10% of all console game sales. To make the top 10 physical sales charts in the UK and US a game barely has to hit 4 figures in sales.
Designed car crash, aided by subsidized digital only console variants.
No, because the digital uptake began as soon as digital copies of every game were made available on the 360. People like me have basically been digital-only since then. Digital only consoles didn’t start until generations later.
Give up physical media and own nothing.
Time to do some reading… https://dervis.de/physical/
I don’t need to read anything. I understand the benefits and also the drawbacks of digital licenses.
To me, and to most people, the benefits - instant access, all games accessible without getting off your lounge, no possibility of losing/breaking discs, home console/family sharing, no “sold out” chance, among others - outweigh being able to re-sell and lend to people.
These days even the physical prices are not much cheaper than digital, and digital copies go on much better sales that are more available.
I don’t need to read anything.
Wow. This is definitely something that intelligent, well adjusted people say regularly!
Do games even fully come on disc anymore?
Not tryna be a dick but like, haven’t touched a modern console in a bit cuz PC.
Don’t all new games need like a giant day 1 patch to work anyways now?
But you could sell a disk (as long as it doesn’t need an activation code) which is one of the good things about consoles (said by people that have consoles)
Yeah pretty much. I was gifted a collectors edition copy of starfield for xbox when it released, and the media was a metal credit token replica with a download code printed on the side, rather than a disc.
The smart watch it came with was pretty shit too fyi, but that’s probably no surprise lol.
It’s at least the last nail in the coffin for consoles. The whole point of a console is that you can put the game in and it just works.
No, the whole point of consoles is that you can just play a game and it just works. Physical has been dead for generations.
I still buy nothing but physical PS5 games. They are often on sale/cheaper than the digital only version on the PS store.
Good for you, but you’re one of an incredibly small number of people. Most people prefer the convenience of digital.
I’m going to be so happy for the day that I can pay for the hour for a game like this and rent cloud space to store it on.
XboX R-Cade - It’ll have an NFC chip reader for card transactions and a slot for bills.
