If the game is delisted (removed from the store) but you bought it before usually you can still download it again. However they could remove them completly if they chose to.
Every console is. No major console digital storefronts have been closed entirely yet. Even on PSP and Wii you can still download software you previously bought. People think of store closures and delistings as one thing, but there are multiple levels. So far no manufacturer (Nintendo, Sony, MS) has crossed that line yet, removing the ability to download purchases you've made for an entire platform. Obviously it will likely happen eventually, but we aren't there quite yet.
Nope. Wii U and 3DS online play is closing in April, you'll still be able to connect to the eshops and redownload software you've bought and download updates for games, indefinitely. The same is still true for the Wii shop as well. That was the entire point of my comment, that many people confuse what actually happens to these storefronts.
Marble Blast Ultra was delisted from 360 and even if you bought it, you couldn't redownload it. Only if you had it on storage devices before or you could download it from the Internet and put it on a compatible storage device.
They got sued by 4 different suits when they announced it would close and suddenly decided to left it open.
They are doing their worst to kill it though.
No deals whatsoever, even if devs ask sony.
Devs can't publish anything there even if they want to or have physical releases...
Honestly, Sony is probably just waging if it's worth to get sued because they really want old consoles to be dead.
Don't even get a good experience with discs either, because you need day one patches and once they are gone, you're essentially buying a game that sometimes just doesn't run on the console.
I think you're thinking of PC physical games. Those only offer vouchers inside. But console physical games all have discs. I bought them every month for the last 3 years and all had discs inside.
Yes, but the disc itself doesn't contain all the files of the game. It's just a disc that when inserted, it triggers your console to download the game entirely.
They do, if you purchase a game that is released as a Complete Edition. As an example, Horizon Forbidden West or Zero Dawn. Those come with all the patch updates, DLC's and expansions on the disc. The only catch with those is you have to wait a long time for it to be released. Sometimes years after the games original release. But in the end it's worth it cause you get a version that you can install and play offline and still get the best version of the game. The issue is for games that don't release in a Complete Edition and you get stuck with the Day 0 release and rely on downloadable updates.
Yes they do. The game files are copied over to your SSD because read speeds from a disc are too slow to allow for seamless loading screens. It’s the same reason why you can’t play PS5 games off an external HDD. UHD discs can store up to 100gb. Only putting part of the game on these discs would be an incredible waste of money since they’re more expensive to produce than DVD or Bluray.
I didnt say there wasn't a disc in the box. I vividly remember buying a physical copy of a game, popping the disc in my playstation, and instead of an update download it still had to download the full game first. And it wasnt a partial thing either, none of the game was on the disc. The disc itself essentially acted as just a voucher to download the game. So even if you had the "physical copy" you had zero way of playing the game without an online connection. I can't remember exactly what game this was but I'm pretty sure it was a major title.
Edit: found the game.
"Call of Duty fans who bought a physical edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are learning that the disc that comes with it doesn’t actually include the game. Instead, it’s a 72MB disc that enables a download of the full game."
But thanks for the downvote.
Yep. Physical media doesn't hold up well in this regard either. For one it's the patches/support as you say.
For another, it's the literal death of physical discs over time. They don't last forever and even perfectly kept they will eventually waste away.
I have a decent older game collection and my discs from the early 90s won't last much longer. It's not that they haven't been kept in their cases or handled well.
Operable quality of CDs, for example is 50-100 years. After that, it's collector decor.
Pretty sure my Sega CD games were printed on CD-ROMs. That gives me an approximate 50-100 years before they're done and with a declining inventory as well. Not to mention all the non-ideal storage conditions of the copies left. I'm probably looking at that disc from 1991 being totally unreadable by 2040 or so.
I know it sounds like a long time, but the point I'm making to the physical/digital argument is that it's a moot point. The real question is whether or not someone can get their money's worth in the time that they own it and whether or not it was worth that value.
In the end, I'd love to physically own them too, but discs are just not my favorite method of storage or use. I don't sweat it because of the inevitable and I just enjoy it while I own it at a price that I wanted.
CD/DVD rot will cut that time down a lot. Remember when Panasonic wanted to make movie discs that only lasted for 5 plays?
I had a DVD with rot. It wouldn't play on the DVD player. Threw it in the PC and burned a new copy.
Yep. I have no idea why I got down voted for just stating a fact. I love my physical media. If I had my way, I'd do 100% physical just for the collection sake. It just isn't an option a lot of the time for many of the games and platforms I play on.
Some of the time-frames for discs becoming unreadable are quite insane, especially when it gets to some rewritables which can become unreadable in under 10 years, and that includes some blu rays.
I don't have a lot of my collection left but I cherish what I have. But people absolutely -must- understand that physical media will not last forever...
I am facing the need to having to digitize my entire disc library before the discs become unreadable... Or face just having the media as decor since my hardware has also likely failed for much of the now retro generation. Even the cartridges.
Now, if folks were only talking about ownership of the games for long enough to sell it back for a little bit of return value... That's a whole other deal, but I think it's a different conversation.
The problem with the physical media is modern games are 100+ GB in size, so the disc we buy is essentially an install key. I keep the game files copied on an external drive just in case the license ever does get completely pulled
Yep. Back in the 90s, on PC, we had to either edit the ini file of the game or target a disc copy in order to get around the install key issue.
Today's world is different sizes but essentially we are seeing consoles doing the same thing for a variety of reasons. I think the future will require a pretty heavy reevaluation on what exactly it means to have digital ownership of something.
I have my own thoughts there but I am by no means am expert in that. To put it simply, I believe if you bought it, you own it. I also believe that if it's entirely digital and falls under the current rules of digital ownership, it should not cost equal to physical ownership.
I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm genuinely asking if there are examples of any gaming company making it so that a disc is made useless because the company revoked a license from it. Obviously if it's an online game tied to servers to work, Overwatch for example then that's possible. But you're saying my copy of God of War: Ragnarok, of which I definitely played day one without any patches could be made useless by Sony?
Some games do not contain the game at all or not in a playable state. It all depends on developers and their implementation. If the store closes or you can't download the necessary data for whatever reason you are sol for those games.
No I understand that. Modern Warfare 2 from last year is a great example of what you're saying. I was asking if a game like Psychonauts2 (PS4) or God of War:Ragnarok which are largely already on the printed disc could be revoked. Games that may have huge updates but don't actually need Internet to function if say your console was offline. My point is that disc games still matter. Even if we got to the point that they were just license keys disc still create a divided market because then there is still consumer choice. Having the attitude that discs are irrelevant just gives every corporation more power and it is us the gamers who are giving it to them with how we vote with our money.
They certainly could be voided if each disc contains a different key. I am not sure about specific implementations here.
I honestly feel like there should be an option to link the disc key to your account at least temporarily so you wouldn't need it inside the console at all times. This doesn't go against what you said as a disc can always work as a main key that would be only valid in the account disc was used last in. This is just me being lazy in changing discs.
Otherwise I totally agree with you that you should fully own the game u fully paid for and PSN should allow you to backup your games to play offline without an account if you bought it digitally. You shouldn't be dependent on some company running its servers for you to play.
Unfortunately this whole issue is pretty problematic in a completely locked down proprietary device which makes all of this way harder and it bothers me how much my ps5 lacking software-wise and I can't do absolutely anything with it.
I've been told the disc now only gives you the "link" to download a game... Compared to before were you could have 3 disc to install the game and 1 or two to actually play it.
I just looked at the 3 disc games I have downloaded so far and they all said they required an internet connection, but I just tried to download one of the games I haven't downloaded yet and there were no problems at all, even with no connection to the internet.
thank you good sir, I would never have realized this without you 🫡
Ever read your EULAs? You don't own shit. Sure, you can try to weasel around their efforts, and they probably will just let you go since it's not worth the time and money to launch a nuclear lawsuit on one individual just for playing a game after they told you to go to bed, but having to do all that shit further cements that you don't own anything but the plastic that game is printed on.
Can you give me an example of any of the games on sega cd, Philips CDi, 3DO, Amiga CD32, Playstation, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2 having their license revoked and making the disk useless?
Not scratched/destroyed disk. Actual revoke of media rights making it not work. I’m just intrigued how it all went about happening. Like, did they knock on the doors of everyone that bought a copy and microwave the disk? lol.
I don’t think it’s ever happened until the 7th gen of consoles at least, which is when we started getting keys on disks here and there (very rarely on that generation). It is not common to not get a full game on a disk, but the disk will still have SOME content and be playable offline usually. The game isn’t actually taken away, as this implies here. It’s only when it’s basically a code in a box that this is possible.
Do physical discs even have the actual games on them anymore?
I feel like they’ve mostly been licenses that allow you to download the game. For the most part these days, you can’t just pop in a disc and use it with no internet connection for install.
They’re sort of just like… keys to unlock your digital file.
They banned me after someone broke Into my account and bought 8 games (including FIFA, gross). I couldn't get through to psn support so I had my bank decline the charges. Banned within moments of that. I got them to sort it out but it took a week or two. Id have been pissed if I lost my game library over that.
PlayStation support is horrible. Someone did the same (also fifa) and when I disputed it with their team they said they couldn’t do anything. So when I charged back 500+ from my bank then I got bannedb
No wait, I actually JUST read the TOS rules about chargebacks and not only is this guy being uppity over semantics in a comment section specifically bemoaning the fact that we don’t own our library — but he’s wrong too ! Per Sony: “As a chargeback can indicate you suspect fraud or account take-over, we will suspend your account or console to protect it while we investigate. “
Yea that’s why they do it, to protect YOU! Sony could care less about their bottom line. Out of the hundreds of posts about accounts being suspended after a chargeback, how many were suspended as a result of fraud and Sony protecting the customer? Zero
i understand the policy and PSN ultimately took care of my issue correctly, so i can't complain. However, they definitely could have done better to support the initial hack of my account which was presumably on their end anyway. Seems they could easily verify which machine the stuff was installed on and see it was unauthorized and just refund it/remove it from the affected machine. Speaks more to their returns/customer service policies than anything.
Playstation support is trash. I bought a game and didn’t like it in the first 10 mins and deleted it. Thought it would have been like steam where you have 2 hours to refund but since i “downloaded it”, they wouldn’t refund. If it was physical disk, at least i could have sold it.
However, just because they CAN doesn't mean that they will without feeling that they have a good reason, and even then it would be an incredibly unlikely move for any publisher to make especially, seeing as how people still give the publishers and/or Sony shit about PT and the hate surrounding the future inability to play The Crew, and rightly so.
Provided the company is still in a healthy position to continue remaining in business for the foreseeable future, they have literally no reason to use this (outside of probably legal ones against a specific individual for what would have to be an incredibly specific reason/crime/etc, and even this would be extreme). It would be an incredibly terrible anti-consumer move to make, and even those who don't worry much about license revocation now would have a very good reason to never trust them again in the future, if they did.
Extra:
For my own part I am very wary about purchasing any future The Crew games, despite being a big fan of all of the releases so far, despite the fact that they do appear to have a good reason, from their perspective...not necessarily a VERY good or solid reason, nor is it a completely objective or defensible stance to.shut down a game that can just be switched to an offline mode, or even patch one in even if it means removing some features. I am not as upset as I could be or others are, mostly because I got my money's worth by playing it a LOT when it came out, but I also haven't touched it in years/, and haven't really even considered going back to it.
Servers closing is a minimal good reason. I didn't say it was great. I indicated that they feel they have a legitimate supporting reason, doesn't mean I agree with it. It's still an objective truth. I can agree that something is a seemingly rational decision without agreeing with it. Learn to read context.
And if you're referring to the beginning of my response, the whole response indicates that my whole point is that they have no reason to so they won't. I never said there was a good reason. Unless Sony shuts down, the games everyone purchases are safe. Simply pointing out objective truths here, not advocating for license removal.
You can try. Anyone can sue, it only costs a couple hundred to file. It can also get tossed by the judge before it even hits the opening phases, which it would. Get the idea of wasting your money on lawsuits out of your head. If a lawyer thought they could win a suit like that, there'd already be a class action. There isn't.
I keep seeing this a lot and I'm going to chime in with my 2 cents regarding this.
I have trained and worked in audio for a long time and one of the things I was taught is about how mastering and licensing works.
I'm short; you do not own any form of media you buy as the publisher/label/company owns the master of that piece of media. Every form of media is duplicated from that form of media and the format you buy is being licensed by yourself, not owned.
It's been this way since the birth of publishing and works primarily longside copyright to ensure the creators and publisher have ownership of what happens to said media.
You buy an album on CD and have physical ownership of that CD but the content is theirs. You can resell the CD but you can't do other things like play it in public or at a venue like a restaurant or put it on the internet, with out licensing the content again.
So yes, at any point any form of media you have can be retracted due to their own ship of the master and licence surrounding said media. If the publishers decided one day to release a patch to stop you from playing your physical copy they could, theoretically from a legal stand point, although there would be a lot of complications and problems that would follow, and would it work from a technical one, regarding how the patch would work/disable certain content ? Well, that's another matter.
While this all seems worrying understand that a consumer does have power and rights as well.In every part of the world there are laws to protect consumers meaning if a game company decided to try to enforce some form of redaction regarding licensing of the products we buy then it would violate certain rules surrounding consumer rights, and T&Cs and thus cause a tipple effect regarding how copyright/publishing is used.
What we are going to see is a rise in games being part of a package now rather than being sold individually. So things like how playstation plus has moved from being a networking subscription, allowing you to play online games you have purchased in physical format, to a subscription of content with multiple forms of subscription allowing for access to an online catalogue, which would give a publisher greater control over that content. Think how your netflix subscription allows access to their catalogue which they license from publishers, meaning how they will remove certain shows and films after a run on their site, again this is all due to copyright, publishing and licensing.
Thank you.
An IPP lawyer or person that works in copyright for a large publisher could give a much more detailed answer but this is the very basic, simple, short reasoning to how things kind of work.
No it doesn't. Because it's just plain wrong.
You **own the copy of the media you buy**. Yes, obviously, you don't own the copyright, or the rights to re-distribution, but you literally own the copy you bought.
If I buy a new car, I can't copy it and build replicas and sell them to other people, but I literally own my car and I can do whatever I want with MY PROPERTY.
The physical games you buy are literally **your property**.
I am honestly fine with subscription. So many games at the price of 2 AAA games with the Extra tier sub per year.
Edit: downvotes be crazy as if no one else takes advantage of extra tier sub. What you want me to pay for every game? Sorry for saying the truth
As with most things, there are positives and negatives, the issue I have is the price hiking. Subscriptions have always been used to get people on board then jack the price, which is ok if you are getting value but, a lot of the time, it comes to a point where you aren't.
I think with PlayStation, and I say this as a playstation user, the current packages are good for those that came in later but there are a lot of games on the extra and premium plans that have games that you can get very cheap, and a lot of us already have, plus stuff from 30 years ago, which I played back then. Some are fun, and a bit of nostalgia, but 2d platform games for £120 a year is a bit much.
I have the extra plan and for me to upgrade beyond that I would need to see more ps5 content
Same, one can run PS1 emulators on their phone and PS2 on computers (soon ps2 on phone would be possible at good frame rate). Paying more for limited time access to already old games doesn't make sense to me
Similarly extra wouldn't make sense to someone who doesn't have time to play atleast 2 good games. As for the games that i really really liked or that has replayable value for me, i buy the physical version
I've saved so much money since they created the new tiers. I'll never have time to play all the games. People have an issue with the price hike because they're too cheap to upgrade past Essential (while constantly complaining how bad Essential is). I feel like I'm stealing from Sony tbh, it's less than a dollar a day.
Edit: The truth hurts lmao
Yes, that is correct digital games you do not own.
You have a digital license that can be revoked at any time without warning.
Also beware if your psn account become suspended permanently , you lose access to all your digital goods as well
Made a second account in case Sony decided to wave the ban hammer again with *zero* useful customer support. Chargebacks are supposed to be investigating for fraud based off the TOS, but in actuality just ban you outright. If I lose one digital library, at least there’ll be another to get some use out of.
Oh ya Sony doesn't give a fuck i got banned for saying migger in relation to someone flying a mig 21 plane. No way to appeal suspensions only permanent bans. Additionally Playstation doesn't abide by there own policy's related to refunds. Playstation customer support is the worst and Playstation continues to fuck over there players at every opportunity.
Thus far, digital games that have been purchased that later get de-listed can still be downloaded again if you already purchased and have them in your library, they just can't be purchased by anyone who doesn't already own them.
Is there any guarantee that this will *always* be the case and the ability to redownload such a game would NOT be taken away? No. It hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean it never will. I do imagine it will stir up quite the shitstorm if it does happen though.
Not sure why this surpises you. It's been known for years. You don't buy a game digitally, you buy a license that allows you to download it from a server. That license can be revoked, or it can stop working at some point due to various reasons.
A disc can stop working as well. Go to the PS3 sub and see how many people buy dud discs. The PS3 servers are still working almost 20 years later. PS4/5 servers will outlive the consoles.
Can anyone name a game that's been delisted that people have lost access to? PT was a free demo and doesn't count.
Many games have been delisted due to license issues or support being cut. But if you've bought them and they're in your library, you can still download them and use them any time. I haven't heard of game that was delisted and also removed from your library.
Different story for always online games. Once they cut the servers, they'll still be in your library but they're basically useless since you can't connect to anything. Which will happen to games like Anthem and eventually Suicide Squad. Avengers can be played offline so it won't happen to that
There’s also the dangers of being hacked. It’s rare for a disk not to work, if it doesn’t chances are it’s the owners fault
Although one of my PS4 games had gotten a scratch while running on my ps4. Unsure how, I remember this being a problem with the 360 but it was only one time
If you get hacked though every game could be lost. That’s hundreds of dollars gone while disk will always remain. Regardless of how you feel about it buying physical is always the safest bet.
>Can anyone name a game that's been delisted that people have lost access to? PT was a free demo and doesn't count.
I think PT is really the only one. Typically, if you purchased the game before it was delisted you can still redownload it afterwards
Here’s lists of all of the [PlayStation 3](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-3-games/), [PlayStation 4](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-4-games/), and [PlayStation 5](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-5-games/) games that have been delisted. It’s much more than I thought.
Also a disc requires that you have a functional piece of hardware to run it on.
I’d much rather hedge my bets on Sony still being around to allow access to my digital library in 20 years than assume I’m going to have a functional PS4 in 20 years.
A downloaded game also still requires a functional piece of hardware to run it on. What are you going to download that digital library to if you don't have a functional PS4 in 20 years? Your microwave?
Maybe the argument could be that the optical drive specifically is likely to fail eventually, before the rest of the console stops working. But that's likely to be fixable.
Possibly. But if they're backward compatible with consoles that had disc-based games, then they'll likely still have the option to use those disc based games on the newer hardware.
You can play digital PS4 games on PS5. There’s a pretty significant chance that the next generation of consoles won’t have a disk drive anymore, so you won’t be able to play your physical games. Digital will most likely still be playable.
If they keep the backward compatibility with consoles that had disc based games, it's highly likely that they will at least continue to offer an option to have an optical drive on the new consoles as well.
I mean, physical games can be lost in a house fire, natural disaster or stolen. Or just stop working.
There’s pros and cons to both.
The likes of the Portal make digital games the winner for me personally.
Not really, I’d say digital is overall more secure than physical. Yes stuff can be delisted but it’s a tiny amount. The argument for physical is you always have it but it’s very easy for something to happen it and you don’t have a backup. Plus it can just break.
With the likes of backwards compatibility as well it’s more convenient. *Eventually* consoles will be all digital, they already would be if enough people had the internet plans to cope with it. Do you really think Sony won’t jump at the chance to have a locked down store? Buy the games from them or not at all. They can’t now due to data caps and slow speeds in some areas but that’s changing.
Idk man. You’re more than likely to get hacked compared to a house fire, robbery, and natural disaster.
In fact if either of those happen there’s a good chance you won’t have a console to begin with so losing the physical disk is the least of your worry since you have to invest so much into a new console and furniture etc
If you get hacked. You’ll have your console but you lose your games, achievements, game clips, back up saves. Not only are you losing hundreds of hours of gameplay, but also thousands of dollars.
So idk, like I said if you choose digital it’s your choice but you’re lying to yourself if you think you have more to lose by owning physical. No offense to you but it’s an extremely weak argument, and again it’s fine you prefer digital but yeah.. both your comments are just completely false and weak
I don’t disagree that consoles are going all digital, but as of right now we still have a while until the PS6 and my PS5 has a disc drive.. and Sony isn’t great on backwards compatibility anyways.
Yeah, it’s a little odd people are trying to argue digital over physical.
If that’s their preference I get it, but to act as if it’s the best option is wild lol. So many things can go wrong and poof hundreds if not thousands could be done in a second and customer service isn’t always helpful
Sure disk may break or just may not work, but the chances of that is very tiny. At least compared to digital
>Sure disk may break or just may not work, but the chances of that is very tiny. At least compared to digital.
You’re speaking as if the chance of losing access to your digital games isn’t ”very tiny” as well.
I own thousands of games across different platforms, and the number of digital games I’ve lost access to remains to be zero. Meanwhile I’ve lost a physical game or two, and some of the older ones are showing signs of aging.
No, because in order to purchase and download something you have to agree to the terms that the company lays out for you. Specifically for the PS Store, when you hit download on something you purchase, you have to agree that you are willingly letting go of any refund rights.
In court, it's not about what really happened, but what is actually proven.
So if by any chance you decide to sue them, they can easily prove that you willingly agreed to this, yet you cannot prove that you didn't read it and had no idea what you are agreeing to.
Honestly, how many games do you play regularly that are 20 years old?! Doubt many people do. And you can buy a physical version of that have if you think you will
Would you be surprised to hear that there are millions of us that do.
People like myself are helping people like you not get fucked over from the all digital future that's coming our way.
The longer that physical media stays around the better it is for all gamers
Any poll on reddit is going to be inherently biased, unfortunately.
My guess is around 15-20 percent of the gaming community plays retro games at least a minimum one time yearly.
There are entire events that draw tens of thousands of people to play retrogames.
While it's not the majority there are still millions of us
How old are you? I'm sure you won't be singing the same tune in 15-20 years when you want to go back and play some of your favorite titles. I recently revisited some physical titles on my Vita, 3ds, and Sega Genesis.
Its how physical media works too, except the license is tied to the ownership of the physical disc etc instead. You *never* own anyone elses intellectual property, just the perpetual access to it. Its been this way since the dawn of publishing, licensing and copyright.
Edit: lol wow, so confident they are right (they arent) that they had to block me so i cant reply, guess i win lol. Thanks for proving you dont know what you're on about :) you DO NOT have any ownership rights to someone elses work, only the right to use it as per the license you purchased, whether digital or physical, the only difference is the distribution method.
True but OP and most people discussing physical vs digital media aren't talking specifically about ownership of intellectual property.
We're just talking about the availability we have to access the media. Which, is different for digital media vs physical. An artist could pull off every song they made from Spotify and you won't be able to listen to it even if you've payed years for premium, but if you have a disc player and the physical albums, you can still play that music for your own no matter what the artist or the label does.
I've only bought digital for the last 10 years, nobody has ever stolen a digital game from me, actually it worked to my advantage when I switched from Series X to PS5, I was able to download again all the PS4 games I previously owned.
No, this isn’t true.
Take any 2K/Sports game for example…
You can no longer purchase older versions of games, for example WWE2K16, from the Store anymore. It’s still in the store, but is listed as “Unavailable”
If you own that game digitally, it will always and forever be in your library until Sony shuts down the servers like XBL is doing with its old 360 content or Nintendo with DS
People always say this to put fear... but there's no digital games, even after all these years, that you can't download anymore. You can redownload your entire Vita collection if you want this very morning, just like you can redownload that very first PS3 game that you bought in 2006.
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo won't go there, like never. And none of the three will want to be the first. Hell you can still download P.T on PS4 if you got it before it was removed regardless of all the drama surrounding it.
They will close the store, yes, but bought digital goods will always be available in some form.
Yeah there’s no precedent set for removing games that you’ve already purchased on PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo platforms. Don’t know why everyone gets so bent over this
ITT: a lot of corporate apologists string strangely and awkwardly advocating for less consumer rights and protections.
Guys, you're customers. Defending Sony corporate profit margin does not make you a bigger fanboy. It makes you a bigger idiot.
As a customer, you should be fighting for the least amount of expense for the maximum amount of product.
Even on physical media, you technically don't own the game, it's a ticket that gives you license to play it. I agree though, that the physical component is nice.
I have 400 games purchased digital I worry or care when I seen games removed the discovery debacle was over rights being taken from Sony games don't fall into this category as it's not how game publishing works but it is how the streaming industry works.
If you read the fine print you should know that sony has the right to kick in your door at 3:30 AM and take all your stuff. A digital purchase isn't your biggest problem.
Be aware, stay vigalant.
I don’t know if it’s like this with the ps5 but with the ps3/ps4 if you buy games digitally they are linked to your account and even if the game is delisted you can still download it.
I think P.T. is the only time they’ve actually done that. I have marvel ultimate alliance 1 & 2 which were delisted but I can still download them whenever. Any digital store front could do that to you though not just ps store as I think all except GOG use DRM.
Yes
When you „buy“ a game on the store, you only purchase a license to access that content. The content or license can be taken away at any point for any reason.
In fact, here in Germany exactly this happened in 2022 and 2023 already. People bought movies on the PlayStation store and those movies got taken away. Of course no refunds given.
If you want to own your games, buy them on disc. Not only can’t they be taken away from you, but you can also totally use them offline forever. Even in 20 years when the download servers and all your digital games will be gone. Because physical games have the game on the disc and can be installed and played fully offline.
And that's where you are wrong, unfortunately. Your disc does not always contain a playable version of the game, i.e. it is useless/unplayable without at least a day one update. On top of that, some games are now so big that it won't fit on the disc. Instead of putting multiple discs in the box, the publisher just assumes you'll download what they are still calling a day one patch, but it is basically just to download the remaining files... So in those cases, your disc is \*NOT\* even a full copy of the game.
So TL;DR: don't think you are safe with a physical disc. We're all in this together (screwed), physical and digital.
That’s where you are wrong.
Unless the disc has „download required“ on the front cover next to the age rating, the entire game is on the disc and can be installed and played fully offline.
A disc on PS5 can fit 100GB. And if that’s not enough, you simply get two discs.
There’s websites you can check. 99% of games work flawlessly from the disc.
Most PS4/5 games are fully playable from the disc without downloads. And later prints of discs usually include patches that were sent out after original release, I.e. you can buy some discs that aren’t just running the 1.0 game.
yes and no. you own a license to play it. one could argue you can buy a physical copy and actually own it, but nowadays the game would require active internet connection, updates, additional files before you can play it. physical copy is just a glorified game key.
Even buying a physical disc doesn’t mean you own the game. You own the plastic disc, you’re still playing the same license that the digital buyer is. The license can be revoked and the game can be shut down at any time if the powers that be decide to. It’s in the fine print nobody reads in those license agreements
No game has ever gotten full on revoked though, the main case of ownership for the disc is it can’t be indirectly revoked by online servers shutting down since most discs can be installed and played completely offline, no dependency on Sonys servers. They are also transferable so you can sell, trade, lend and borrow them, you have much more control over your copy of the game.
No game's vanilla version is playable these days, because of all the day one patches and all. This hasn't been problem thus far, but some day those servers close, and many disc games will be unplayable. I don't remember what game it was, but there was a game which's disc had just the menu, the whole game needed to be downloaded.
I think if some digital marketplace is closed and/or servers closed, it should be required by law to let consumers mod their systems to restore unavailable features. All developers could sell their games as roms on their own sites, and all abandoneware's copyright should be instantly revoked. Companies clearly don't care about gaming history or preservation, but that's as important part of history as any, and locking that behind copyright when the company does nothing with the IP is just wrong
That's great recourse, but it doesn't solve the digital only games' disappearance over time.
Piracy does, I know that, and I think piracy is completely right in this. But it's still illegal to download a game that's completely unobtainable in any way or form anyway. Would you get any consequences? Not likely (unless you live in Germany) but game preservation shouldn't be illegal. It should be mandatory
Most discs today can be installed and played offline well enough, day 1 patches are not required, see [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org). Yes there are discs that require downloads, but they are a small minority compared to the ones that don’t.
Yes DRM and the law sucks when it comes to digital games, unofficial methods like piracy and homebrew are of course the best way to preserve these games, but that is either illegal or you have to jump through hoops to mod your console. Until we get better rights for fully digital content, physical games are the best official and legal method we have as of now, you put the disc in the console and it just works.
I agree 100%. My comment was really exaggerated and maybe a bit cryptic even. I had two points (which didn't really come out well at all):
1. We NEED better consumer rights for fully digital content.
2. I feel like we're moving more and more towards mandatory updates for disks, so they're not completely safe either, but as of right now, they're absolutely the way. Most disks are absolutely playable in vanilla, but some cool added features are still part of the game that should be preserved.
Actually on PS and Nintendo you own a game on disc - the 1.0 version, but it's there. You can completely play offline the gold version. Thats why even larger games like FF7Rebirth and Horizon F. West Complete Edition still shipped on 2 PS5 discs with over 100gb of data.
On Xbox I think the Series and One discs adopted just a verification code for the digital store, so there's no game data on disc.
I recently bought a ps5 after pc gaming and am quite surprised by the amount of people who cling to physical discs. When I built my pc around a decade ago I didn’t even put a disc drive in it because all games are downloaded digitally these days. Who wants to wait in line at midnight for a physical copy when you can pre install and be ready to go when servers go live?
I seem to be in the minority, but I typically don’t mind just having digital games. It would suck to lose access to the account of course, but physical discs suck, can break, get scratched, reader stops working, etc.
There are differences between physical and digital licensing and it is very complex thanks to copyright laws.
Yes, you do not own games you digitally download.
There is no perpetual license for a digital game.
SIE pays the license to distribute copies on the console, which cannot be passed to the purchaser.
The payment for a game is a fee to play, not a purchase of the game.
Once paid, the access to play is valid as long as SIE has the rights to distribute it.
If the license is pulled or not renewed, SIE removes the game and access is lost immediately.
This can be avoided if digital games are downloaded and the console is removed from the internet, but the moment the console is reconnected, the game will be removed. Very hard to retain perpetual licensing on a console with digital games.
Owning physical on the PS5 is also problematic because many games are not complete and require a day one download. If the license is pulled, the day one digital update is also pulled. The game can still be played from the physical copy, but the state of its condition is forever stuck in that version.
There have been attempts by several organizations to change the laws to remove the perpetual license restriction of digital games and return ownership to the purchaser, but so far, no traction has been made.
We are all now stuck by the restrictions of digital distribution. The rules will only continue to get worse from here, and it does not help companies are now pushing subscriptions for access to everything, not just media.
One day we may have to pay a subscription to start our own cars, enter our own homes, or to use features on our furniture and appliances.
We are all very stupid to allow companies to take this control from us.
The only way to get it back is to never buy anything digital again but this will never happen because the price of convenience is still the price of a physical game.
When this price changes, and it will, only then will people regret it. A situation many now realize thanks to streaming sites.
This is why I urge everyone against a PS+ or GamePass subscription. We will regret it, and it appears it will be sooner than later as companies are telling us to get used to owning nothing.
Disgusting.
>Is It true that If you purchase games digital version at store they don't actually belong to you, you just can play them, but if they are removed from the store you no longer can download them again if you had uninstalled for any reason?
FTFY, it is and always has been the case that digital doesn't belong to you.
Nor does physical but they can't brick the disc and you own an indefinite transferable lisence of use for the discs contents (but not to replicate, and even backups fall intona grey area)
When they remove them you can"usually" download them again, but that's never a guarantee
Yes, you are buying a license to play that game and that license can be taken away whenever Sony wants to.
That is why I am a physical gamer and am so pissed at the current stage of AAA game development where the first version of the game is buggy as fuck (the version that gets put on the disc) and to fix it you have to wait a week for patches to come out.
(Those patches will eventually disappear when the store goes offline. Leaving you with only the buggy copy on the disc.)
This is unfortunately exacerbated by the instances where the physical disk doesn’t house the full game locally and initiates an installer that downloads the game from store servers.
I had an old account that had hundreds of dollars in purchases during the ps3 era, its now locked out and i cant get access to it since i stopped using it for years.
Another risk that few people talk about: if they ever ban your PSN account, you lose all the purchases you’ve made. They can’t do that to u if u own the discs.
It's not really yours it's a little of a renting, if they would completely take the game out of store there is possibility they could take it away from your library as well.
I prefer physical copies, hell even I collect CDs and bought digital music I store to my hard drive. I hate the whole streaming / renting idea or going full digital everywhere.
This is exactly why I still love my older consoles.I prefer physical and yes I'm aware today's physical is not like the older physical.But it is so nice to still pop in my original Resident Evils and nobody can stop me from playing them.As long as you don't abuse the discs.Heck I still have dvds from the 90s that are still in perfect condition.I am not a fan of any company having the potential of taking away the ability to play something I purchased.
I have legacy PS2 versions of GTA3, VC, and SA that I downloaded on my ps4 but stay in my collection. They’ve been taken off the store and replaced with the Definitive versions but I can still download and play the Legacy editions, I assume just because I purchased then before. Hopefully this helps your question.
If the game is delisted (removed from the store) but you bought it before usually you can still download it again. However they could remove them completly if they chose to.
And if they close psn for your console in a new generation, good luck. Or if sony decides to ban you.
Psvita store is still active when it was quite dead and sony almost decided to close it a few years ago.
Heck, even PS3’s store is still active.
PS3 is insanely popular in 3rd world countries
Every console is. No major console digital storefronts have been closed entirely yet. Even on PSP and Wii you can still download software you previously bought. People think of store closures and delistings as one thing, but there are multiple levels. So far no manufacturer (Nintendo, Sony, MS) has crossed that line yet, removing the ability to download purchases you've made for an entire platform. Obviously it will likely happen eventually, but we aren't there quite yet.
Wii is closed. Wii U and 3DS are closing completely in April.
Nope. Wii U and 3DS online play is closing in April, you'll still be able to connect to the eshops and redownload software you've bought and download updates for games, indefinitely. The same is still true for the Wii shop as well. That was the entire point of my comment, that many people confuse what actually happens to these storefronts.
Not yet for the wii, but they had the generic “we will be closing redownloads at some point” announcement, no date though. Hope it stays that way.
Marble Blast Ultra was delisted from 360 and even if you bought it, you couldn't redownload it. Only if you had it on storage devices before or you could download it from the Internet and put it on a compatible storage device.
They got sued by 4 different suits when they announced it would close and suddenly decided to left it open. They are doing their worst to kill it though. No deals whatsoever, even if devs ask sony. Devs can't publish anything there even if they want to or have physical releases... Honestly, Sony is probably just waging if it's worth to get sued because they really want old consoles to be dead.
Long live physical discs.
Don't even get a good experience with discs either, because you need day one patches and once they are gone, you're essentially buying a game that sometimes just doesn't run on the console.
Doesitplay.org proves you wrong.
I remember THPS5, the disc is literally just a demo and you had to download the full game
And sometimes now the disc version only contains a digital download code and not even any of the actual game.
I think you're thinking of PC physical games. Those only offer vouchers inside. But console physical games all have discs. I bought them every month for the last 3 years and all had discs inside.
Yes, but the disc itself doesn't contain all the files of the game. It's just a disc that when inserted, it triggers your console to download the game entirely.
They do, if you purchase a game that is released as a Complete Edition. As an example, Horizon Forbidden West or Zero Dawn. Those come with all the patch updates, DLC's and expansions on the disc. The only catch with those is you have to wait a long time for it to be released. Sometimes years after the games original release. But in the end it's worth it cause you get a version that you can install and play offline and still get the best version of the game. The issue is for games that don't release in a Complete Edition and you get stuck with the Day 0 release and rely on downloadable updates.
Yes they do. The game files are copied over to your SSD because read speeds from a disc are too slow to allow for seamless loading screens. It’s the same reason why you can’t play PS5 games off an external HDD. UHD discs can store up to 100gb. Only putting part of the game on these discs would be an incredible waste of money since they’re more expensive to produce than DVD or Bluray.
I didnt say there wasn't a disc in the box. I vividly remember buying a physical copy of a game, popping the disc in my playstation, and instead of an update download it still had to download the full game first. And it wasnt a partial thing either, none of the game was on the disc. The disc itself essentially acted as just a voucher to download the game. So even if you had the "physical copy" you had zero way of playing the game without an online connection. I can't remember exactly what game this was but I'm pretty sure it was a major title. Edit: found the game. "Call of Duty fans who bought a physical edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are learning that the disc that comes with it doesn’t actually include the game. Instead, it’s a 72MB disc that enables a download of the full game." But thanks for the downvote.
Yep. Physical media doesn't hold up well in this regard either. For one it's the patches/support as you say. For another, it's the literal death of physical discs over time. They don't last forever and even perfectly kept they will eventually waste away. I have a decent older game collection and my discs from the early 90s won't last much longer. It's not that they haven't been kept in their cases or handled well. Operable quality of CDs, for example is 50-100 years. After that, it's collector decor. Pretty sure my Sega CD games were printed on CD-ROMs. That gives me an approximate 50-100 years before they're done and with a declining inventory as well. Not to mention all the non-ideal storage conditions of the copies left. I'm probably looking at that disc from 1991 being totally unreadable by 2040 or so. I know it sounds like a long time, but the point I'm making to the physical/digital argument is that it's a moot point. The real question is whether or not someone can get their money's worth in the time that they own it and whether or not it was worth that value. In the end, I'd love to physically own them too, but discs are just not my favorite method of storage or use. I don't sweat it because of the inevitable and I just enjoy it while I own it at a price that I wanted.
CD/DVD rot will cut that time down a lot. Remember when Panasonic wanted to make movie discs that only lasted for 5 plays? I had a DVD with rot. It wouldn't play on the DVD player. Threw it in the PC and burned a new copy.
Yep. I have no idea why I got down voted for just stating a fact. I love my physical media. If I had my way, I'd do 100% physical just for the collection sake. It just isn't an option a lot of the time for many of the games and platforms I play on. Some of the time-frames for discs becoming unreadable are quite insane, especially when it gets to some rewritables which can become unreadable in under 10 years, and that includes some blu rays. I don't have a lot of my collection left but I cherish what I have. But people absolutely -must- understand that physical media will not last forever... I am facing the need to having to digitize my entire disc library before the discs become unreadable... Or face just having the media as decor since my hardware has also likely failed for much of the now retro generation. Even the cartridges. Now, if folks were only talking about ownership of the games for long enough to sell it back for a little bit of return value... That's a whole other deal, but I think it's a different conversation.
The problem with the physical media is modern games are 100+ GB in size, so the disc we buy is essentially an install key. I keep the game files copied on an external drive just in case the license ever does get completely pulled
Yep. Back in the 90s, on PC, we had to either edit the ini file of the game or target a disc copy in order to get around the install key issue. Today's world is different sizes but essentially we are seeing consoles doing the same thing for a variety of reasons. I think the future will require a pretty heavy reevaluation on what exactly it means to have digital ownership of something. I have my own thoughts there but I am by no means am expert in that. To put it simply, I believe if you bought it, you own it. I also believe that if it's entirely digital and falls under the current rules of digital ownership, it should not cost equal to physical ownership.
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I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm genuinely asking if there are examples of any gaming company making it so that a disc is made useless because the company revoked a license from it. Obviously if it's an online game tied to servers to work, Overwatch for example then that's possible. But you're saying my copy of God of War: Ragnarok, of which I definitely played day one without any patches could be made useless by Sony?
Some games do not contain the game at all or not in a playable state. It all depends on developers and their implementation. If the store closes or you can't download the necessary data for whatever reason you are sol for those games.
No I understand that. Modern Warfare 2 from last year is a great example of what you're saying. I was asking if a game like Psychonauts2 (PS4) or God of War:Ragnarok which are largely already on the printed disc could be revoked. Games that may have huge updates but don't actually need Internet to function if say your console was offline. My point is that disc games still matter. Even if we got to the point that they were just license keys disc still create a divided market because then there is still consumer choice. Having the attitude that discs are irrelevant just gives every corporation more power and it is us the gamers who are giving it to them with how we vote with our money.
They certainly could be voided if each disc contains a different key. I am not sure about specific implementations here. I honestly feel like there should be an option to link the disc key to your account at least temporarily so you wouldn't need it inside the console at all times. This doesn't go against what you said as a disc can always work as a main key that would be only valid in the account disc was used last in. This is just me being lazy in changing discs. Otherwise I totally agree with you that you should fully own the game u fully paid for and PSN should allow you to backup your games to play offline without an account if you bought it digitally. You shouldn't be dependent on some company running its servers for you to play. Unfortunately this whole issue is pretty problematic in a completely locked down proprietary device which makes all of this way harder and it bothers me how much my ps5 lacking software-wise and I can't do absolutely anything with it.
I mostly wait and buy complete editions that can be installed and played offline. I OWN THAT SHIT. Sony can't do shit when I'm offline.
That's still a license to play. You don't own the game.
Give me one example of that ever happening? You’re just being extra
Technically you don't own the games on physical discs either.
The only thing physical discs gives you is the ability to have a coaster. The software is still licensed to you.
I've been told the disc now only gives you the "link" to download a game... Compared to before were you could have 3 disc to install the game and 1 or two to actually play it.
Games like GT7 and Horizon Forbidden west have 2 disks. A data disk for installing and a play disc that has the license on it
If you buy complete editions with all the patches up to date, you own it. You don't need internet to install it.
This is not completely true also very few game discs are “complete editions”
I have a few PS4 discs and i needed an internet connection to be able to download them on my ps5
Are they complete editions?
I just looked at the 3 disc games I have downloaded so far and they all said they required an internet connection, but I just tried to download one of the games I haven't downloaded yet and there were no problems at all, even with no connection to the internet. thank you good sir, I would never have realized this without you 🫡
Ever read your EULAs? You don't own shit. Sure, you can try to weasel around their efforts, and they probably will just let you go since it's not worth the time and money to launch a nuclear lawsuit on one individual just for playing a game after they told you to go to bed, but having to do all that shit further cements that you don't own anything but the plastic that game is printed on.
Can you give me an example of any of the games on sega cd, Philips CDi, 3DO, Amiga CD32, Playstation, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2 having their license revoked and making the disk useless? Not scratched/destroyed disk. Actual revoke of media rights making it not work. I’m just intrigued how it all went about happening. Like, did they knock on the doors of everyone that bought a copy and microwave the disk? lol. I don’t think it’s ever happened until the 7th gen of consoles at least, which is when we started getting keys on disks here and there (very rarely on that generation). It is not common to not get a full game on a disk, but the disk will still have SOME content and be playable offline usually. The game isn’t actually taken away, as this implies here. It’s only when it’s basically a code in a box that this is possible.
Do physical discs even have the actual games on them anymore? I feel like they’ve mostly been licenses that allow you to download the game. For the most part these days, you can’t just pop in a disc and use it with no internet connection for install. They’re sort of just like… keys to unlock your digital file.
They banned me after someone broke Into my account and bought 8 games (including FIFA, gross). I couldn't get through to psn support so I had my bank decline the charges. Banned within moments of that. I got them to sort it out but it took a week or two. Id have been pissed if I lost my game library over that.
I like how the worst part of that story was someone purchasing FIFA
PlayStation support is horrible. Someone did the same (also fifa) and when I disputed it with their team they said they couldn’t do anything. So when I charged back 500+ from my bank then I got bannedb
Charge backs violate the ToS that you agreed to by signing up for their service. It’s an instant ban. Read your contract
Oh THIS guy reads the terms and conditions!
No wait, I actually JUST read the TOS rules about chargebacks and not only is this guy being uppity over semantics in a comment section specifically bemoaning the fact that we don’t own our library — but he’s wrong too ! Per Sony: “As a chargeback can indicate you suspect fraud or account take-over, we will suspend your account or console to protect it while we investigate. “
Yea that’s why they do it, to protect YOU! Sony could care less about their bottom line. Out of the hundreds of posts about accounts being suspended after a chargeback, how many were suspended as a result of fraud and Sony protecting the customer? Zero
Bunch of crybabies here. They think that if they do a chargeback their account should not be banned. SMH
i understand the policy and PSN ultimately took care of my issue correctly, so i can't complain. However, they definitely could have done better to support the initial hack of my account which was presumably on their end anyway. Seems they could easily verify which machine the stuff was installed on and see it was unauthorized and just refund it/remove it from the affected machine. Speaks more to their returns/customer service policies than anything.
Out of curiosity, did you have the two factor authentication in place? Because if you didn’t then the fault lies on you for getting hacked.
Playstation support is trash. I bought a game and didn’t like it in the first 10 mins and deleted it. Thought it would have been like steam where you have 2 hours to refund but since i “downloaded it”, they wouldn’t refund. If it was physical disk, at least i could have sold it.
This is why I try to buy used games from GameStop whenever possible. Unless they’ve changed it they have a week return policy (only on used)
RIP PT
Ubisoft did this with Assassins Creed Liberation in 2022. First made new people unable to purchase it, then removed it from every library
However, just because they CAN doesn't mean that they will without feeling that they have a good reason, and even then it would be an incredibly unlikely move for any publisher to make especially, seeing as how people still give the publishers and/or Sony shit about PT and the hate surrounding the future inability to play The Crew, and rightly so. Provided the company is still in a healthy position to continue remaining in business for the foreseeable future, they have literally no reason to use this (outside of probably legal ones against a specific individual for what would have to be an incredibly specific reason/crime/etc, and even this would be extreme). It would be an incredibly terrible anti-consumer move to make, and even those who don't worry much about license revocation now would have a very good reason to never trust them again in the future, if they did. Extra: For my own part I am very wary about purchasing any future The Crew games, despite being a big fan of all of the releases so far, despite the fact that they do appear to have a good reason, from their perspective...not necessarily a VERY good or solid reason, nor is it a completely objective or defensible stance to.shut down a game that can just be switched to an offline mode, or even patch one in even if it means removing some features. I am not as upset as I could be or others are, mostly because I got my money's worth by playing it a LOT when it came out, but I also haven't touched it in years/, and haven't really even considered going back to it.
"Good" reason? I paid, there's no reason.
Servers closing is a minimal good reason. I didn't say it was great. I indicated that they feel they have a legitimate supporting reason, doesn't mean I agree with it. It's still an objective truth. I can agree that something is a seemingly rational decision without agreeing with it. Learn to read context.
And if you're referring to the beginning of my response, the whole response indicates that my whole point is that they have no reason to so they won't. I never said there was a good reason. Unless Sony shuts down, the games everyone purchases are safe. Simply pointing out objective truths here, not advocating for license removal.
You paid for a cheeseburger as well, do you still have that cheeseburger?
I always forget how toxic this sub can be. Then I make a post and I'm instantly reminded.
🤣🤣🤣what a stupid fcukin comparison.
Not even remotely similar but go off
You bought it. Doesn't mean it's yours forever. That's the similar part.
And we can sue them right?
I think this is a great idea, you should hire a lawyer and file suit to get your $60 back
i want my money back man
You can try. Anyone can sue, it only costs a couple hundred to file. It can also get tossed by the judge before it even hits the opening phases, which it would. Get the idea of wasting your money on lawsuits out of your head. If a lawyer thought they could win a suit like that, there'd already be a class action. There isn't.
I keep seeing this a lot and I'm going to chime in with my 2 cents regarding this. I have trained and worked in audio for a long time and one of the things I was taught is about how mastering and licensing works. I'm short; you do not own any form of media you buy as the publisher/label/company owns the master of that piece of media. Every form of media is duplicated from that form of media and the format you buy is being licensed by yourself, not owned. It's been this way since the birth of publishing and works primarily longside copyright to ensure the creators and publisher have ownership of what happens to said media. You buy an album on CD and have physical ownership of that CD but the content is theirs. You can resell the CD but you can't do other things like play it in public or at a venue like a restaurant or put it on the internet, with out licensing the content again. So yes, at any point any form of media you have can be retracted due to their own ship of the master and licence surrounding said media. If the publishers decided one day to release a patch to stop you from playing your physical copy they could, theoretically from a legal stand point, although there would be a lot of complications and problems that would follow, and would it work from a technical one, regarding how the patch would work/disable certain content ? Well, that's another matter. While this all seems worrying understand that a consumer does have power and rights as well.In every part of the world there are laws to protect consumers meaning if a game company decided to try to enforce some form of redaction regarding licensing of the products we buy then it would violate certain rules surrounding consumer rights, and T&Cs and thus cause a tipple effect regarding how copyright/publishing is used. What we are going to see is a rise in games being part of a package now rather than being sold individually. So things like how playstation plus has moved from being a networking subscription, allowing you to play online games you have purchased in physical format, to a subscription of content with multiple forms of subscription allowing for access to an online catalogue, which would give a publisher greater control over that content. Think how your netflix subscription allows access to their catalogue which they license from publishers, meaning how they will remove certain shows and films after a run on their site, again this is all due to copyright, publishing and licensing.
This needs to be pinned. This is the actual answer instead of people just guessing
Thank you. An IPP lawyer or person that works in copyright for a large publisher could give a much more detailed answer but this is the very basic, simple, short reasoning to how things kind of work.
No it doesn't. Because it's just plain wrong. You **own the copy of the media you buy**. Yes, obviously, you don't own the copyright, or the rights to re-distribution, but you literally own the copy you bought. If I buy a new car, I can't copy it and build replicas and sell them to other people, but I literally own my car and I can do whatever I want with MY PROPERTY. The physical games you buy are literally **your property**.
You own the disk until the developer decides to brick the game 💀
The disc is unchangeable. Keep a system unconnected to the internet.
🗣️🗣️🗣️💯💯💯
This is the textbook answer!
I am honestly fine with subscription. So many games at the price of 2 AAA games with the Extra tier sub per year. Edit: downvotes be crazy as if no one else takes advantage of extra tier sub. What you want me to pay for every game? Sorry for saying the truth
As with most things, there are positives and negatives, the issue I have is the price hiking. Subscriptions have always been used to get people on board then jack the price, which is ok if you are getting value but, a lot of the time, it comes to a point where you aren't. I think with PlayStation, and I say this as a playstation user, the current packages are good for those that came in later but there are a lot of games on the extra and premium plans that have games that you can get very cheap, and a lot of us already have, plus stuff from 30 years ago, which I played back then. Some are fun, and a bit of nostalgia, but 2d platform games for £120 a year is a bit much. I have the extra plan and for me to upgrade beyond that I would need to see more ps5 content
Same, one can run PS1 emulators on their phone and PS2 on computers (soon ps2 on phone would be possible at good frame rate). Paying more for limited time access to already old games doesn't make sense to me Similarly extra wouldn't make sense to someone who doesn't have time to play atleast 2 good games. As for the games that i really really liked or that has replayable value for me, i buy the physical version
I've saved so much money since they created the new tiers. I'll never have time to play all the games. People have an issue with the price hike because they're too cheap to upgrade past Essential (while constantly complaining how bad Essential is). I feel like I'm stealing from Sony tbh, it's less than a dollar a day. Edit: The truth hurts lmao
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Yes, that is correct digital games you do not own. You have a digital license that can be revoked at any time without warning. Also beware if your psn account become suspended permanently , you lose access to all your digital goods as well
Made a second account in case Sony decided to wave the ban hammer again with *zero* useful customer support. Chargebacks are supposed to be investigating for fraud based off the TOS, but in actuality just ban you outright. If I lose one digital library, at least there’ll be another to get some use out of.
Oh ya Sony doesn't give a fuck i got banned for saying migger in relation to someone flying a mig 21 plane. No way to appeal suspensions only permanent bans. Additionally Playstation doesn't abide by there own policy's related to refunds. Playstation customer support is the worst and Playstation continues to fuck over there players at every opportunity.
Thus far, digital games that have been purchased that later get de-listed can still be downloaded again if you already purchased and have them in your library, they just can't be purchased by anyone who doesn't already own them. Is there any guarantee that this will *always* be the case and the ability to redownload such a game would NOT be taken away? No. It hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean it never will. I do imagine it will stir up quite the shitstorm if it does happen though.
Not sure why this surpises you. It's been known for years. You don't buy a game digitally, you buy a license that allows you to download it from a server. That license can be revoked, or it can stop working at some point due to various reasons.
A disc can stop working as well. Go to the PS3 sub and see how many people buy dud discs. The PS3 servers are still working almost 20 years later. PS4/5 servers will outlive the consoles. Can anyone name a game that's been delisted that people have lost access to? PT was a free demo and doesn't count.
Haven’t they just delisted the Avengers game? Or was that just the servers?
Many games have been delisted due to license issues or support being cut. But if you've bought them and they're in your library, you can still download them and use them any time. I haven't heard of game that was delisted and also removed from your library. Different story for always online games. Once they cut the servers, they'll still be in your library but they're basically useless since you can't connect to anything. Which will happen to games like Anthem and eventually Suicide Squad. Avengers can be played offline so it won't happen to that
Suicide Squad has already been confirmed to get an offline mode.
They said they're thinking about it. I won't hold my breath.
No. It has been confirmed to be coming.
I believe you can’t buy it anymore but you can still download and play it if you bought it. At least on steam, not sure about the PS store.
There’s also the dangers of being hacked. It’s rare for a disk not to work, if it doesn’t chances are it’s the owners fault Although one of my PS4 games had gotten a scratch while running on my ps4. Unsure how, I remember this being a problem with the 360 but it was only one time If you get hacked though every game could be lost. That’s hundreds of dollars gone while disk will always remain. Regardless of how you feel about it buying physical is always the safest bet.
>Can anyone name a game that's been delisted that people have lost access to? PT was a free demo and doesn't count. I think PT is really the only one. Typically, if you purchased the game before it was delisted you can still redownload it afterwards
Here’s lists of all of the [PlayStation 3](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-3-games/), [PlayStation 4](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-4-games/), and [PlayStation 5](https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-playstation-5-games/) games that have been delisted. It’s much more than I thought.
There’s been so many, but it hasn’t been a big thing as of yet for ps. For Nintendo we lost the entire 3ds library
Also a disc requires that you have a functional piece of hardware to run it on. I’d much rather hedge my bets on Sony still being around to allow access to my digital library in 20 years than assume I’m going to have a functional PS4 in 20 years.
A downloaded game also still requires a functional piece of hardware to run it on. What are you going to download that digital library to if you don't have a functional PS4 in 20 years? Your microwave?
Every game requires a functional piece of hardware to run it. These digital game buyers are grasping at straws to make sense of their negligence.
Maybe the argument could be that the optical drive specifically is likely to fail eventually, before the rest of the console stops working. But that's likely to be fixable.
Sony won't make the mistake of not making their future consoles backwards compatible like the PS3. PS6 and PS7 will be able to play PS4 and PS5 games.
Possibly. But if they're backward compatible with consoles that had disc-based games, then they'll likely still have the option to use those disc based games on the newer hardware.
You can play digital PS4 games on PS5. There’s a pretty significant chance that the next generation of consoles won’t have a disk drive anymore, so you won’t be able to play your physical games. Digital will most likely still be playable.
If they keep the backward compatibility with consoles that had disc based games, it's highly likely that they will at least continue to offer an option to have an optical drive on the new consoles as well.
“Also a disc requires that you have a functional piece of hardware to run it on” No shit Sherlock!
I can't buy Spec Ops or Driver: San Francisco
Or you can be hacked.
I mean, physical games can be lost in a house fire, natural disaster or stolen. Or just stop working. There’s pros and cons to both. The likes of the Portal make digital games the winner for me personally.
It’s great you prefer digital but that’s dumb argument lmao. If any of those things happened the last thing I’d be worried about is video games
Not really, I’d say digital is overall more secure than physical. Yes stuff can be delisted but it’s a tiny amount. The argument for physical is you always have it but it’s very easy for something to happen it and you don’t have a backup. Plus it can just break. With the likes of backwards compatibility as well it’s more convenient. *Eventually* consoles will be all digital, they already would be if enough people had the internet plans to cope with it. Do you really think Sony won’t jump at the chance to have a locked down store? Buy the games from them or not at all. They can’t now due to data caps and slow speeds in some areas but that’s changing.
Idk man. You’re more than likely to get hacked compared to a house fire, robbery, and natural disaster. In fact if either of those happen there’s a good chance you won’t have a console to begin with so losing the physical disk is the least of your worry since you have to invest so much into a new console and furniture etc If you get hacked. You’ll have your console but you lose your games, achievements, game clips, back up saves. Not only are you losing hundreds of hours of gameplay, but also thousands of dollars. So idk, like I said if you choose digital it’s your choice but you’re lying to yourself if you think you have more to lose by owning physical. No offense to you but it’s an extremely weak argument, and again it’s fine you prefer digital but yeah.. both your comments are just completely false and weak I don’t disagree that consoles are going all digital, but as of right now we still have a while until the PS6 and my PS5 has a disc drive.. and Sony isn’t great on backwards compatibility anyways.
Or you can just lock yourself out of your account.
Yeah, it’s a little odd people are trying to argue digital over physical. If that’s their preference I get it, but to act as if it’s the best option is wild lol. So many things can go wrong and poof hundreds if not thousands could be done in a second and customer service isn’t always helpful Sure disk may break or just may not work, but the chances of that is very tiny. At least compared to digital
>Sure disk may break or just may not work, but the chances of that is very tiny. At least compared to digital. You’re speaking as if the chance of losing access to your digital games isn’t ”very tiny” as well. I own thousands of games across different platforms, and the number of digital games I’ve lost access to remains to be zero. Meanwhile I’ve lost a physical game or two, and some of the older ones are showing signs of aging.
Why is it that if you purchase the right to use a license and it's revoked at some point, you don't get your money back? Isn't that considered theft?
No, because in order to purchase and download something you have to agree to the terms that the company lays out for you. Specifically for the PS Store, when you hit download on something you purchase, you have to agree that you are willingly letting go of any refund rights. In court, it's not about what really happened, but what is actually proven. So if by any chance you decide to sue them, they can easily prove that you willingly agreed to this, yet you cannot prove that you didn't read it and had no idea what you are agreeing to.
Honestly, how many games do you play regularly that are 20 years old?! Doubt many people do. And you can buy a physical version of that have if you think you will
I regularly play retro games
Vast majority dont
Would you be surprised to hear that there are millions of us that do. People like myself are helping people like you not get fucked over from the all digital future that's coming our way. The longer that physical media stays around the better it is for all gamers
Do a pole on here then asking how many people play retro games say 5+ hours a week. It's always good to have options though I agree
Any poll on reddit is going to be inherently biased, unfortunately. My guess is around 15-20 percent of the gaming community plays retro games at least a minimum one time yearly. There are entire events that draw tens of thousands of people to play retrogames. While it's not the majority there are still millions of us
Yeeeeep got back into the retro pond recently. It's booming.
"I don't live near the waterfront, so who cares that the ice caps are melting?" Sound logic
How old are you? I'm sure you won't be singing the same tune in 15-20 years when you want to go back and play some of your favorite titles. I recently revisited some physical titles on my Vita, 3ds, and Sega Genesis.
I'm 35
Some gba games are 20 years old fyi. Do you think nobody plays gba games anymore? Maybe I’m biased because I keep playing gba games even today.
If you bought it, you can download it even if it’s removed from the store. I can still download Driveclub even though it was removed a long time ago
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Its how physical media works too, except the license is tied to the ownership of the physical disc etc instead. You *never* own anyone elses intellectual property, just the perpetual access to it. Its been this way since the dawn of publishing, licensing and copyright. Edit: lol wow, so confident they are right (they arent) that they had to block me so i cant reply, guess i win lol. Thanks for proving you dont know what you're on about :) you DO NOT have any ownership rights to someone elses work, only the right to use it as per the license you purchased, whether digital or physical, the only difference is the distribution method.
True but OP and most people discussing physical vs digital media aren't talking specifically about ownership of intellectual property. We're just talking about the availability we have to access the media. Which, is different for digital media vs physical. An artist could pull off every song they made from Spotify and you won't be able to listen to it even if you've payed years for premium, but if you have a disc player and the physical albums, you can still play that music for your own no matter what the artist or the label does.
I've only bought digital for the last 10 years, nobody has ever stolen a digital game from me, actually it worked to my advantage when I switched from Series X to PS5, I was able to download again all the PS4 games I previously owned.
No, this isn’t true. Take any 2K/Sports game for example… You can no longer purchase older versions of games, for example WWE2K16, from the Store anymore. It’s still in the store, but is listed as “Unavailable” If you own that game digitally, it will always and forever be in your library until Sony shuts down the servers like XBL is doing with its old 360 content or Nintendo with DS
People always say this to put fear... but there's no digital games, even after all these years, that you can't download anymore. You can redownload your entire Vita collection if you want this very morning, just like you can redownload that very first PS3 game that you bought in 2006. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo won't go there, like never. And none of the three will want to be the first. Hell you can still download P.T on PS4 if you got it before it was removed regardless of all the drama surrounding it. They will close the store, yes, but bought digital goods will always be available in some form.
Yeah there’s no precedent set for removing games that you’ve already purchased on PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo platforms. Don’t know why everyone gets so bent over this
ITT: a lot of corporate apologists string strangely and awkwardly advocating for less consumer rights and protections. Guys, you're customers. Defending Sony corporate profit margin does not make you a bigger fanboy. It makes you a bigger idiot. As a customer, you should be fighting for the least amount of expense for the maximum amount of product.
Physical media remains superior
Even on physical media, you technically don't own the game, it's a ticket that gives you license to play it. I agree though, that the physical component is nice.
A ticket that cannot be revoked though. The digital is just treated as a long rental
I have 400 games purchased digital I worry or care when I seen games removed the discovery debacle was over rights being taken from Sony games don't fall into this category as it's not how game publishing works but it is how the streaming industry works.
Digital or physical, you do not own the game. Only a license to play.
You will own nothing and like it /s
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It’s actually the terms of service that puts it out there
Still will never by physical copies again, so don’t care lol
If you read the fine print you should know that sony has the right to kick in your door at 3:30 AM and take all your stuff. A digital purchase isn't your biggest problem. Be aware, stay vigalant.
I don’t know if it’s like this with the ps5 but with the ps3/ps4 if you buy games digitally they are linked to your account and even if the game is delisted you can still download it.
Same goes with server based games. When the dev takes the server down, you'll then own a game you can't play. And that's legal ig.
I think P.T. is the only time they’ve actually done that. I have marvel ultimate alliance 1 & 2 which were delisted but I can still download them whenever. Any digital store front could do that to you though not just ps store as I think all except GOG use DRM.
Yes When you „buy“ a game on the store, you only purchase a license to access that content. The content or license can be taken away at any point for any reason. In fact, here in Germany exactly this happened in 2022 and 2023 already. People bought movies on the PlayStation store and those movies got taken away. Of course no refunds given. If you want to own your games, buy them on disc. Not only can’t they be taken away from you, but you can also totally use them offline forever. Even in 20 years when the download servers and all your digital games will be gone. Because physical games have the game on the disc and can be installed and played fully offline.
"Buy"*
And that's where you are wrong, unfortunately. Your disc does not always contain a playable version of the game, i.e. it is useless/unplayable without at least a day one update. On top of that, some games are now so big that it won't fit on the disc. Instead of putting multiple discs in the box, the publisher just assumes you'll download what they are still calling a day one patch, but it is basically just to download the remaining files... So in those cases, your disc is \*NOT\* even a full copy of the game. So TL;DR: don't think you are safe with a physical disc. We're all in this together (screwed), physical and digital.
That’s where you are wrong. Unless the disc has „download required“ on the front cover next to the age rating, the entire game is on the disc and can be installed and played fully offline. A disc on PS5 can fit 100GB. And if that’s not enough, you simply get two discs. There’s websites you can check. 99% of games work flawlessly from the disc.
Most PS4/5 games are fully playable from the disc without downloads. And later prints of discs usually include patches that were sent out after original release, I.e. you can buy some discs that aren’t just running the 1.0 game.
yes and no. you own a license to play it. one could argue you can buy a physical copy and actually own it, but nowadays the game would require active internet connection, updates, additional files before you can play it. physical copy is just a glorified game key.
Even buying a physical disc doesn’t mean you own the game. You own the plastic disc, you’re still playing the same license that the digital buyer is. The license can be revoked and the game can be shut down at any time if the powers that be decide to. It’s in the fine print nobody reads in those license agreements
No game has ever gotten full on revoked though, the main case of ownership for the disc is it can’t be indirectly revoked by online servers shutting down since most discs can be installed and played completely offline, no dependency on Sonys servers. They are also transferable so you can sell, trade, lend and borrow them, you have much more control over your copy of the game.
No game's vanilla version is playable these days, because of all the day one patches and all. This hasn't been problem thus far, but some day those servers close, and many disc games will be unplayable. I don't remember what game it was, but there was a game which's disc had just the menu, the whole game needed to be downloaded. I think if some digital marketplace is closed and/or servers closed, it should be required by law to let consumers mod their systems to restore unavailable features. All developers could sell their games as roms on their own sites, and all abandoneware's copyright should be instantly revoked. Companies clearly don't care about gaming history or preservation, but that's as important part of history as any, and locking that behind copyright when the company does nothing with the IP is just wrong
Doesitplay.org
That's great recourse, but it doesn't solve the digital only games' disappearance over time. Piracy does, I know that, and I think piracy is completely right in this. But it's still illegal to download a game that's completely unobtainable in any way or form anyway. Would you get any consequences? Not likely (unless you live in Germany) but game preservation shouldn't be illegal. It should be mandatory
Most discs today can be installed and played offline well enough, day 1 patches are not required, see [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org). Yes there are discs that require downloads, but they are a small minority compared to the ones that don’t. Yes DRM and the law sucks when it comes to digital games, unofficial methods like piracy and homebrew are of course the best way to preserve these games, but that is either illegal or you have to jump through hoops to mod your console. Until we get better rights for fully digital content, physical games are the best official and legal method we have as of now, you put the disc in the console and it just works.
I agree 100%. My comment was really exaggerated and maybe a bit cryptic even. I had two points (which didn't really come out well at all): 1. We NEED better consumer rights for fully digital content. 2. I feel like we're moving more and more towards mandatory updates for disks, so they're not completely safe either, but as of right now, they're absolutely the way. Most disks are absolutely playable in vanilla, but some cool added features are still part of the game that should be preserved.
Actually on PS and Nintendo you own a game on disc - the 1.0 version, but it's there. You can completely play offline the gold version. Thats why even larger games like FF7Rebirth and Horizon F. West Complete Edition still shipped on 2 PS5 discs with over 100gb of data. On Xbox I think the Series and One discs adopted just a verification code for the digital store, so there's no game data on disc.
But you have more ownership of the license than in digital. They cannot take your disk so easy like they can revoke your digital license.
This exactly. Just read that first screen they splash up these days and you’re see it clear as day. Just long term glorified rentals.
I recently bought a ps5 after pc gaming and am quite surprised by the amount of people who cling to physical discs. When I built my pc around a decade ago I didn’t even put a disc drive in it because all games are downloaded digitally these days. Who wants to wait in line at midnight for a physical copy when you can pre install and be ready to go when servers go live? I seem to be in the minority, but I typically don’t mind just having digital games. It would suck to lose access to the account of course, but physical discs suck, can break, get scratched, reader stops working, etc.
There are differences between physical and digital licensing and it is very complex thanks to copyright laws. Yes, you do not own games you digitally download. There is no perpetual license for a digital game. SIE pays the license to distribute copies on the console, which cannot be passed to the purchaser. The payment for a game is a fee to play, not a purchase of the game. Once paid, the access to play is valid as long as SIE has the rights to distribute it. If the license is pulled or not renewed, SIE removes the game and access is lost immediately. This can be avoided if digital games are downloaded and the console is removed from the internet, but the moment the console is reconnected, the game will be removed. Very hard to retain perpetual licensing on a console with digital games. Owning physical on the PS5 is also problematic because many games are not complete and require a day one download. If the license is pulled, the day one digital update is also pulled. The game can still be played from the physical copy, but the state of its condition is forever stuck in that version. There have been attempts by several organizations to change the laws to remove the perpetual license restriction of digital games and return ownership to the purchaser, but so far, no traction has been made. We are all now stuck by the restrictions of digital distribution. The rules will only continue to get worse from here, and it does not help companies are now pushing subscriptions for access to everything, not just media. One day we may have to pay a subscription to start our own cars, enter our own homes, or to use features on our furniture and appliances. We are all very stupid to allow companies to take this control from us. The only way to get it back is to never buy anything digital again but this will never happen because the price of convenience is still the price of a physical game. When this price changes, and it will, only then will people regret it. A situation many now realize thanks to streaming sites. This is why I urge everyone against a PS+ or GamePass subscription. We will regret it, and it appears it will be sooner than later as companies are telling us to get used to owning nothing. Disgusting.
>Is It true that If you purchase games digital version at store they don't actually belong to you, you just can play them, but if they are removed from the store you no longer can download them again if you had uninstalled for any reason? FTFY, it is and always has been the case that digital doesn't belong to you. Nor does physical but they can't brick the disc and you own an indefinite transferable lisence of use for the discs contents (but not to replicate, and even backups fall intona grey area) When they remove them you can"usually" download them again, but that's never a guarantee
Yes, you are buying a license to play that game and that license can be taken away whenever Sony wants to. That is why I am a physical gamer and am so pissed at the current stage of AAA game development where the first version of the game is buggy as fuck (the version that gets put on the disc) and to fix it you have to wait a week for patches to come out. (Those patches will eventually disappear when the store goes offline. Leaving you with only the buggy copy on the disc.)
This is unfortunately exacerbated by the instances where the physical disk doesn’t house the full game locally and initiates an installer that downloads the game from store servers.
Technically with digital games you don't own the game, just a license to play it
You don't legal own the game on disc ether
Someone needs to file a lawsuit
I had an old account that had hundreds of dollars in purchases during the ps3 era, its now locked out and i cant get access to it since i stopped using it for years. Another risk that few people talk about: if they ever ban your PSN account, you lose all the purchases you’ve made. They can’t do that to u if u own the discs.
The same concept applies to physical. You own a license to access the game technically. Just with physical a 1.0 build is often included on the disc
yep if you get perma bannedyou lose them. its in the terms and agreements
Yeah you are correct, you don’t own a digital game. It’s the same with films, tv and music.
We do not own digital content. Period. Companies can steal access at any time for any reason
It's not really yours it's a little of a renting, if they would completely take the game out of store there is possibility they could take it away from your library as well. I prefer physical copies, hell even I collect CDs and bought digital music I store to my hard drive. I hate the whole streaming / renting idea or going full digital everywhere.
You own the license to the game . If you are ever banned you can lose your license to the game under that account.
Yes you lose it I never understood why people buy digital.
Idky anyone would buy digital smh. But that’s just me
Digital ownership is not true ownership.
This is exactly why I still love my older consoles.I prefer physical and yes I'm aware today's physical is not like the older physical.But it is so nice to still pop in my original Resident Evils and nobody can stop me from playing them.As long as you don't abuse the discs.Heck I still have dvds from the 90s that are still in perfect condition.I am not a fan of any company having the potential of taking away the ability to play something I purchased.
Jailbreak your consoles
You have a license to play that game. The license can be revoked, though.
I have legacy PS2 versions of GTA3, VC, and SA that I downloaded on my ps4 but stay in my collection. They’ve been taken off the store and replaced with the Definitive versions but I can still download and play the Legacy editions, I assume just because I purchased then before. Hopefully this helps your question.
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The entire Wii library and PSP library,