PSA: Gamer's don't own digital games.

Very interesting video about digital games in light of MS's aggressive push for all digital games and death of physical media.

Just an note of interest for people blindly bandwagon jumping for a company pushing an agenda that they don't fully understand.

You never have truly owned any of your games, otherwise piracy wouldn't be punishable by law.

PSA: Cows still upset.

?

Also, MS isn't pushing for an all-digital future AFAIK; they're offering an all-digital console, probably because digital sales are rising all the time. Sony has a subs service, a streaming service and offers games in a digital format. It's basically the same thing, minus offering a cheaper optical-free model of their consoles.

Haha, yeah right.

@boxrekt: Luckily Sony gamers can only buy physical for the PS4, and no way can Sony ban your account for a week and take your digital library away from you, phew dodged a bullet with that one, oh wait....

News flash genius no gaming company cares for you only your bank account lol.

This thread could not have been timed better lol.

lol

:P

PSA: You have never actually owned any of your software. What you're paying for is an exclusive single-use license. It's just that back in the days of physical sales, publishers were generally unable to enforce it.

That is not true at all you own the physical copy of the game and the game is license to you to use,when you copy a game you get punish because the rights of the holder were violated since you didn't pay for those rights.

Which is why sony can't come into your house and tell you to stop using your physical PS3 game if you do something bad or even if the ban your machine from the internet.

Your games are yours.

I don't think it has to do with him been upset,i have been saying this for years as well you don't own digital games companies do,and they can terminate your access to the game for which ever reason they like and believe me reasons will come soon enough this are corporations making money sony included,why do you think sony try to push the PSP Go years ago?

I never fell for that shit,first because i had a normal one and second because you didn't own those games.

I don't like digital games for that reason, i prefer physical so even if sony ban me which i am sure will never happen,they can't take my games.

Sony and MS both can do the same which is why i say physical all the way,the only games i download are free to play crap that is not legally mine.

Is not just an agenda of MS in fact sony try it 10 years before MS did in 2009 with the PSP GO it failed miserably.

@tormentos: "sony can't come into your house and tell you to stop using your physical PS3 game if you do something bad"

Legally they could if you violate the terms of service, but it's rarely if ever worth the effort. Digital distribution where they control access to the software makes for cheap and easy enforcement.

That is not true at all you OWN the physical copy of your game is your nor sony,ms,nintendo or any company can take them away even if they wanted to.

Which is why you can sell your used games,if you didn't own it you could not sell it,you can't sell something that isn't yours.

All companies would have blocked used games years ago and gamestop would have never take of in the first place.

Arguably, SONY doesn't have that right now though, for PS4 or 5. It would be interesting to see how their blocking policy would stand up in courts.

Gamestops days are numbered.

What is Sony gonna do, ban my physical copies? Come to my home and take them away? You effectively do own physical media, because it's tangible and the information is imprinted. A user agreement doesn't change that.

They won't, ever, which makes the argument worthless.

Check the bold, never said it was exclusive to MS or any specific company.

@tormentos: "That is not true at all you OWN the physical copy of your game is your nor sony,ms,nintendo or any company can take them away even if they wanted to."

Read the EULA. You own a LICENSE, you don't own the software. The End User License Agreement, or EULA, allows you to transfer the original copy to another user, but it must be uninstalled from your system first.

And, yes, a publisher can legally revoke your LICENSE if you violate the EULA, at which point you would be obligated to turn over or destroy your physical copy. It's just that before the age of digital distribution, licenses were generally very difficult to enforce for obvious practical reasons.

Nothing has changed legally. You didn't own your software then, and you don't own it now. An all digital world does little more than make license enforcement practical.

For mp, I guess they can and will ban you from online play, whether you bought physical or digital. For sp, I agree - they have no right to ban you either way.

I doubt they could even convince a judge to break into my home. I've never heard of a publisher of any medium doing that to take media.

@boxrekt: lol is that your damage control attempt after Sony banned a user for playing any digital games??

I feckin' hope not! In spite of all the propaganda to the contrary, copyright "theft" is technically a civil offence rather than a crime, so there's very little they can actually do, and what they can will cost them a lot to enact. I wouldn't put it past EGS though to try, if they conceivably could. Those guys are litigious as hell.

*edit* Why am I going on about copyright, when you never even mentioned it? Because I'm tired and confused, lol.

You never "own" a game in the traditional sense. You own a license to play the game. It can possibly be argued depending on the legal arrangement of digital purchases that MS nor Sony has the right to deny access to this digital license for they were only the proxy for distribution of the licenses.

Damange Conrol? No, I don't approve of that nonsense.

That REINFORCES the main point of this thread dunce.

Last I checked Sony is the one banning.

Whatever, I still favor digital gaming purchase so I won't have to walk inside Lamestop and switching discs out of my PS4. My PS4 games are all digital and never had any issues with it, I don't regret nothing.

Buh buh what about "MS's aggressive push for all digital games and death of physical media."?

Dose that make you butthurt? You say that as if it isn't true. You're a true cooperate shill aren't you?

PC gamers seem fine with Steam, I haven't had an issue with MS honoring rights to games I own. They've also gone step further than rest of cinsole makers giving users access to titles purchased on Xbox 360 when added to BC library on XB1. I like the convenience of owning a bulk of my console library digitally, at least on XB1. Rarely buy digital on Nintendo and Sony devices anymore since both haven't shown any interest in helping gamers bridge digital libraries between devices, Sony also has issues with user security and has horrible policies regarding hacked accounts and refunds to purchases.

Last I check your are the OP sharing your butthurt about the issue.

Except I wasn't part of the whole MS pushing digital only though. I was only against them for going fully media and not focusing on games back then.

considering you have to install all games to a hard drive now, and plenty of big titles don't even have the full game (or have huge day 1 patches) on the physical disk, does it all really matter that much? same with games as a service games that no longer resemble what was even put on the disk in the first place

anymore physical disks are pretty much just a disk check/license check anyways

I was making fun of OP. ;)

Holy shit fanboys at it again. Like Microsoft is the only one pushing for all digital games. ROFLMAO! Just FYI Sony tried it an failed and PC is pretty much doing it. Again blinders by dumb ass fanboys!

Game ownership has changed in the last 10 years.

Used to be when you buy a disc or cart you effectively can play it as long as you have working hardware.

This is no longer the case with games relying on servers for updates and features. Doesn't matter whether you own a physical copy or not.

For better and worse - no shit.

Yep, dzimm is correct. Do you people not remember, "Don't copy that floppy."?

You can transfer the license of the game, but you cannot copy it and distribute it. If you owned the copy of the game fully, you would be able to copy and distribute it.

You don't "own" physical games either, just the piece of plastic the publisher sold you with an authorized copy of the software on it, and they give you the license to use said software and can revoke that license at any time for almost any reason (read your EULA).

This

That's pretty horrifying actually. Digital distribution does give them the means to change your access/manipulate rights easier though. There's a reason the big push for PSNow and Gamepass is front and center for the big console makers.

I buy digital. But that's my choice. Honestly, this will sound ridiculous but say if I lost all of my digital libraries, I'd feel content enough with the memory and nostalgia. I don't replay games often.

They don't own physical ones, either.

If you think that's an argument for physical copies, you're kidding yourself. It's literally the same license.

Physical >>> Digital for me for life.

Well, you really don't own the game, even with physical copies. You own the right to play a game, and a single license per copy.

@mrbojangles25: Then tell me when was the last time Sony or MS has banned a user from accessing his or her physical media? I'll wait.

Once you buy the disc you own that piece of plastic, you can let friends borrow it, sell it, etc. What you can't do is copy it and make a profit off of it, but that goes for any physical media or real life items (aka reverse engineering an iphone and selling an exact copy, extreme but yeah you get the point).

I'm not arguing anything. I'm simply stating a fact.

A worthless fact. A legal fact, thereby worthless. We own our discs. There's a big difference between a license that's attached to an online account belonging to someone else's server and a packaged, tangible disc.

What you just said makes absolutely no sense at all. Just because you own something does not give you full rights to replicate, and or sell replications. They still have copyrights....

No one who understands how software works would argue that we own it (as in the IP). We only own a license to use it and are beholden to the EULA. What unsettles me about digital distribution is how that license granting permission to use a piece of software is now being viewed as synonymous and treated under the umbrella of the ToU of the service providing it. Which means if you do something wrong outside of that EULA (such as violate the service ToU), it's not just revoking access to the service, it holds the capability to act as an indiscriminate blanket penalty that holds the potential to collectively remove access to everything independent of it. There seems now to be no distinction made between a service’s ToU and a software's EULA (as seen in this case with Sony removing access to a bigot's games for a week for hate speech).

Sure, we never technically "owned" the game in the past, but at least it wasn't tethered to anything that could revoke that usage, not only singularly but now in bulk. Each game could be treated as independent and that's a right that consumers have lost in the age of DD. It's not only about following the law respective to the singular but now encapsulates the collective, and as such, that collective is now at risk. That makes me a little more than uneasy.

No fucking shit Sherlock. ??‍♂️ It sometimes gives me a headache when I think about how ignorant and absolutely dumb the general gamer is.

You've never owned any of your games, all you owned was the physical storage medium containing a license to play the game. That's all.

Personally, I don't care.??‍♂️ I have no attachment to any of my games. Just like with movies and music. I'm fine with moving on if I need to.