this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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Im with you, but the amount of people who dont care is scary high.
I’m pretty shocked people still want physical media, but whatever. I think we can tackle the licensing and lock-in issues with digital medial without pearl-clutching physical media as if it weren’t riddled with its own problems.
A) what problems are you referring to?
B) DRM free already solves a lot of it for digital titles. Sony, Microsoft, etc are entirely uninterested in that. They wouldn't be able to pull them from your library if so.
C) Removing physical media completely kills a used market. Dead Space is $20 on disc, $70 on the Sony store. Sony doesn't want you to think about that though. Sharing becomes nearly impossible. Ironic, considering Sony's stance for the PS4
The biggest thing is simply this: physical media offers protections from corporate abuse/greed. If digital media wasn't abused by corporations, we wouldn't have this issue. Physical media done correctly makes most of those abuses impossible. And, unfortunately, we can't trust closed source corporations not to abuse us when money can be made. So without a forcing function through legislation, physical media is that forcing function/protection.
Does it though? It used to a long time ago but aren't a lot of discs for games just blocked if you're not connected to the internet to get required upgrades?
Even if that's not much of a thing yet, I fear it will be.
That's why I said physical media done correctly. Because, yes, if the game isn't on the disc, it won't work. Or if it forces a day 1 patch to even run because it contains parts of the code. Or the console itself requires the internet for some kind of DRM check. Those aren't really physical media in my opinion. Or, at best, they're anti-consumer locks/practices.
Is it perfect? No, the only innovation capitalism has brought us is continually more ways to provide less for a higher price. We're always having to fight greed unfortunately.