The end of the world (as we know it)
If you’re into games at all, you no doubt heard the news earlier this week. Sony is ending production of physical media for all games after 2027.
Everybody’s got an opinion on it – here’s mine:
Gamers everywhere have been losing their minds – rightfully so (I’ll get to that). We increasingly live in a world where renting just about everything is the norm. There’s a subscription for practically everything, with the promise of updates that will make the product keep getting better the longer you own…ahem, rent it.
In an all digital world, that works out in our favor – until it doesn’t. Stop paying for the monthly subscription to your car manufacturer’s network subscription, and you’ll find yourself without GPS, streaming, and even core features of the vehicle. Even if you worked hard to pay off your loan and now hold the title to that vehicle in your hand, features of that vehicle can be locked out and taken from you without your consent.
I used to use Adobe software (for 20+ years – I’ve since switched to better / cheaper alternatives, but that’s a story for another blog). The moment you stop paying, you can’t open or edit your files – even to translate them into open formats to use elsewhere! Microsoft Office is the same way – though you can open and view files…you can’t print or edit.
What does that have to do with games? Get to the point already!
Games are transitioning from a product into a service. I’m old enough to remember mowing lawns all summer to scrape up enough cash to buy Kid Icarus for my NES – physical media, big grey cartridge. Once I got it home, it was mine. I could play it whenever I wanted on any NES I wanted. Loaning or trading with a friend was an easy swap. Compare that with the Virtual Console version of the game I bought on Wii (and WiiU, 3DS, and Switch): if I wanted to loan that game to a friend, I’d have to give him my whole system…I don’t own a copy, I own a license to play it on my system only.
A better, more modern example: Scott Pilgrim: The Game. I was super late to the party, and discovered the game (and it’s BANGING soundtrack) way after its release – so late that I couldn’t buy it anywhere. The game was a digital only release. The license agreement with Universal expired and was too expensive to renew, so the game was pulled from all storefronts. If you deleted your copy, most services would not let you download a new copy, despite the fact that you’d paid for it already! This is the issue gamers are ticked about – losing control over the things they buy.
Headlines Aside..
The pictures above are from my personal collection. Yep – I’m old, and I enjoy collecting and keeping games. Do I play them? Occasionally. All of my old consoles still work, and I’ve kept (or acquired my own) each console I played growing up. That NES? That’s the one I owned as a kid! To be fair – it’s the second one I owned…the first was stolen when my house was robbed.
I had fun playing these games. I waited in line for a few of them. Rented and stayed up all night playing a few of them. Learned how to exploit the glitches and bugs (that never got patched because the game was FINAL once it got printed on the cart or disc). That Final Fantasy X-2 disc? That was the first game my wife ever bought me back when we were dating (she saw “Final Fantasy” and it was new…don’t hate).
The physical media is important to me because the memories made with them can be relived anytime…all I have to do is look at them. I can pop them in and realize how bad my “old guy” reflexes are now compared to my gaming prime.
And yes – I know the second pic is Switch games, all of which have online updates and DRM (Digital Rights Management). But if Nintendo vanished tomorrow, I could still pop them into my console and play them…because the game data exists on the physical media!
Not pictured: My PlayStation, PS2, 3DS, DS, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Wii, and WiiU shelves. And yep, they all still work! I hope someday to have the funds to collect all of the games that were influential to me as a GameDev and as a person. As cheesy as it sounds, the games I played when I was younger inspired and shaped me – and are a big part of who I am today.
Legacy and history are why physical media matters to me.
The Future:
The Gaming Industry is at a crossroads – one that will reshape gaming going forward. The death of physical media means software is just code. The console manufacturers all already use AMD processors and GPUs in their systems – the same stuff Valve put in the Steam Machine, and the same stuff you can go out and buy to build a gaming PC. There’s less and less that’s special about owning a console. My last PlayStation was the PS2; my last XBox was the 360. I stuck with Nintendo because I’m a fanboy and because I love their games.
Fanboys grow up, though…
I’ve passed on the $80 games Nintendo released. I won’t buy game Key Cards for my Switch 2, either. Why?? $80 is too much to spend on a single game, even one as good as typical 1st party Nintendo. As for the Key Cards – if I can’t own a copy of a game, I’d rather buy it (later at a discount) on Steam. Steam has been steadfast in defending ownership for players, so I don’t worry when I need to clear off space on my drives to make room for a new game – I’ll still be able to download it later! That Scott Pilgrim title I meantioned earlier? Steam was one of the few storefronts that didn’t restrict your ability to redownload / reinstall your game. Steam doesn’t hassle me when I play on my Mac then switch over to my SteamOS PC later. Steam gives me a digital ownership experience that I can live with.
That being said, I can’t look at my Steam Library the same way I look at that shelf my wife and I built and filled with my old games. It’s just not the same, and I’m sad that future generations of gamers won’t be able to have a shelf of their own.
Progress? Sure. Better? Not even close.
My prediction is that a future without physical media will eventually lead to a future without consoles (or with fewer of them). There are Switch emulators that played games better than the Switch itself. Every copy of Kid Icarus I bought that wasn’t on that grey cartridge runs inside one of Nintendo’s own official emulators! (I’m a sucker for nostalgia.).
Not condoning piracy, but there are archives on the web dedicated to preserving these old games so future generations can throw their controllers across the room in frustration just like we did!! Hey, old games were HARD. Limited continues, passwords, save points that were far apart – we had it rough!
Most games now release on multiple platforms (including PC) for economic reasons – but software like Unity and the similarities of everyone’s hardware will make that easier and easier. Tech like Valve’s Proton and Apple’s GameKit can translate complex games that were locked onto Windows or another platform live and on the fly.
We’ll survive without physical media, but it won’t be nearly as cool. Sorry, kids!
