I’m hoping some digital buyers understand accessibility and preservation too, though. Like, it doesn’t have to be just the 10% that show this is unacceptable.
Having said that, I know gamers, as a whole, are terrible at voting with their wallets.
People act like these businesses haven’t done the math already.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 4 days ago
pory@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“Voting with one’s wallet” isn’t an action you take. “Gamers as a whole” have been voting with their wallets against disc games for over a decade. On PC, there was barely an outcry as brick and mortar stores stopped being part of the games experience. On consoles, people have been installing the games on HDDs since the Xbox 360 since actually running the game off a disc incurs atrocious load times. Gamers have accepted and paid for DLC. Gamers have accepted and dealt with day-one patches that render the data on the physical disc obsolete.
Hell, gamers as a whole chose to purchase the discless PS5. Gamers as a whole subscribe to PS+, Switch Online, Xbox Live, Gamepass, etc enough that it’s shifted the value model of the medium. “Not buying a product” isn’t nearly as much of a political statement as the wallet-vote drumbeaters think. Not buying the product is the default. Am I “boycotting” ubisoft when I haven’t purchased a Ubi game since Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time on the Gamecube? Sony’s Playstation 4 and 5 never appealed to me as a platform or product. There might be a shakeup or protest where people that do regularly give Sony (or whoever) money stop doing so, but that’s always going to be a drop in the bucket. Hell, the customers that buy physical (especially used) games for PS5, don’t buy digital and don’t pay for Plus are the least valuable customers for Sony anyway. Sony makes $0 a year off that guy where they make hundreds a year from a dude that literally just pays for ps+ and the newest COD.
The “wallets have voted” and the result for Sony is overwhelmingly “yeah, you’re gonna do just fine without disc diehards”. Games preservation purists already aren’t console customers because modern consoles are designed exclusively as anti-preservation ecosystems. The remaining reason to care about discs is the used copy trade, and that’s the same as piracy when it comes to the company. Worse, even, since there’s an entire industry and market surrounding “how to play zelda without paying nintendo” legally.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 2 days ago
Never said they weren’t voting. Said they were not voting well.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
I mean, I’d daresay the gaming community has a large community dedicated to both accessibility and preservation, they’re just generally frowned upon because it’s, you know, piracy. However, only through piracy can I get an original release copy of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 for PlayStation, Dreamcast and Windows. You can only get re-releases, remakes, and the like, often which do not hold up to the original in terms of style and control.
pory@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I voted with my wallet hard enough years ago that I’m no longer part of this “wallet vote”. I haven’t purchased a console game since Animal Crossing on the Switch, and haven’t purchased a physical one since Mario Odyssey - the only reason I did that was to dodge updating the console, so that I could do things Nintendo very much does not want a user doing on their console. I’ve never owned a Sony console except for a ps2, and never Xbox since the 360. My preferred platform, PC, has been used-games-free and physical-copies-free (CD keyed installers are not physical copies for any definition other than “is pretty on a shelf”) for decades.
If the glorified DRM key for accessing the digital game (in the form of day 1 patches and postlaunch content) finally dying is what raises awareness of consoles being a hostageware platform, so be it.
KssioAug@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I dare say that games are preserved more through digital means then by physical media though. You have plenty of sites keeping different versions of a number of games, old or new, without any form of DRM on PC (through “piracy”, as ironic as it may sound).
Physical media nowadays are mostly a form of DRM anyway - a disc that will only work on a certain system, and that usually requires you to go online to activate it anyway, which means that they won’t work after a couple of decades (or even much earlier). The biggest advantage of it, imo, is the freedom of selling/buying or trading used copies.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
But don’t they miss out the impact of second hand games? Not only does it allow people who may have never bought the game to play it and potentially buy DLC, but it also influences future conversions in which they’ll be more likely to buy the next installment day one brand new.
Who’s to say how much of resi 8 and 9s success is due to people being able to get into the franchise on the cheap and become hardcore fans?
pory@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Aside from attaching DLC to the purchase, a used-game buyer is “supporting” Capcom as much as a pirate is. It’s even worse than a pirate because a lot of pirates would have never bought the game anyway but a used game buyer clearly signals a willingness to spend money on the product. Just, yknow, less money. Turning a dude who would pay $40 for your thing into a dude who’d pay $60 is a lot easier than turning a dude who’d never pay a dime above $0.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I think there’s a bit more nuance than that to be honest
pory@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For a console storefront operator like Sony, there’s more nuance because “Sony games” and “exclusives” aren’t direct value generators. The value they generate is in getting “give sony money for monthly subs and non-sony games machines” in customer’s living rooms. Taking the losses inherent in physical/used copies makes financial sense if it drives platform dominance. For Capcom, who doesn’t operate a storefront or platform, it’s just about how many sales, how much money per sale (changed by platform fees, disc manufacturing costs, and DLC postpurchases). A used game without DLC is $0 for capcom but is a sale. That’s worse than a pirate being $0 for capcom but would maybe have been a sale.