This means you can’t pass the game around to your friends or sell it afterwards, which completely ruins the purpose of physical media imo. I mostly play PC these days so this doesn’t affect me, but it’s a disappointing direction for console games. At least they could’ve used an empty disc that has proof of ownership.

EDIT: Bethesda has confirmed that only the PC version won’t include a disc. Physical versions of Xbox will include a disc. Whew.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•1 year ago

    I honestly don’t get the obsession with physical media

    Pretty straightfoward. And understanable IMO.

    If I have a physical disk of something, I can put it in a compatable system and play/watch it regardless of whether my internet is out or just shitty in general, even years down the line (as far as I’m aware, the devs/company have yet to be able to register/tie disks to devices, and they’re not gonna break into my place and take my media away. So while I don’t own the thing, my copy is my copy to do with as I please so long as I’m not passing it around for others to download). It’s also not tied to any account, so my use of the thing doesn’t hang on whether i have a Steam account or a Netflix account or whathaveyou. There’s also media preservation, and just the fact that some people like to have something tangible that they can say “this is mine”.

    Discrot and failing hardware is a problem…but personally, as long as I have a receipt or proof of purchase for it, I’m not gonna lose sleep over getting it from alternative sources if i can’t rip the data off the thing myself. It’s simple: the company gets my money, they give me a copy of the software, and that’s it. What they do with that cash is not my business and what I do with that copy (unless I’m either illegally distributing it or reverse engineering it for my own profit) is not thiers.

    • @impulseEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      That was a valid argument, but in the days of 40+ GB day one patches and the likes, I firmly believe that the disc will become useless as soon as someone decides to kill the servers, usually ~5-10 years down the line depending on the success and popularity of the game/franchise.

      Case in point: My physical copy of Overwatch.

      • @the_valeEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        Man, I still get pissed off whenever I remember what was promised in regards to Overwatch 2 and what was delivered.

    • @poryEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      This is a good argument for physical copies of pre-internet games. Now? The game you have on your disc is incomplete. You need the internet and an Xbox account™ to download 65 more gigabytes on Day 1 to avoid a bug where using a bow and arrow on a horse crashes the game. There’s a Roadmap™ for the 40% of the game they’re delivering as DLC over the next couple of years. Hell, on the Switch there are firmware versions that explicitly disallow you from booting game cartridges without downloading the update for that game - what happens in 20 years when Nintendo isn’t serving those update files? How meaningful for preservation is your BOTW cartridge then?

      Piracy and DRM-free digital content are the only methods of preservation. Full stop. The fight isn’t physical vs digital, it’s DRM vs DRM-free (pirated counts as DRM-free). If I buy a game on GOG and store its installer on my PC, which is backed up to my server, which has a SnapRAID array that tolerates two drive failures, that game’s mine. It’ll work if GOG goes out of business and takes down its CDN, it’ll work if the dev loses the rights to the soundtrack, it’s immune to the devs deciding I’d rather have Witcher 3 with ✨ray tracing✨, it’s immune to Blizzard “reforging” my Warcraft 3, I can’t have account details stolen and subsequently banned…