I’ve always wondered what the major industry players’ theoretical price would be for offering transferable licenses, and how many people who say they want to be able to resell would pay it. It’s also interesting to me that we got all the way to 2026 and one of them officially going all-digital and we never saw price differentiation for physical copies.
It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
231–240 of 549 posts
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…
Hear, hear! One of the best comments I've read in over a decade on this site
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure the answer to that is no, they haven't turned to rocks. I believe Amazon keeps a record of your book purchases, and Amazon isn't going away tomorrow, so you should be able to redownload your books (and probably even back them up). If so, all is good there (relatively speaking). Sony also keeps records, but good luck redownloading your PSP game. Or your PS3 game for that matter. But at least in that case,…
Amazon may not be going away tomorrow, but they have form for disallowing redownloads of old ebook purchases. If you dared to buy ebooks from them pre-Kindle, you can't access them anymore. If you hold onto your Kindle devices for too long instead of replacing them with a newer model, you can't access your old books that aren't already downloaded until you buy a new device. For now, Sony has no issues with people red…
> but they have form for disallowing redownloads of old ebook purchases. If you dared to buy ebooks from them pre-Kindle, you can't access them anymore.
Well that's bad and also shouldn't happen. They should not be able to come down from heaven and turn your books into rocks.
> If you hold onto your Kindle devices for too long instead of replacing them with a newer model, you can't access your old books that aren't already downloaded until you buy a new device.
This is functionally the same as the situation on consoles. You can play the game, but only if you've already downloaded it and kept it around. Not ideal, but at least it's possible to keep it around.
> For now, Sony has no issues with people redownloading PS3 games. Or PSP games onto a Vita
Not for long.[1]
> not sure if you can still download onto an original PSP
You can't.[2]
[1] https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta...
[2] https://www.techspot.com/news/90316-psp-store-officially-clo...
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.
dumb regulation meaning any regulation they don't understand the purpose of is the point.
It's a stretch rather than a point.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.
> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…
Only the regulation that doesn't evolve with the time or written so that it stays within the confines of a context that doesn't exists. Certain big country constitution is a prime example of that.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.
> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…
It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California.
Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation.
The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades.
Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time.
To this day it is illegal to trade onion futures in Chicago due to an attempt to corner the market on onions decades ago(probably over a century can't be bothered to check).
Many European countries have draconian laws about air conditioning that are killing people this summer.
The affordable care act is written in such a way that the only way for insurers to increase their profit margin on health plans is to increase the cost they pay out to providers ("gold plating")
CAFE fuel economy standards have lead to the arms race of increased vehicle sizes for unnecessary reasons.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#237I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…
I saw something earlier today that showed the Sony agreement specifies you’re only licensing the games, even if you buy it on a disc. So the fine print means no one ever “buys” a game for the PS5. They are buying a license to use the game for some indefinite period of time that Sony, or some other rights holder, will determine at a later date. This is why things really need to be DRM free from the start, and portable…
A license doesn’t have to be for an indefinite time period. It can be irrevocable
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#238I’ve come to realize there are definitely people out there who have no interest in playing games, they just want to own them. A child doesn’t think about ownership, he picks up a controller and plays a game. And when the child has grown bored of the game, one day they just never touch it again like a discarded toy, moving on to something else. It is adults, reminded of their own feeble mortality and impermanence in t…
> Focus on enjoying games now, in the time when they are relevant. No matter how hard you try, all those games will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. I've enjoyed games that came out 20 years before I actually played them. Many games I enjoy are years old by the time I play them. I wanted to play The Crew. Doing that officially is literally impossible now. Maybe I'll get to play it if the pirates can do their…
Most books are lost in time. The ones that survive are just popular enough to stay in circulation.
Like you will most likely always have some kind of access to something like GTA 6 in some way. Only obscure titles get truly lost. They are obscure for a reason.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…
It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California. Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation. The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades. Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time. To this day it is illegal to tr…
[dead]
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#240I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…
You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
[flagged]