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New Storefront Law Tells Us What We All Should Know: We Don't Own Digital Games | Time Extension
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this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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Or just don't spend your money on anything non-physical, you don't need half that shit anyway put it in an EFT fund let em die :D
Another problem is that physical is a red herring. You don't own modern physical games any more than you own digital ones, as the famous The Crew shitshow has demonstrated. It doesn't matter if you still have the fancy disc, if you can't even go past the main menu when the publisher decides to shut down the game. In the end DRM is the only deciding factor, not if the game is digital or physical.
You mean The Crew, the online-only racing game?
"It doesn't apply to an online game, therefore it doesn't apply to any situation."
But I agree that it's best to purchase DRM-free copies.
It doesn't apply to any situation with these kinds of aggressive DRM, like other games such as the latest Gran Turismo. Or games that don't come full on disc, the OG release of the Spyro trilogy comes to mind (thankfully that's been fixed).
In any case my point was for people to check each case before assuming physical is safe from publisher meddling. Since in many cases you don't own much more than a fancy installer in a pretty box.
You said
This is false. Most games do have the full game data on disc (or card). There are some specific examples, usually AAA titles like Hogwarts and Jedi Survivor, where there is either online DRM (I gather you mean online DRM, as that is the only thing that would make sense in context) or the title was too big to fit on one disc and they cheaped out. This is somewhat more common with Xbox hybrid discs; the disc will generally contain the Xbox One version, while the Series X version is a download. PlayStation 5 games generally have the full game on disc. Switch cards have the full game.
For the most part, if you buy a physical game, it has the game data on it.
If it's an online-only game, of course it's not playable if the servers shut down. Don't want to pay for a time-limited game? Don't buy them. (I don't.)
This is also false. DRM (again, presumably you mean online DRM in this discussion) is not the sole deciding factor. The actual deciding factors are the things are cited above.
When you say that physical and digital are equivalent, you're just factually wrong. There are certain cases where the physical disc isn't sufficient, but by and large, this sweeping statement is incorrect.
I used the loose term "aggressive DRM" to mean any kind of DRM that can at some point in the future prevent you from playing the game.
In any case what I mean is that when you buy a digital game, if it is DRM free you own the game, and if it employs some of these DRMs you don't. And by "you don't own physical games any more than you own digital games" I mean that the same is true for physical games. If they have such DRM then you don't own them.
I bring the The Crew example because it is not so obvious to the casual person, once the servers were shut down you could not play the single player portions of the game either. And it's something I've even encountered IRL, when I chatted with friends about that fiasco, some were disappointed to learn that their disc was worthless. Of course none were expecting to be able to do multiplayer activities, but not even being able to play the single player campaign was unexpected to some.
I made the statement about DRM being the only deciding factor because I do think it is. And the examples you provided are examples of that, either straight up requiring a connection to play or requiring a download from the servers to get the content. That's what separates a game you own and a game that has been licensed to you.
In any case my initial comment was made because when these kinds of news are shared there is always the "that's why I buy physical" comment. Which IMHO is a false sense of security. Even while buying physical it is important to check what kinds of DRM are implemented in the game, because you might not actually own it either. And physical is not an airtight solution, specially since there is nothing stopping publishers from implementing such online only requirements in physical games (and some already do).