Comment on PSBLACKOUT (boycott of PlayStation)

tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  For me it’s Sony gaining full control about game prices and reselling. You can get disc versions of games for a lot less than in the playstation store.

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  • mecen@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Full control over your game catalog.

    Banned account = all your games gone.

    Banned account, but games on disk = all your games are available.

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• steel_for_humans@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I think there are two types of people who care. Collectors and resellers / buyers of used copies.

  I play a mix of games, some digital and some physical. I don’t buy used copies (I, perhaps naively, believe that I support the developers by purchasing new copies — and by “support” I mean they can make more games that I like), but I sell the games that I have finished (well, most of them). I think I buy/play more digital games than physical, part of the reason is PS Plus / PS Portal.

  However, I don’t like that Sony wants to abandon physical media. I believe customers should have a choice. Also, the digital versions are almost always more expensive than physical, and for years they’ve been misleading us into believing that digital distribution is supposed to be cheaper. Yeah, right.

  If Sony controls all means of distribution, by cutting off physical media, they will further increase prices for games and subscriptions, because why not. Consumers will have no choice if they still want to play on their PlayStation.

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• iamthetot@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The overwhelming majority of playstation games are contained in disc and playable without internet.

  We can argue about what “fully on disc” means in regards to day one patches and whatnot, but you don’t need those to play the game. Buy a disc, place it into an offline ps5, install it, and play.

  And you’ll be able to do that in twenty or thirty years when they bring their digital purchase servers offline, too.

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• terranoid@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Because you don’t own the game anymore. You’re renting it from them, as long as they decide to keep it online, and they won’t forever.

  It’s like “buying” a movie on Amazon. It’s not the same as buying a bluray or DVD. It means renting it from them as long as they keep serving it. They eventually will turn that service off and you won’t “own” it.

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  • tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Right, but because the full content isn’t on the disc, that happens anyway even with physical media, and all you’re left with is a fancy coaster for your drinks. That’s why I don’t really get the fervor over discs.

    Like, IIRC the God of War reboot was an example. The disc only held a key and about 950 MB of data. The rest (like 40 or 60 GB) had to be downloaded from their servers.

    Even having a physical disc you don’t” own “ the game in the way you describe. As I said, that’s pretty much been the case for many/most games since the 7th gen consoles (XB360 and PS3).

    I should disclaim that I abandoned consoles in Gen 7, partly because of this stuff (and bandwidth throttling, walled ecosystem, etc.), and that was nearly 15 years ago. I just don’t get why the discs being removed is cause for anger when the disc has been materially useless for two console gens now.

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    • iamthetot@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Assuming you are speaking about 2018 God of War, you are mistaken.

      The vast majority of games on disc play without any internet connection.

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      • tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I don’t own the console, just remembered reading about it and was mistaken about the specific game. Looked it up, Doom: The Dark Ages only has 85 MB on the disc, and God of War: Ragnarok was digital code only in the case with no disc. Jedi Survivor is another one with a required day one patch.

        My understanding is around 30% of PS5 games are not playable without patch updates. This is something that started way back in PS3 with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 IIRC, as that game was literally unplayable due to crashing without a day one patch.

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• Pika@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  My biggest problem with this, is lack of ability to resell. I would be saying the same if they made it so the disks are license only locked to the first account that plays them.

  The issue for me isn’t the content of the disk, it’s what the disk allows.

  That being said, if I had to choose between the disks acting like a key, or the disks containing the game I would obviously choose the disk playing the game.

  But if I had to choose between a disk acting as a key, or no disk at all. I’m going to choose the disk acting like a key.

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• chunes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The games in most cases haven’t been fully contained on the discs since the PS2 era.

  They should be. That’s why people care.

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• steelplatedmech@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  With discs Sony can’t revoke your game like with digital. Doesn’t matter if they banned your account. Disc still works for you and whoever comes to gain possession of it.

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• Guitar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Plenty of games are fully playable in some form of physical media. In fact, the vast majority of games I have purchased in the last year have been fully playable physical copies. Just because there have been several examples of shitty business practices, doesn’t make it a good idea to just give up. There are several massive reasons to die on this hill as others have already outlined in their comments here. Owning the shit we buy, keeping game prices down by giving consumers choice, preventing Sony from giving themselves a monopoly, game preservation. All of these things will be severely damaged or destroyed if we do not die on this hill. If you want to pay less for your games, own what you buy, and preserve games, it is imperative that we stop Sony.

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  • tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I feel like we have a misunderstanding. I don’t own a PS5, and sold all my consoles as of the PS3/Xb360 generation, sometime between 2010 and 2012. For ownership I can buy at GOG, or buy Steam games that don’t have DRM.

    I’m not sure how this leads to Sony having a monopoly? Or how it changes it? If a game is only available on PS5, it’s only playable on PS5, with it without a disc. If it’s multi-platform the issue is moot either way.

    I’m a big advocate of ownership. I strip DRM from my books, I have a NAS full of FLAC music I purchased rather than stream. I boycotted EA and bought nothing from them for nearly a decade when Madden became console exclusive, on principle.

    It’s just… if you care about ownership, why play on a proprietary, locked down platform in the first place? And exactly how does a one week boycott resolve the issue? It just seems half-assed? Why not boycott altogether and/or change platforms?

    And why just Sony? Nintendo is releasing carts that are literally just game codes for download. How is that different? The cart is essentially useless and conveys no ownership in that case either.

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    • Guitar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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      • tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Not sure what you mean by “if everyone follows Sony’s example. Sony is the one following, and DRM has been around since old PC games in the 80s.

        Denuvo, easy anti-cheat, EA Play and Ubisoft’s platform with forced logins and online requirements, and plenty of other DRM methods have been around long before all this.

        If you want to change it, you have to not buy from them entirely, not just do a short partial boycott. They only ever back down if there’s a major cost.

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