Do you care if you technically don't own a game?

With the rise of digital and streaming services, it seems like you're paying just to play the game, but not actually own it. If for whatever reason that game is removed or the service is discontinued, then what? It sucks for physical games too because a lot of times you have to download parts of the game even if you have the disc.

So what do you think, SW? Do you care if you technically don't own a game anymore?

You mean own a license to the game? We never own the game as we are not its owners.

Nope. Most gamers don't revisit games. I do however think its important to archive games. "Physical" games are just games waiting to be patched upon installation so their worth is significantly reduced. Being able to back up digital games is more important to me than having a "physical" copy.

Yes I do, but sadly physical games almost never come finished, they neeed patches and dlc to become the final product.

I miss the days when physical games came with instruction manuals. The manuals were pretty cool to read, but would always end up getting lost or destroyed, haha.

As long as the outcome for me is exactly the same as it would be if I "owned" the game, I don't care. I want to play a game I've bought whenever I want. If I can do that, I'm happy.

If a huge service closed down? Well, they better provide an option for you to save your games and not just take your library with them to their grave. Pretty sure Valve has said they will do that if Steam ever closed down.

It's not something that I think about nor care.

I don't care personally. I only care whether I can play it to completion or not.

Since the beginning of physically-distributed media, no one has ever "owned" it besides the copyright holders. Let's get that straight from the start.

You own the piece of plastic the game software comes on, and the license to use it. The EULA details restrictions on use of that software, and how license ownership can be transferred through third party sale. It also details how the license holder can or cannot reproduce copies of that software for use on other devices, etc.

At any point, with modern, internet-connected consoles, a game publisher *could*, if they wanted to, upload a patch for a game that either removes content or disables your ability to use the physical media on that console, without needing your consent (because EULA), and there isn't anything you could do about it (besides bitch and moan on a message board/social media).

Game streaming, like TV and movie streaming, *is* the future for the majority of gamers with access to good broadband connections. Physical media will still exist (like vinyl records, CD's, etc for music) but they will not be the primary distribution method, and any game developer or publisher that doesn't embrace it will not succeed commercially.

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Personally, I look forward to a future where I pay $10-15 per month to play all the newly released games, since while I do spend about $150-200 a year on gaming, I don't like the idea of being limited to buying and playing only 2-3 games in that time. I usually don't play most games I buy all the way through anymore either (because time and distractions), so if I play a game and it later becomes unavailable after a period of time, I won't lose my mind like some hardcore fanboys here.

It'll actually give me a reason to buy one of the new consoles, since I can't justify a $525-590 CAD (after taxes) console purchase, and then need to fork out $90 per game... That's more than 3 years of gaming budget for a single console and one game. That, and I haven't found many games these days that I would be willing to spend $70-90 on anyways, and a $5-10 "rental" for a few weeks wouldn't be a bad thing. I rented tons of games back in the SNES/PS/N64 days. Gladly paid $8 or 9 for a 5 day rental.

And that's the added benefit of a streaming service. I don't need to go through the hassle of getting a physical copy just to find out I don't like it and then have to return it. Which, IIRC, most places won't take a return (merely give store credit) on an opened piece of software anymore.

@foxhound_fox:

You are sold a product. You own said product. Copyrights and licenses are another issue.

I stopped buying physical games years ago and I have not looked back.

Most games I really don't care.

@Pedro: Nope. Most gamers don't revisit games”

With the way BC has been scoffed at by some one would think going all digital isn’t any problem. Why keep games in that case?

Yeah, I care myself. Yes, yes, I know with physical copies I don’t literally own the game code itself however for all intents and purposes it’s a product that I “own” and have the most control over how I use it and what I do with it.

I also don’t like how many games these days need massive day one patches and hope that this recent trend is something that becomes less frequent. I still have a lot of games from previous gens in my physical collection that didn’t have nor need these patches along with a number of them from the current gen that don’t need them as well. Thank you very much Nintendo.

I will always opt for physical formats for my games no matter what. I still purchase music cds and movie blurays. It gives me the most control over how I access and use the product.

I’m a collector so I wanna say yes, but then I look at my DVD collection and think, screw it - I like streaming movies more than owning them.

So yea, bring on game streaming. I’m ready!

Nope, do not care one bit. After I beat it 9 times out of 10 I am done with it. Hell I am all digital now and will never again by a physical copy. Anyone that says differently I hope you are still buying your music on CD also.

Yeah, you own the plastic disc with the plastic case it comes it and the license you get to use the software that is on the disc. You don't own the software.

It's an important detail that people often overlook. A detail that because of the EULA, gives developers and publishers and copyright holders, more control over the software than buying a box of cookies at Walmart would give them over the cookies.

The problem is that even modern physical games come short to what they should be. Older physical games were usually the complete game, modern physical games are simply a fraction of a game that will only be complete with digital elements like patches, and not one or two like older games but a bunch.

So the only logical step if you care about "owning" stuff is going digital and backup it all on a HDD that is specifically used as backup, meaning only have it powered when writing to it and only read to copy to another HDD/SSD when you want to use the data, in that way you efficiently prolong its lifetime until you eventually have to do a backup of the backup.

If you dont care then your part of the reason why there is a 1%

The 1% keeps taking and taking, and the foolish 99% keeps giving and giving

Wasn't there a game recently that didn't even have the files on the disc, and was essentially just a glorified CD-key to access the software? Day-one patches and box-locked DLC (i.e. codes in the box) kind of defeats the whole argument that "physical is best".

No I do not care about game ownership.

If a game means that much to me I will figure out a way to play it indefinitely.

The AAA market is rightly fucked anyway.

IMO everyone who cares about data backup should have a NAS with redundant storage.

You really don't want a drive to be off for too long because bits can flip and data can be corrupted. While it's in a computer it will be monitored and when it's time to replace it you will know. If you have a redundant drive you just pop the old one out, put in a new one, and let it rebuild.

I use UNRAID

...or just use something like AWS... I'm sure they don't really monitor all the stuff you put on there. No one is going to care if you back up game data as long as you aren't serving it to other people.

BONUS: Use it a s a Steam cache to auto backup a game the first time you download it, any subsequent downloads on your network will come from the cache instead of contributing to your data cap.

Meh, I just want to play a game whenever I want. Discs offer that the best, since they can't delete it from my shelve over a licence.

@foxhound_fox:

For all intents and purposes, you own the game. Say for example if i were personally able to disect Breath of The Wild and construct my own game around the code. I could do this, i just could not sell it. If i were to sell it under a different coat of paint id be infringing on the copyright.

Think of it like the toy market. I could go out and buy the boardgame Mouse Trap. I know own the game. Now lets say i decide to make my own mouse trap game. I look at how the systems work and build an identical product. I could donthis for my own use, i just could not sell it.

...then its up tonthe courts if something too closely resembles a product with an ip and copyright/trademark in place.

So ultimately you own the game, there are just copyrights/trademarks on the softwares code.

@foxhound_fox: You are so wrong I don't even know where to begin....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

Watch that video....all of it and come back to me so you can apologize for being so wrong

@foxhound_fox: I think the key difference here is that a publisher used to not have that kind of control over a physical game. Now you see publishers who have these huge patches that you can't get unless download it. It takes away from the idea that the game you have is complete.

I own too many games on GOG/Steam/Origin, physical does not work for PC to be honest. I also own an obscene amount of Sims 3 stuff, I was once an addict, lol.

He's so desperate to push that desperate and faulty argument.

Why is he so PASSIONATE about it?

Then adding in, "Streaming is da future" corporate shill spin to pad out his real agenda.

Must be some paid investor trying to spread this nonsense idea in order to get others to accept the shitty trade off of loosing ownership of your game for the benefit of companies to gain control of how we play our titles.

Actually, there are a bunch of these corporate shills on this board. We need to identify these overly desperate anti-consumer posters to remember to never take anything they say about games seriously.

My only concern with digital is lack of cross-platform support. Nintendo has been horrible about it even though many of their VC titles are on multiple systems but require separate purchases. Sony neither bridged their PS3's PS1/PS2 classics on PS4.

@boxrekt:

What in the world are you talking about. Lmfao.

No. Unless my entire library goes kaput overnight, then i'm not worried. Take Alpha Protocol for example... I already own it on Steam, but it has been taken down from sale on the storefront... However, I can still install and play that game.

I buy physical on consoles solely because I prefer the physical disk and being able to display the game. I can't do that on PC, and even if I could, i'd own 300+ games.

Then print out the "box" covers for those 300+ games and stick on the damn wall. :P

Yeah, if I had the room... Or no taste lol. Consoles I can stick to sub-30 more than likely.

I've said it before and i'll say it again.

I like my games the way I like my women, and that's physical.

And a big LOL to the guy in this thread that says I don't own the game when its on disk.

Streaming/digital can **** off as far as i'm concerned.

I purchase all of my games digitally now. At least the majority of them. I'm really not one to replay games often though. I kind of find that the sentimental value is looking back & feeling nostalgic.

Do I care if I don't own the game? Sure. Though, with all of my digital library, I'm still able to access everything I've purchased. I never used many of the Wii's features...it was unfortunate what happened with the Wii Shop Channel. On the other hand, I'm still able to download the games I bought digitally for the PSP, and the PSN servers for that console closed down a while back. I guess I can find comfort in knowing pretty much nothing lasts forever.

I like the idea of being able to at least "archive" games though. I think someone above mentioned something along those lines too.

No, but I do want to have access to a few dozen games whenever I want. I have no way to play Windwaker right now since I sold my Gamecube collection last year. And I'm starting to get an itch to play that game again and actually go for 100% this time. Everytime a WiiU pops up at a cheap price on Facebook Marketplace I think about buying it.

if I owned a physical copy of all the games i have digitally, it would be a nightmare

@drummerdave9099: the Wii U version of Windwaker is great. Glad I still have my copy.

Nope. When I die I assure you I will not care to be cremated with my video game collection so I'm good.

It matters to me depending on who is holding the keys. I do not trust Google to keep an online game library intact. I'd have far more faith in Microsoft or Sony to honor their online libraries for a much longer time.

Never going to happen, so we do for all intents and purposes own that copy of the game. I don't know why you people keep bringing this up, like you think you're smart or something.

just bored people yapping about semantics

There is only a handful of games I keep for each PlayStation every gen. I keep the best of the best.

As for most games, I could not care less if I don’t own them. I tend to beat them once and forget about them.

As much as I like Far Cry or AssCreed, I ain’t playing them after I beat them.

Several court cases already showed that the "you don't own the game, only a license to play it" thing is total nonsense and it's only a matter of time 'till the publishers will be forced to get rid of "games as a service" bullshit.

Nope. I'm perfectly fine with streaming/owning/redeeming.

If I'm paying the same as I was when I did own the game, yes I damn care.

It happened to me when buying online digital music. Apple removed most of the songs from a couple of Bowie albums I owned, took the albums off the store so I couldn't download or stream them, then reuploaded a new album with a slightly different cover, but wouldn't let me access the songs through this album as it was technically "new" even though the songs were the same. I'd only bought the albums a month prior. I learned my lesson.

Rent a game for cheap? Whatever. I'd rather own, but you know what you're getting into. But buying a rental game for full price? GTFO. They can remove your access, alter the parameters of the game, making you pay for things that you used to be able to access, insert adverts. these are all to your detriment but for some reason, some gamers will argue in favour because they are corporate whores at this point.

@DocSanchez:

Im not sure what stance you are taking but when you go to best buy and buy a game off the shelf, you are buying the product as is. If i own a ps4 and buy a ps4 game, that game is guaranteed to work on the console at time of purchase.

If Sony for example were to change something to make that product unplayable, any shmo could take them to court and win even if its $1 vs $1,000,000

People just dont seem to understand ownership. Videogames work just like most any other product.

You own the game but not the technology or ip of the software.

I'm coming it from an angle of online sales: You don't own those. Those are the future, and physical is the past. I wish it wasn't the case, but even a "sale" online digital is really a long term lease. It's legally shaky and I think one day it might come to a head as I think it breaks a few advertising laws when they tell you it's a sale because they can limit your access at any time or stop you from accessing it. We have watchdogs for this reason, and as digital takes over, we will see more and more challenges to he way they present their transactions.

Basically, physical is mostly yours. Yes, there are games that are flat out useless now since the online age because you can no longer get necessary patches or get online, but this is another different reason that modern gaming isn't as consumer friendly as it used to be.

I have mega drive games that work just as well as they ever did, yet the last Tony Hawks required most of the game to download even when you bought the disc, and even Civ V, which I purchased in a box, came as a code inside with a link to steam. If steam ever goes bust, there's a lot of games I stand to lose. My copy of Baldur's Gate 2 and my ultima games and Daggerfall et al? I can dig out them and an old PC and play them still should I choose.

I own all games even if they think that i am renting.

They remove them from me i pirate them straight back.

I don't care which is why I go mainly digital.