Does average person understand that all disc media dies too? or is it too much to understand for them? this is about Sony decision about no more disc game but it applies to all disc based media. do they think if they get the disc, they can just hold and be able to play that disk for decades or just copy to drive they have? |
And yet we can restore and preserve those books today, and experts can still read them. And occasionally, even a language that was lost completely is recovered - or a scroll that was burned in the eruption of Vesuvius: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-have-de...
With physical discs however, you gain the ability to cheaply back them up, lend them, sell them etc. and 'someone' will always have a working copy of whatever you might want.
Not so with digital only media.
We can legally back-up owned discs to hdd or whatever other media in my country, including to the cloud. I can use the original media or any such backups as many times as I want, forever.
We can also sell a "hard media" copy wheven we want. IP owners cannot take away that right from us. Of course you must delete your backups if you sell the original media.
With digital "purchases" neither of these is true anymore. That's where the outrage comes from.
There is some irony that those games from 40 years ago will probably still be playable long after lots of the more modern games are gone for good.
That said, there are specific legal benefits to physical media such as the principle of first sale, which digital goods do not have.
While I'm not challenging the notion that it would be great to be able to copy your CD and put the content in the cloud, the reality is that we own nothing digit any more no matter how it is delivered to us. The notion that we should have a copy in the cloud is exactly what Sony is offering.
Given the practical reality, I would much rather have a CD of my game that rely on Sony but like music, that is fading into quaint obscurity. The part of the situation that really irks me is with the CD there is no secondary market and when i buy a 5 year old game from Sony they charge me 60 bucks as if it was a new release.
If I use a disc to backup family photos, will it experience bit rot? I suspect no. Is there a potential that no software supports JPEG in the future? Sure, everyone knows that’s possible. I use JPEG over other technologies because I feel it has a lower chance of getting obsoleted into obscurity.
Spiderman 2 on Steam is actual files on your hard drive you can back up, copy anywhere, then you're a single Steamless or Goldberg away from being able to play your purchased game at any time, stripped of its DRM. And if Steam truly decides to fuck you over and delete all the copies of your game, they're still on thepiratebay.
Steam isn't a miracle child, and is to be distrusted just as much as any other company. It just happens to be on a platform where they can't fuck you over quite as hard.
I recently got a PS5 Pro. So far I’ve used to digitally, but am getting the optical drive for it. It will give me the option to get old discounted games in the future and let me play DVD and Blu-ray Discs. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but I like having the option.
I also bought an external optical drive for my computer a couple years ago. I figured I’d get one while I could. It usually sits in a drawer, but I’ve run into a few situations where I want something that is only available on CD or DVD. It’s nice having the option to buy it and rip it. The alternative is losing access forever.
Everything else is prone to random flaking. Some discs last much longer than others, but there is not always an easy way to know in advance unless you do a deep dive on the state of manufacturing at the place and time it was made (if such info is even available).
Environmental conditions can also have an effect.
I think most people who have crossed paths with a lot of optical media over the years are aware of this, but your average consumer? Probably not.
Addressing the core of your question: in my opinion, the value of abandoned games is limited: playing them is usually no fun whatsoever, if only because of the quality-of-life being very-noticeably substandard due to later innovations.
So, a couple of (reproducibly archivable) playthrough recordings may suffice for most purposes. That being said, I do think publishers should be pushed to open-source their games upon reaching end-of-life. But given that a lot of dependencies tend to be licensed, as is some (or even most) artwork, that push should be rather gentle.
The main point of campaigns like "Stop Killing Games" should be addressed through regular consumer protection: if the game you bought becomes unplayable in 2 years or less, there should be a refund. But beyond that, I'm afraid goodwill is the only way forward, not legislation.
And I'm saying this as someone who still has several playable PSP Minidiscs, alas never plays them anymore (except Loco Roco, once a year), because, well, they're no fun anymore
Meanwhile, the OP article is about games, Sony PlayStation games in particular. These games tend to be recorded on special media, with hardware-specific copy protection steps, requiring special actions for basic preservation (which become impossible with the passage of time), leading to specific issues, hence this article, which tries to influence legislation to prevent these.
Incidentally, I've recently started collecting DVD and Blu Ray. I've found unopened copies of some of my favorite movies at thrift stores for a few dollars. It is nice to know I can watch a movie without figuring out which streaming service it is currently on or having to connect to the internet. Plus, if I had friends, I could loan them a copy.
I will say, I still have a CD player in my car (2023 model year), an external optical drive for my computer), and will be getting an optical drive for my PS5 Pro. I was upset the “Pro” version didn’t come with one, that was foreshadowing by Sony.
Media on disks can be copied to fresh disks, and generally even the cheapest of disks will last a long time if stored properly. Digital media* on the other hand is subject to DRM insanity and legalese that states you are buying a "license" for a product rather than the product itself.
You’re talking about a guy in Cleveland like he’s a Neanderthal.
I can't exactly say I'd trust Sony to not fuck me over in thirty years of letting them handle my "license".
One of the reasons I decided to get one a couple years ago was to do it while there were still decent options. I ended up with an LG. I imagine that at some point we’ll only see cat-on-keyboard brand players being resold from AliExpress.