Chet Falisek has been on a crusade to have bad contrarian takes since he left Valve. His stance on Stop Killing Games was downright stupid.

Last time I bought a disc it had just a downloader on it

"We constantly say voting with your wallet will make it so businesses will only create what you're willing to buy. ... Gaming is in the state it's in currently because the vast majority of gamers are okay with it? Have the wallets already voted?"

In this sense, Chet is right, the 'democracy' of consumers has prevailed, and the people have spoken. They said 'digital.' I myself have been a PC gamer for over a decade now and I can't remember the last time I bought physical media.

"You as the consumer have forced the large corporations hand, and you've told them 'Stop with retail.'"

But then Chet shows his entire rancid asshole by actively ignoring the power dynamics between corporation and customer. The corporation always has the upper hand because the customer CAN ONLY buy what the corporation is OFFERING to sell. The corporation is always, at all times, presenting the customer with a false choice. A customer who has shitty internet and has to purchase all physical media, they may be in the democratic minority but that doesn't mean we feed them to the wolves. But an ex-Valve writer wouldn't know shit about that, they haven't shipped a physical game since Portal 2. What choice did you give consumers for Counterstrike, 2023? Half Life Alyx, 2020? Dota, 2013?

Once you, apparently, regretted your decision to invest almost entirely in digital, you didn't start buying Crimson Desert discs while you could, nor did you abstain from making digital purchases altogether. Now it's too late, says Faliszek.

Suck my dick, clown.

That's not an argument to take the same choice away from future customers.

We made the choice for mostly digital in a world where physical was still available as a fallback. That's not the same situation as if it wasn't. The existence of physical media and a resale market does prevent some of the worst fuckeries of an otherwise monopoly, regardless if you ever bought or sold used games.

Bullllllshit. I have bought multiple games in the last decade that didn't include a physical disc but a code for me to go download the digital copy.

LOL what? This is some „your carbon footprint“ level horseshit. It‘s like saying you the consumer chose global warming or to lose your job to automation. I mean, did you choose to live near a data center that was build last month? I didn‘t think so either.

We‘re not one tightly organized mass making decisions with far reaching consequences together as consumers. Providers on the other hand practice price-fixing and lobbying in an organized manner. That‘s where I would start pointing my finger at to explain this mess.

I, the consumer are terribly powerless. Only we, the people can change these things for the better by gutting these corporations.

I would happily buy steam physical games if they existed

tada!

you chose this. you chose this by paying for it. you chose this by paying for digital releases.

he's not wrong.

doesn't matter. gamers will still pay Sony. they'll still buy digital releases. the cycle continues.

Which is really depressing as the only time I buy digital is when the games are 60% off or more.

Playstation was dead to me once they released the PS3 and did the bait and switch linux thing (again).

Why do you care what Sony does, just avoid them all together.

The only hope is governments deciding that you have a right (probably for a limited time, discs dont last forever) for you to have license Key that you can use, trade, barter or sell.

But who will manage a database of keys? I hate that I am going to say this: a blockchain of key/ownership? I cant think of any other decentralized method.

Or a home brew is going to happen that "rips" the hard drive on install and makes a copy on a USB or attached drive or something, but that brings us back to the problem: the hardware itself.

If you don't own the machine, you don't own the data. You DONT own the playstation because it is proprietary and you cant do anything with it.