It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#471

Post by zchrykng » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

short_sells_poo wrote: post #456

yason wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not that I don't agree, but lawyers will then ask you to define "buy" in such a way that One fundamental thing would be to make it illegal to lawyer redefinitions of common words. If the sales of a game uses the word "buy" it should not be legal to redefine "buy" in that context to actually mean lump-sum lease or something. I'm pretty sure the game studios wouldn't like me to buy their games if I were to amend…

> it should not be legal to redefine "buy" Your post made me go on a thought exercise: imagine a world where you could either own or lease software products. Game developers could decide whether their customers can actually buy the product (which involves ownership) or just the traditional licensing/leasing, which is the prevailing model today. How would ownership actually work? What does ownership of digital goods m…

Just get the crypto bros involved. Track the license using blockchain. Should allow transferal of the license without allowing endless duplication.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#472

Post by benoau » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

kiddico wrote: post #277

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was actually a funny question at work over lunch. A few of us have kids and like most tech guys over 30, our steam accounts have turned into collections. So I asked, who gets your steam account when you kick it. It’s difficult to think about and seems baffling to spend thousands of dollars and hours assembling a collection only for it to poof away into nothing.

Who says anyone needs to inform Valve of your passing? Make sure your children have access to the email backing the account and they're good to go.

There are many signals that will inform them you are dead and AI will easily detect them: the change to your gaming routine and purchasing habits and platform usage as they grind to a sudden and complete halt except for the occasional sign-in to play one of your games, and the "age of account" will inevitably betray you.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#473

Post by zchrykng » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #433

reichstein wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.build.aau.dk/report-from-aau-warns-danish-homes-... The Danish Building code has requirements for retaining heat in the house, which is great in the cold winters, but devastating in the heart of modern summers. Combined with rules that practically require large south-facing windows to satisfy the total energy requirement limits, it gets very, very hot. And air conditioning subtracts significantly from y…

Practices that retain heat usually also retain cold, or?

Only if you have cold to retain...

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#474

Post by benoau » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

Hoodedcrow wrote: post #333

sciencejerk wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm optimistic that devs empowered by LLMs and local LLM will fight back and create new platforms if gatekeeping gets too out of hand

Why would anyone use slop alternatives though? I don't think people wouldn't be creating non-slop ones.

I think the larger question is how do those marketplaces get the rights to distribute any games... this is something all Steam rivals struggle immensely with, and it's not a coding problem at all.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#475

Post by hx8 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

me551ah wrote: post #9

If you think in terms of ownership, even then digital is not that bad. I’ve owned digital games since Xbox 360 and I can still play them to this day on my Xbox series X. But not all of my physical games CD/DVDs are in mint condition and some have scratches.

I own a decent library of retro games, sized in the hundreds.

Part of my intake process is to rip my games onto a digital format. Owning the physical media, and acquiring the backup legally, gives me a strong legal foothold for creating backup discs or using emulation.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#476

Post by zchrykng » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #441

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but you don’t expect the cinema to stop the movie half way through without giving you a refund, and would expect that you could legally resell a purchased ticket to your friend if you can’t attend the screening.

But that's not what's happening here - Sony can't take physical disks you own away from you. As for resale, interesting you bring up tickets as scalping / reselling them is a major issue, which is also hostile to consumers as they can pay multiples of the original selling price for high profile concerts and events, which has led to legislation and / or industry rules that prevent resale or at least prevent it through…

Scalping is not a serious risk with digital goods. When the company can sell an infinite number of licenses, there is zero risk of a third party coming in and buying up a significant fraction of the capacity and overcharging people.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#477

Post by throw10920 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #401

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I 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…

The KISS version of regulation would be that stores are not allowed to use the word "buy" when you don't get full ownership and must use the word "license" instead. Also it should be marked clearly that the company can rescind the license at any moment without giving any reason why.

I would love to see something like the Nutrition Facts label that states IN BLACK AND WHITE ALL CAPS THAT THE COMPANY CAN (NOT) RESCIND THE LICENSE AT ANY TIME. If the fact is very blatantly shown on the marketing/packaging instead of being relegated to tiny fine print, buyers will pay a lot more attention.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#478

Post by matwood » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

flyingshelf wrote: post #451

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I 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…

This makes no sense. You can't force them to sell you the game. They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it. The regulation can't even be retroactive

> They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it.

And that's ok since everyone will understand the deal going in. Consumers can decide if it's worth paying the price for a 5 year rental or not.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#479

Post by benoau » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

sciencejerk wrote: post #313

lstodd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. I actually back up my steam collection via torrents of GoG releases. Now, I can to some extent automate the rip-out of steam integration, there are solutions. And thus not rely on torrents. But why would I if it's the same thing in the end, and torrents are that much simpler.

Technically legal since Steam grants ownership?

They explicitly do not.

> The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services.

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#480

Post by CodesInChaos » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #401

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I 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…

The KISS version of regulation would be that stores are not allowed to use the word "buy" when you don't get full ownership and must use the word "license" instead. Also it should be marked clearly that the company can rescind the license at any moment without giving any reason why.

That would be pointless, since a consumer always buys a license, not the software itself.