[MBCook]

Discs don’t matter. The whole “bring back discs” thing is pointless. They’re gone. Period.

Rights matter. If we had the same rights with digital purchases we had with old physical games the disc thing would be a much much smaller issue. Would many care outside true collectors?

Don’t confuse the two. If you do, and you complain loudly enough, you’ll get the monkey’s paw version of discs. All the downsides of both, no upside at all.

[Groxx]

It's a proof of purchase that can be transferred without approval by (or knowledge of) the original seller. There is literally no equivalent possible with digital sales, unless you accept flawless, pervasive DRM everywhere.

It doesn't have to be a disc. It almost certainly does need to be physical.

[p0w3n3d]

Disc is a manifestation of right. Without this they will screw people without them even noticing

[MBCook]

It’s a pretend manifestation, as the article points out.

[sudobash1]

Discs do matter in one way. I don't think I have ever seen a digital "purchase" of any significance which I could resell or gift at a later time. Some "in game" things are resellable, but only within the game's ecosystem. All digital games, music, movies, ebooks, audio books, etc are not (AFAIK).

So if I get tired of my DVD movie collection, I could sell it or give it to my kids. If I ever decide I'm too old for the retro game cartridges I have, they could go to future grandkids. But my GOG games or Bandcamp music is stuck with me forever (legally speaking). Nobody would know if I "gave" them to my kids, but there certainly is no way to resell them.

Now this is still a rights issue, but physical media makes this easy (outside of keys/DRM as you point out) You always have the right to hand on a physical object.

[krzyk]

Spore had that feature that allowed max 3 installs from disc.

So disc or not doesn't really matter.

[saghm]

Sure, but the context of the article is the recent kerfuffle over Sony deciding not to continue producing disc copies of games. It would not be difficult for them to keep producing disc games but still restrict them in the same way as digital games (e.g. requiring you to authenticate to the PlayStation servers with an account the first time you put the disc in, and then refusing to allow that copy of the game to work for any other account in the future). That might sound extremely, because it is, but let's keep in mind this is a company that made the CDs people bought install rootkits to try to avoid letting people burn copies.

The point that I read the parent commenter as making is that if the loud outcry in favor of discs go so loud that they were forced to spend effort with continued manufacturing of physical discs, it seems like a pretty reasonable assumption they might try to do something like what I described, because at least they get some of what they're trying to go for with the digital-only strategy even if it's not all of it. Focusing on the discs themselves is a distraction from the actual issue.

[tshaddox]

It’s trivial to sell media or software on a disc such that the disc itself is not equivalent to a license to use the media or software on it. I don’t know of video games do this yet, but this was the case for a prominent PC operating system for decades.

[MBCook]

Even if it has the full game they can EULA out if it. There are no laws saying they can’t.

Discs are accidental theater. They didn’t start out that way but that’s what they’ve become.

[Barrin92]

Discs matter because centralized digital distribution is what is eroding your rights. The medium's the message.

It's the malleability and ephemerality of digital content that has enabled not just restricting people's rights, but destroying the authenticity of media by arbitrarily replacing its content. The reason Amazon could delete 1984 from your Kindle, is its digital nature. Nobody, except you, can delete a book from your shelf or change its content.

[scared_together]

Have you read the article?

> For years now, the testers at DoesItPlay have been documenting this trend, testing thousands of physical game releases to see which ones live up to the promise of full “plug and play” functionality without an Internet connection. Thus far, a full 27 percent of the physical releases they’ve tested require some sort of download to fix game-breaking bugs or obtain core game content that is not stored on the physical release itself. That ratio balloons to 34 percent for tested PS5 games and 50 percent for those on the Xbox Series X.

[Barrin92]

yes but that's exactly my point, if all you get is a code in a box and you rely on online services to download the game that's the dependence you need to get away from.

That example is my case for full, offline, physical copies of a piece of media I can plug and play into my console without an internet connection.

[jerf]

It's not about the digitalness, it's about the hardware that enforces the rights management. You can stick every Super Nintendo game ever made on to a not-very-large SD card. It's completely digital. No one anywhere can control what you do with them. It's honestly more "yours" in that form than the corresponding rather enormous pile of cartridges.

Turning things into big piles of numbers isn't what takes them from you. It's the hardware and ecosystem that limits what you can do with the numbers. The reason Amazon could delete that book isn't that the numbers were particularly deletable somehow, it's that people were using systems that let someone else control them.

[saghm]

> You can stick every Super Nintendo game ever made on to a not-very-large SD card. It's completely digital. No one anywhere can control what you do with them. It's honestly more "yours" in that form than the corresponding rather enormous pile of cartridges.

And further, see how much effort companies spend on trying to prevent people from putting games onto computers like that and using emulation to play them. There's a pretty solid argument that copying games from older physical media like that to purely digital copies actually preserves them, because it's a lot harder for someone to construct a bunch of mechanically functional SNES consoles than it is to distribute copies of an emulator.

[MBCook]

No. Thats the whole point.

The point is you have no rights digital or physical. That’s the problem.

Disc are not magic totems. There is nothing promising you the disc you will work in 10 years, 10 months, 10 days. Nothing ensuring that you can resell it for >$0. They could trivially make the disc hold a one-time redemption for the game.

If you buy a physical used copy of Anthem can you play it? Nope. They could do that with single player games.

What’s the resale value of, effectively, a coaster? Can you lend it to a friend? Your current rights are about the coaster. Not the software.

You happen to have abilities with physical discs because of tradition. You’re not guaranteed those. Digital makes that obvious.

This is a rights issue.

[saghm]

> Disc are not magic totems. There is nothing promising you the disc you will work in 10 years, 10 months, 10 days. Nothing ensuring that you can resell it for >$0. They could trivially make the disc hold a one-time redemption for the game.

I think the funniest thing about all of this to me is that we're literally talking about the company that put rootkits on their CDs to try to stop the content from being used in a way they didn't like. They might literally have the worst track record in history when it comes to predatory consumer behavior related to discs, and people are trying to get them to keep making them.

[MBCook]

That was Sony music, not Sony Computer Entertainment.

Different divisions of a mega corp.

We know divisions fight. The hardware business had to make MiniDisc worse so Sony Music wouldn’t be too mad.

[nradov]

Legal rights don't matter if the other party is ever liquidated, or otherwise unable to meet their obligations.

[musicale]

If gog.com went away tomorrow, downloaded games and installers should be copyable to another PC relatively easily (so far this has worked 100% for me at least).

I'm not sure how easy it will be to copy downloaded games to another PS3 once Sony pulls the plug on the PSN store (and likely PSN login) for PS3 next year.

[dawnerd]

I’ve run into several games that will not launch at all of you don’t have galaxy or galaxy has no internet.

[musicale]

Interesting - I have (fortunately) not run into these issues (yet), but found a list (with specifics) at https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singlep...

Most of the listed games seem to be playable but with some content locked behind DRM, galaxy, or online connectivity.

Overall it does seem like they are trying to live up to their DRM-free claim/promise, but it looks like there are still a few annoying exceptions.

[WillAdams]

I have one game, (Lego Lord of the Rings) which won't launch, but it was an impulse purchase on sale, and I am no longer on vacation and stuck at my mother-in-law's, so haven't investigated beyond an unanswered (last I checked) forum post.

[quadrifoliate]

This is just straight up false. Laws don't cease to exist because of a liquidation. Legal rights absolutely matter in the event of a liquidation, and will be part of any liquidation process.

For example, if there was a law that the entire source code (including server code) should be immediately put into public domain if the game maker is unable to meet their obligation of serving up the game due to liquidation, then the release of the source code would be a legally sanctioned part of the liquidation process.

[nradov]

This is just straight up false. Apparently you don't understand bankruptcy law. Courts will prioritize the interests of creditors first.

And the notion of a law requiring source code to be released in the public domain is so stupid. The source code is an asset which can potentially be sold to benefit creditors. And often the source code contains IP owned by third parties who wouldn't allow a release anyway.

[ndriscoll]

The law is what the people say it is. As the previous generation that created this system dies their successors can repeal eternal copyright laws and institute consumer protections again. e.g. we can demand source escrow to receive copyright (with a short grace period for current copyright holders to register/set up escrow), drastically shorten the period, demand copyrighted material continue to be made available or you lose your monopoly, etc. Or just abolish the whole system, which might completely lose its purpose if AI continues to improve. Actually companies might be doing this themselves on accident by using AI to generate assets, making them ineligible for copyright.

All it takes is for young people to decide that they actually don't think they should have to pay a subscription to e.g. listen to music that came out when their dead great grandparents were kids or that they should have no rights to own anything ever.

The same people whose student loans couldn't be discharged in bankruptcy could I'm sure consider the idea that companies' obligations to them can't be either.

[brewdad]

I wish them luck. I won’t hold my breath.