This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I buy games from steam here and there once it’s on sale but I don’t see it as a purchase tbh. You can’t own digital media that way.
I see it as paying for access. I am paying for them to give me access from any steam computer with the benefits of having my saves in the cloud.
That’s not worth $60-$100, but it’s worth <$10 for certain games.
While I agree for the most part, pricing is absolutely an issue too (an ever increasing one). I and so many others in a similar situation have a lot of time but not a lot of money, it doesn't matter if a game has 2000+ hours of playtime, we just can't afford $70+ as a once time purchase.
I remember when street fighter 2 was released for the SNES. Our store had it at 64.99 and that's in 1990-something dollars.
Games have always been expensive, especially when hyped and already popular
But I still have an SNES and SF2 and can play it whenever I want. No chance a licensing server rejects me or a lic is flagged invalid in the future.
That's the difference. I know as long as the hardware works, I can always use that game.
Piracy is the shyt. 16 years ago I was downloading flstudio and Rollercoaster tycoon. I think I still have bioshock and the first two fallout games too. I gotta check. I got all my favorite shows and movies so I don't have to use the internet or better yet have something to watch when the internet goes out.
Piracy has saved me so much fucking money it's unreal. After I got my first laptop I never went back to the movies until I got a girlfriend. I say to myself oh well this service doesn't have it I bet I could find it though.
Funny enough I downloaded a bootleg of that movie Obsession, great movie.
Piracy isn't the problem, it's the societal factors that push us to use piracy. High ticket prices for movies, over 300$ software, buying something and realizing it's a rental because it's all digital and a company can rip it from you.
WHO WOULDN'T TURN TO PIRACY!!!!!
Piracy is necessary. I remember back in the days in school that you had to turn in essays in Word and do presentations with PowerPoint. Like how the fuck would a kid from a family that could barely afford a used PC be able to get Office without piracy.
Same with Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya etc. Basically the entire workforce for entire industries exist thanks to piracy.
Part of the problem is the Big Software crushing any hobbyist software. I used to be big into 3D design. 20 years ago there were dozens and dozens of different programs of different quality available to people wanting to do 3D design, along with top tier programs like 3DSMax and Maya, and even they had “learning editions” with stripped down features for free non-professional use.
Now? Most all 3D design software is proprietary, subscription-based, and stupid expensive. Very, very few programs are available to anyone wanting to do hobby work or learn, and plenty of them are “freemium” with better features paywalled.
Point being, choice has been restricted or eliminated. 20 years ago there was a lot more to choose from both skill and price-wise. Now it’s $200/month/seat, or a couple paywalled freemium programs.
Unless you open source which can be iffy on quality if not consistently maintained. FreeCAD proves that.
Yeah, didn’t want to get too deep in the weeds about it, but FreeCAD is definitely an example. I feel like I’m using a perpetually unfinished decade-old program. While it certainly qualifies as one of those older free packages it never really took off.
The only reason I don't own any of the new systems and games are the prices. That's literally the only reason
I have a PS4, there's enough games to pirate that I haven't played yet that I don't need to get a PS5 yet.
Just to poke the hornets nest: if CDs and Blu-ray discs are a crappy medium, moving forward, what would you suggest to be the replacement?
I’m all for physical media, but current optical media is more than a generation past obsolete and needs to be replaced.
DRM-Free files that the user can archive on their own media, in their own format, as they wish.
The ability to distribute media without shipping physical goods allows for much smaller productions to have wide releases and in some cases to make their games cheaper than otherwise required (cough, switch tax). The issue is the DRM preventing the user from making their own backups, rather than the physical product (although steam does allow you to make backups and copies of your library folder which is cool).
A distinction here is what is being sold to us. A disc is 'goods' where are sold the product under the assumption of ownership.
What is actually being given is a service!
We want ownership of a good, not rent of a service and digital via sony/Xbox is the latter.
