Ah yes the intelligent consumer who always has a choice and is never beholden to the whims of a completely dominant supply side economy.

I actually agree that physical media is better for consumers. If I buy a game, I think I should own it. I should be able to sell it, lend it to a friend, or keep playing it decades from now without worrying about a company flipping a switch. Physical media is objectively more consumer-friendly in that regard.

What I don't agree with is the narrative that corporations had to force everyone into digital by sabotaging physical releases. That's not how I remember it.

Steam became wildly popular because consumers embraced it almost immediately. Instant downloads, automatic updates, cloud saves, massive sales, and never having to swap discs were conveniences people overwhelmingly wanted. Publishers certainly recognized the benefits for themselves, more control, no used game market, lower distribution costs, but they didn't invent the demand. They took advantage of a demand that consumers had already created.

In a sense, we shot ourselves in the foot. We collectively chose convenience over ownership because, at the time, it seemed like a worthwhile trade. Now we're living with the consequences of that decision.

It's completely fair to push for stronger ownership rights today. But I think it's a mistake to pretend that consumers were dragged into digital kicking and screaming. For the overwhelming majority of gamers, digital won because they chose it.

Funny. The consumer didn't make physical media worse for the last 15 years.

Manual or at least something besides the disk: Gone Price: Same as digital despite they getting more profit from digital. Disc: half the game, other half downloads. (Not always, mind you) Game: Half baked without at least two patches.

They've been giving less and less with physical editions to push the more profitable digital store, and then they act shocked when no one buys physical.

Shockingly, if the only difference between physical and digital is that you need to go out of your way to pick the physical, most people will just get the digital.

Still I got my Switch games in physical so I can trade with friends.

I choose to crush corporations until they are so small they are easily drowned by pissing on them.

Garbage take.

I don't buy AAA games. Because paying for a code and waiting four hours for the rest of the game to download is bullshit.

My biggest gaming spending spree in the last five years has been on itch, and I can make my own physical copies of those

Of course the "former Valve writer" is Chet Faliszek. The dude never shuts up.

If GOG just hired one full time intern to go ahead and bake Proton into their platform so they could have Linux support that isn't completely broken, I'd probably start getting more games on their platform again.

Edit: Oh, looks like it's on the way. Maybe I'd better start wishlisting.

I feel like everyone in this thread is ignoring the literal headline.

The point being made is that the consumer chose these rights-infringing, privacy-corrupting, ownership-destroying choices.

Then OF COURSE companies weaponised it.

The issue is that your average Joe doesn't think for a damn second in his life, and picks up whatever is put down.

So consumers were given the choice between physical media that you made artificially expensive and overly inconvenient or digital media that you made practically free and ultra convenient. That's called the illusion of choice. But now you can blame your victims when you abuse them because they brought this on themselves.

When all options are rigged, it's pretty rude to blame "the consumer"