Streaming has taken the world by storm and while the current path has diverged significantly from the glorious idea of paying for a single subscription to gain access to all content there is, it is still on the rise apparently, despite the fragmentation of content and rise of ads.
However, the rise of digital media in general, including games, has not really been all that beneficial to us users. Certainly, there are advantages. As soon as you pay, you gain access to the new game, movie or TV show. You do not even have to leave the house anymore or wait days for a delivery to reach your door.
The downside to digital media has been discussed at length. It boils down to the following strong points:
- You do not own the digital content anymore, which means that it can be taken away from you at any time.
- You can’t resale the content either anymore, unless you sell the entire account, which the terms forbid.
- You can play, watch or listen, even if there is no Internet or services go down. Games are special, as more and more do not include the full game on the disc or card.
- If they ban your account, you lose access to everything.
Granted, there have been just a few cases where companies removed access. Amazon, for example, removed access to the digital books 1984 and Animal Farm back in 2009 because of a dispute over copyright and rights. It did refund the books, but the removal sparked a larger discussion about ownership and potential censorship.
With that in mind, I have followed a simple principle ever since digital content started to appear online: never buy, unless there is no other option. Try to avoid, if digital is the only option.
- Movies and TV shows: I buy DVD, Blu-Ray or 4K. Not that I buy many new films or shows, as I find them mostly boring and intellectually at the bottom of the barrel. I did buy several old movies that I missed or wanted to watch again, many of which are not even available at streaming services.
- Games: For consoles, I buy physical online. Not all games get physical releases anymore, or only in certain regions. I buy those, if they support a language that I understand. As for digital games, I try to avoid them as best as I can. If I can’t resist, I buy during sales.
- Music: CDs and records only. I can listen to songs for free on various sites, which is fine. When I like something in particular or want to support the artist, I buy the CD or record.
Physical products have the advantage that I can resell them. Does not happen too often, but I did sell a few PS5 games after I finished them or was done with them. If I would have bought them digitally, they would still be collecting dust in my virtual games library.
I can also lend them, so that a friend can play a game or my parents can watch a movie or show that I bought.
The trend, however, is moving heavily towards digital. With each new console generation, the discussion whether to include an optical drive or card-slot comes up again. Companies want to move to digital only, because it eliminates the second hand market. If you want to play a game or see a movie, you need to buy it yourself. No more lending or reselling, which increases their revenue, they rightfully believe.
Consumers are on the receiving end. While the majority does not seem to mind the trend, especially if reselling or lending is not needed, users who do prefer physical will face a hard decision in the next decade or so.
What about you? Do you buy digital or physical mainly? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
I have about 15 games for PS4, but more digitally. On PC, I have many games in my GOG library.
Mostly thanks to Amazon Prime Gaming, or Luna, as they call it now. They hand out a few game keys for GOG and Epic Games Store every month. Amazon’s launcher has a DRM-free library too, and you can play the games even when your Prime subscription runs out. Prime includes movies, TV shows, music, books too. That’s why it’s the only subscription I pay for. I am also a big fan of good-old FM radio, it’s free, and some local channels don’t have any ads.
As for my preferred choice for games, I like Steam, due to regional pricing and Steam Workshop for mods.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – Ultimate Edition – $18 right now – I want to buy it but, I won’t.
I won’t buy it because of all those reasons you mentioned and because of the privacy issues. Get rid of the online requirements and I’d gladly pay full price for it.
I drop over $100us every time I stop at a gas pump. I’ve got the expendable income for the AAA games I want to buy and the PC to run them on. I want to give Ubisoft my money, but their terms are unacceptable.
For now, I’ll keep playing the copy of ACO I already have and patiently wait, for years if needed, for it and other titles I want to become available without online requirements.
I purchased a DVD quite recently which seems to have found a way to prevent users skipping the initial content such as the copyright notices, trailers etc., which you can usually skip by either hitting “Resume” twice followed by the “Play” button, or by simply using “Fast Forward” after the copyright blurb has finished doing its stuff. This assumes you have a h/w DVD player of course.
But this particular DVD won’t let you do either of those two things which results in “Forbidden” notices appearing on screen instead. At the time, I wasn’t going to sit through a load of trailers I’ve already seen, or have already bought the movie in some cases so I just turned the TV off and waited until all that crap had finished. Usually, you’ll be able to see the word “Menu” appear on the DVD player readout and can turn the TV back on again. But that doesn’t happen with this particular DVD and it just rewinds to the beginning again forcing you to watch all the crap all over again.
Anyway, the movie is called “Strange Darling” released in September last year. You can pick it up on Amazon using ASIN: B0DH81G6MP for European releases.
Maybe the film industry thinks there’s still life left in the DVD market and just doesn’t want you to skip all those lovely ads and figures this new concept will be the answer to that.
I have quite a few DVDs with those unskippable trailers. They usually come with a warning that copying is theft, which seems ridiculous, considering that they are showing the message to someone who likely, bought the DVD.
I suddenly remembered seeing an ad on a DVD I bought back in the early 2000’s. The movie is called Stander and is based on a real life individual who was a police captain in the South African force who switched from law enforcement to a criminal lifestyle. He would interview the victims of crimes he had committed himself and had other detectives burst out laughing when the victim accused him of the crime.
But the unskippable ad was for a English chocolate variety called “Maltesers” which are mouth-sized honeycomb balls covered in milk chocolate. So yes, advertising does pay if the product is right, the object of the exercise being to imprint the product on your brain in such a way that you’ll never forget it. 🙂
I don’t buy digital, never have. Physical stuff, the one you can touch, share only.
The very idea of paying fora digital license bothers me.
Not fond of games, always gives me the feeling of loosing my time. Winning doesn’t thrill me, loosing doesn’t get on my nerves nor in my tears. And so what? is the first thought whan the game ends. Chess occasionally, or a fun game such as MaterMind, Simon Says, Snake to relax, bur really, hardly never.
Musical streaming? Nops. I have thousands of audio tracks and I hardly ever buy new given most are closer to sounds than to music, IMO. I’m quite fond nevertheless of Web radios which practically always accompany my surfing sessions. Hundreds of radio stations available, the pleasure of discovering, rediscovering randomly, as a surprise.
VOD? Either the movie theater either on TV: I don’t care if I have to wait for months, no hurry when it comes to pleasure. Relax before, during, after. Why hurry up? Carpe Diem, dolce vita …
Forgot to mention that 36 years ago I was half my present age. What the heck was I doing in 1989? Living, moving around in another world. Computing device was Commodore 128 I’d play around with occasionally, the Internet here started in year 2000 only. T’was another era.
You can’t be objective should it be by the sole factor of time. Had I been born with the century that most if not all of this comment would be obsolete, or would it? 🙂
Gosh, I think I’ll now enjoy a cup of tea, some jazzy tunes in the background, and dive in memories of the Mad Magazine and Archy of the sixties 🙂
Good news for me because “Netflix is making a big push into video games.” As physical media begins to disappear more and more over the next three years and Netflix continues to acquire more games, NFLX will profit more and more because gamers, like streamers, can’t/won’t do without their daily “fix.”
It’s so easy to see how these companies operate and play on “desire and addiction.” Exxon, etc. = another huge company that realizes people won’t do without their gas; electric = Nextera.
Stands to reason, one would do well investing $18 or more dollars in a company that entraps customers in a sandpit. Gamestop (GME) would be good for either short selling or purchasing–a share a month. Great five year return.
Meanwhile, our local library has more movies and books and even games than most people would ever want.
Digital music can be purchased and downloaded. I don’t mean Apple, but other services. You buy it and own it. Burn it if you wish. I won’t name these sites as I don’t know how Mr. B feels about it. I use 3 in particular, although there are more. I don’t game, but will buy and download books, although I often buy the physical because I find paper preferable.
The physical format has become worse over the years in terms of quality.
DVD: Nice thick layer to protect disc/data from scratches which can be buffed back to life.
Blu-ray: Supposedly has a thin scratch resistant layer that prevents it getting damaged which is middle of the road. Once it becomes scratched (which it can and not with great difficulty) then you have much fewer opportunity to restore it as there is an even thinner protective layer.
4K/UHD: By far the worst as even a bit of dust can cause issues. Given that there are several more layers of data here it presents a huge issue if it gets scratched. Absolutely the worst format.
Staying on 4K/UHD I also want to state that it cannot technically be played on a PC due to draconian copy protection schemes that required the stars and the moon to align in terms of hardware which was never supported in one instance by AMD and Intel was forced to depreciate those CPU’s that did due to security concerns.
Drives were firmware encrypted to prevent ripping of discs which did little to stop it and only just slow it down in some instances but ultimately it too was broken and ripping of discs is the only way of viewing 4K/UHD disc/data on a PC.
I firmly believe that this lead to the downfall of such product lines from big brands such as Pioneer which recently retired its drive division.
Music:
I routinely purchase Music CD’s even today and actually have one on the way as we speak with 40 discs purchased this month alone. Whilst it is not often that I insert the disc to play the music I do rip the music to my media library to a lossless format and enjoy it that way. At which point you could (as with movies) create your own streaming service (when you are away from home) or listen to them locally on your homelab/server.
Games:
As far as games, I purchase games that are from companies that believe in the physical format and will seek out the actually physical version if it is available. I do not like buying games which do not have the full version on the disc or cart and have all but avoided almost all games on the switch 2 as I do not believe in game key carts. The switch 2 sits in the bag I bought it home in from day one of its release still.
I don’t have a lot of time for gaming but until nintendo addresses this issue I will not be supporting their current system. Apparently they are looking at releasing capacity carts (part of the issue only) but it remains to be seen when they will arrive, at what cost and in what capacities. Given that AI is absolutely destroying the market I can expect this to be costly if not largely delayed.
I already had a pre-order for an upcoming SSD drive cancelled due to AI and DRAM shortages so I can expect things to get worse.
Conclusion:
I would rather have the media I want available to me when I want, how I want for as long as I want rather than depending on some garbage streaming service that is over priced, unreliable and just outright garbage to host it for whatever limited time they do.