Are you ok with a future where you no longer own your games?

Future? It's been that way since gaming started. At least 50 years that I know of.

This. Some folks are just ignorant.

Future? I think you mean the present.

Anyway, yes, I'm OK with the current set up. Truth be told, games have never been cheaper for me as I tend to prefer the competitively-priced, higher-quality independent titles that are out there than the AAA stuff.

Add to that the various subscription services that allow me to dabble with all kinds of games I either don't want to buy and try, or games I am curious about, and it's a pretty great time to be a gamer.

As for "owning" my games, I don't think it's as simple as "owning" vs "not owning"; there's a pretty large grey area there. So sure while I am 100% digital and in theory those games I purchased the rights to access could disappear in the blink of an eye, the chance of that of that happening is essentially zero.

Am I a fan of the current situation? Well, I wouldn't go that far; I'd obviously love to live in a world where I can own a digital copy of a game, copy the installer to a hard drive and be able to store it forever and use it without any DRM...but do I prefer it to how things were back in the day before the internet or in the early 2000's? Absolutely.

The only thing that really concerns me is that there needs to be some allowance made for the archiving of games for historical purposes. These things are, to one extent or another, a part of our culture and history and I don't think it is right for a company to essentially disappear a game from the face of planet earth. If they do that, they should at least reach out to various groups or organizations and give them the "master files" (or whatever you call them) so they can store the game for posterity's sake.

That's why I download roms 🤌

Nope.

If I can't own it, I won't pay for it.

Prefer to own. As any sane person should.

You're such a good little sheep aren't you. I'd like to see MS, Sony, Nintendo etc come to my house and take my games, and we'll see how that works out.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, and that's...I like my games like I like my women, and that's physical.

Yes. I really don't care about stuff like that. I also don't own movies anymore and I am also fine with that as I have services for that. Physical stuff is highly overrated in my opinion also as I am a minimalist at heart.

Own in terms of physical copy of a game or licence of a game?

You own the plastic they are on but you don’t own the actual game.

@taint: Good little sheep baa. Do me a favour pick either of the companies and tell them to go to someone's house and take their games, and we'll see what happens lol.

Some of my games I will sell, but some I will keep.

Ok but you still only own the plastic that the game is on lol.

Since you think you seem to own the actual game, that means you can legally copy the game and resell it.

Give that a whirl and let us know how that goes lol.

Not to be a downer but you're all gonna die.... All the games you'll ever want to play will be available until then. Play them however you'd like, just please don't say "ownership" matters with the reaper looming.

@taint: You can't freely copy a book and sell the copy because you don't own the copyright, but you own the physical artifact. Yeah just the paper and ink parts and how it's all arranged in that format, but it's a thing that you bought and have. You can sell it and lend it.

@taint: Making copies of a lot of things is illegal regardless of whether you own something or not, games are not alone in that, so your point is pointless.

Again if I dont own it as you claim then MS can come into my home and take any game with their logo on it, but we both know they can't because that's against the law.

I'm not sure why you're trying to keep this up when you know I own the game, but you do you kvally.

What in the world are you talking about, lol. If you buy a DVD, for example, you certainly own it, but you can't legally copy it and resell. The argument you're trying to make is beyond asinine.

Wow, we got another one here folks. You own the plastic DVD. You don’t own the movie on the DVD.

I feel like I’m talking to a kindergartener. Think before you type.

@taint: Man you're really twisting yourself onto pretzel over this one 🤣

In your world you own nothing that has a brand behind it. Because there's a copyright.

Don't own your Nissan because it's copyrighted to Nissan.

Don't own you phone because it's copyrighted to Samsung.

Don't own your watch because it's copyrighted to Swiss.

Don't own your jeans because they're copyrighted to Levi's.

And so on.

But you keep bringing up the straw men argument of making illegal copies because it's funny af man 🤣🤣🤣

Yeah, you own the DVD, lol. That's the point. You paid for it, you own it.

Holy crap, dude.

It is funny folks are still struggling with the concept of ownership for IP.🤷🏾‍♂️

I don’t make the laws lol. Blame the content creators for protecting their intellectual property lol.

They are probably purposely being obtuse.

Again this bullshit, worthless statement. I wonder why you people stand by it, why you care so much about written law rather than practical reality. Too institutionalized?

Nah. I just prefer to abide by the rules. Doesn’t mean I want my digital games taken away from me. But when I started buying them I knew I was at risk.

@taint: So you're saying you don't own anything then, sad world you live in mate. If I were you I would just rent everything then.

I don’t make the rules 🤷‍♂️

I break the law on a regular basis. Do you even lift, bro? Plenty of laws were written by dumb people. It doesn't matter. What matters is practicality. The copy is yours.

@taint: I'll follow the law and you can follow the rules ok mate, have a nice day 👍

No I like physical media. Mostly because if my console breaks, which is way more likely to happen over time I’ll still have a copy of my games and would just need to replace the machine. Also nice to have physical items with boxart for collection purposes.

In the case of movies same difference except if your digital movies are tied to an account you might have to change that one day and they’d be lost. There’s also the possibility of stuff being removed from a service if you’re just streaming.

There’s talk that a company can send an update to your console/players that will stop them from reading whatever disc they want but I don’t think that’s something to be concerned about. It’s technically possible but it literally serves zero purpose. You can’t do that on standard DVD players or even a PS2 anyway. They’re not connected to the internet. Even so just disconnect whatever is if you’re really worried. Companies want to go digital because it saves money now. They don’t care about us using old discs on old machines.

I think physical games will still be around through next generation (Switch 2/PS6/Next Xbox) but it’s obvious they intend to be digital as much as possible. We’ll see how it goes.

If/when I lose access to something I paid for then I'll be concerned. For now I have no reason to believe that will happen. Of course most companies are looking for new ways to screw over their customers so ... you never know.

It is pretty lame when physical copies don't ship with the game on em though. Seems like the worst of both worlds.

Hell no! My games will forever have a permanent place in my heart. I will never get rid of them. Also, I never look forward to the future in general or even the next generation of the future. This is why as a business major, I want to be a manufacturing inventor employed at a federally funded research and development center that is not too far, not up north, and surely, not out of state from where I live, working on, developing, and inventing technology (like a time traveling and teleportation hybrid machine and any machines) as well as inventions (like an eternal youth vitamin and an immortality vitamin that'll make young people like me stop aging and stay young forever and ever and ever and live forever, even make our parents and family members live forever) as my permanent career in the near future, after doing some research on Google that inventors usually study business classes, since I want to invent a real time machine as well as an eternal youth vitamin and an immortality vitamin that'll make young people like me stop aging and stay young forever and ever and ever and become immortal and live forever, even make our parents and family members live forever, cause young people like me, my friends, and my cousins and young relatives getting old?! NOT ON MY WATCH! Losing my parents?! NOT ON MY WATCH! 😐👎

Just what exactly is this absolute joke of a thread??

Ass Creed was never good, ignore.

Play something else. Winrar.

That makes two of us 👍

I'm generally ok with how things are now regarding that. I can access the games I've bought when I want. That's the same thing as owning them, to me. I don't like when I've bought something, and a developer removes it though. Then I'd like my money back.

Like Blizzard when they removed Overwatch 1, a game I payed for and still wanted to have. Apparently, I had agreed somewhere in some contract no one reads that they can do that to me. The main reason to do that is to push me towards their more aggressive microtransactions in Overwatch 2. That is fucking disgusting and I promised myself to never buy a game from Blizzard again. What a truly shit company that is.

I want both options. But if you’re going to do physical, do it right! Put it on the disc.

90% of the games I play are one and done, and Gamepass works perfectly for me there.

There are some games that I really enjoy and those I buy so I can play them over and over again, for example South Park Fractured But Whole, Borderlands and GTA.

This is... nothing new.

Look up how proprietary software works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software

Proprietary law, Inflation and as the recent Switch 2 backlash recently showed... economics.

You gave your rights away as soon as you went digital, its self-inflicted, and Gaben sat back and didn't say a word because he got his 30% cut so he couldn't give a💩about his customers.

The thing that I find surprising is that none of you could see this coming (it's going to get worse) and some even defend digital purchases 🤦‍♂️

The only time you don’t really own your games is if your using gamepass or psn+ as far as I am concerned

I don't know, gaming on PC and Steam has been fine for the decades I've been doing it, and it's still great. Some companies like Blizzard suck ass, and they're easy to avoid. Sure, it feels better to hold a game in your hands knowing no one is able to change or remove it, but digital gaming is convenient. I don't want to trade my Steam library of ~300 games for physical discs, that'd be horrible.

Eh, I get some physical editions. Such as the Soul Reaver box. But more or less not against digital. I just like having a copy of my favorite games so I can offer a friend to play it when they see the box and show interest.

If that's considered wrong? then may I advice getting some friends first.

Nothing wrong with it, no. Most of my gaming library is digital. Really convenient. But I really love collecting older games, when I get the chance. And if I prefer to own what I buy. But when it comes right down to it, the games I really want to own are favorites, as you said. Like I went out of my way to scoop up original copies of the old Core Tomb Raider games, Team Silent SH games, Parasite Eve, older stuff, etc. Really like having that old library and playing on the original systems. The experience is weirdly different than doing it on PC, somehow feels.....warm and fuzzy? Dunno, haha.

But anyway, yeah, not like you can avoid digital and lack of ownership in gaming, especially these days. Is what it is, and I accept that. Otherwise I'd have to just stick to retro.

Saying you care about ownership but primarily game on consoles is an oxymoron. 🙃

Yeah, I game mostly on PC, admittedly. But it's so nice to pull out old consoles now and again. Just a different experience overall. Modern consoles are kind of just basically a gimped PC experience, lol, in just about every way imaginable.

I was a Backer for a P.C. game called War for the Overworld; and paid for the physical edition tier.

In the end they just put a GoG download card in a box and called it a day despite originally promising a Bluray disc. To apologies they just gave us a second card. yippe

Think they kinda missed the point.

Overall I really like WftO, but the whole physical tier was a joke. Shouldn't have been offered if they could not deliver.