I can back up my disk media. Can you back up your DRM’ed console games?
Apparently not? But perhaps the real problem is that physical media is lasting longer than digital licenses to that media on a lot of platforms. There are certainly examples where that isn’t true (degradation of cassette and VHS tapes so that they snap, DVD/CD Disc rot, UV light destroying records etc), but most people don’t view that as a violation of the expectations of the license they agree to. The distributer/license owner didn’t go back on their word and take it back.
I think that’s the main difference.
You hit the head on the nose
Yeah. I don’t think anyone would be mad at Sony if they lost their collection to a house fire or a flood or even to disc rot. Maybe if it were premature disc rot from improper manufacturing they might get a little up in arms, but really it’s about the bait and switch where I only get this license for a year or two instead of the decades I would have had a physical copy.
Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Sega Saturn games. The vast majority of which are literally 30 years old.
The hardware works. Needs no accounts. The disks work. The system doesn’t need to pair a disk drive.
I can play the games.
Something people ignore, is when a game is pulled from sale on a digital store, what happens when it has no physical release?
Are you just supposed to say oh well, guess I missed it? Guess I’ll never experience it and that’s…a fair idea to people?
Why should games be accepted to be so ephemeral? What if it released before you heard of it? Before you were even born? We don’t tolerate other forms of media being so anchored in time.
I watched Jupiter’s Darling, released in 1955 last week. Why don’t we expect games to be playable, archived and preserved this same way?
The mentality people have is wrong. Videogames are disposable to so many people - buy, consume, forget.
Why shouldn’t future generations get to experience them when they are purchased? Why can’t we have a system in place to guarantee perpetual access?
This is why I support piracy, because the system itself is so broken, so skewed to the publisher that the consumer is expected to, and often does accept the idea that it’s not meant to be perpetually accessible.
I hear pirated media can last virtually forever.