Hand in Hand to the Cliff

Recently, I vented about a point you often hear whenever the latest game shutdown or de-listing is taking place, the point being "this is why I buy physical." 

I spent reading and replying than usual because there's so many different angles to view this conversation from.

Being the main thing I've accumulated over the years, as opposed to Guitars, Cars, or Clothing, the concept of "depreciation" doesn't really exist in my head for game purchases. 

The mindset of earning back the money you spent on the item, by later selling it at the same or higher value. I don't view things this way, because...

A) Rarely have I ever sold items in an environment where that was possible.
B) I buy things fully accepting to never see that money come back.

When you give to a friend, you don't view it as an investment (at least, I don't think you should) and I feel the same for art. I'm buying a movie, game, or book for the sake of enjoying the art, not as some 10+ year stock plan to pay a Mortgage.

That doesn't mean however there's no value in being able to sell what you own, and one big advantage that physical goods have over digital, is selling to someone else, and therefore, letting them access something they otherwise couldn't, is possible. You can buy a game that isn't legally available anywhere online, love it, hate it, fall in love with it, or be so disgusted that you take the disc out and immediately put it back up on Ebay, and maybe even for more than you paid for it.

Most of my gaming out of convenience and production is on PC, so this experience, isn't something that I've done very often, it hasn't been instilled into my head, because when there's no legal way to purchase a game digitally, and the only method is something that takes days to acquire,  while not giving any funds to anyone that had anything to do with the game in question, but instead… Randy?

I'm content with sailing.

However, it was thinking about PC Gaming that it occurred to me, much of the more heated debates from people regarding the value of physical games, is very much inspired by what we individually use.

For console games, though digital-sales have increased substantially these days, and there's plenty of cases across all media of people buying digital versions of things they even own physically for convenience, the option has always existed, and always worked.

Some people seem to be misinformed, likely from hazy memories of Angry Joe or Jimquisition episodes about the topic of Day One DLC, where not all content is on the Disc… or just the inconvenience of installing games, but the truth is, you can in-fact play almost everything from the disc, even on the 8th-generation.

PC meanwhile?

That's been circling the drain since Half Life 2, one of the first physical releases that required an internet to Steam in-order to play it, and from my understanding, they never let up.

Games for Windows Live was rather infamous in the amount of issues it caused legal buyers; super infamously, Anno 2070 counted a change of graphics card as a reinstall, ticking off one of your three install limits before no longer being allowed to access it.

And then there's just the technical difficulty of consoles never changing but PCs constantly are.

As a result, many of my physical, legally obtained copies of big mainstream games like Call of Duty 4 and Need for Speed Prostreet for PC just will not launch…

In this environment, it makes sense why people like Ross Scott have been calling out dead games for years, and pushing back against the claim that we should just buy physical, meanwhile for console players, it has been a partial solution…

But regardless, we're both walking towards a cliff.

Nowadays, consoles are releasing models with no disc-drive whatsoever, and more games, even non Multiplayer Exclusive games are releasing with no offline play options whatsoever, and of course, pushing subscription models; you even had Google attempting to jump the gun with Streaming Games, a place where the concept of ownership is completely erased.

Digital games don't need to end.

Physical games don't need to end.

Neither of these things need to end.

DRM, does.