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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Fight anything that prevents you from owning and controlling your content. Reward, companies and groups that allow you to truly own what you purchase.
It's a noble stance, but literally everything is digital these days. Even disk based games are requiring day 1 updates (or aren't coming with the content on the disk in the first place), meaning you're at the behest of the platform to keep your content available.
Digital is not the problem. Lack of true ownership is the problem. GoG is DRM free. Steam isn't great on this, but it's better than other alternatives for now. Sailing the high seas is the best option in many cases.
It's not all or nothing, you can take small steps to stop supporting the worst offenses. First step, don't use any game streaming services where you just subscribe to a rolling catalogue each month/year. PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass are examples of this.
Nintendo is awful too, their games should be ripped from physical media if possible and emulated, or otherwise aquired on the seven seas and emulated. It's a great way to play their games without supporting their evil practices.
Support FOSS games and FOSS-friendly companies. Valve is a good example. Although not perfect by any means, they have proven to be far friendlier to FOSS apps, games, and platforms than most other companies. If you have to get DRM-locked games, get them through Steam. At least they have offline mode and allow full access to all your game files so you can save them to a separate location for archives/backups.
It starts with small things, but if lots of people start doing this, it will have a noticable effect.
Nintendo Switch carts have actual content on them - they're more than just fancy unlock keys.
Kingdom hearts has entered the chat
Yeah, cloud versions (which are stupid) require an internet connection.. do they even sell the cloud version as a cart? If they do and it's not advertised as such, that's obviously a problem.
That's the problem though, most Switch games are not available on carts.
If you count eShop shovelware, sure. Most Switch games worth owning are available on carts.
I won't argue that the eshop isn't full of shovelware because it is - but even shovelware needs to be preserved.
The problem with this line of debate is that there are some games worth having that are only on the eshop and it's still a digital barrier to you truly owning the software. Saying most games are available on a physical medium doesn't help those that aren't and it's a situation that's only going to get worse.
Essentially what I am saying is that none of the big 3 are innocent here and just because some are slightly better than others doesn't make it okay.
Agreed on all points but there's some nuance I feel you're neglecting.
I never said Nintendo was blameless or beyond reproach (they suck in lots of ways) only that they do have physical carts that work out of the box. This is something that continues to benefit me. For example, I picked up Advance Wars reboot on the way to the airport and was able to pop in the cart and start playing at the gate. Credit where it's due, you know? I harass everyone I know with a Switch to buy physical because that's the only way we'll continue to have this shred of ownership.. at least that's still on the table as a possibility compared to the other two.
Most games come on the disk and don't require an internet connection (unlike some Xbox titles like Halo Infinite). Day 1 updates only matter for PC because performance can be hit or miss. On consoles, it's not such a painful prospect. My PS4 has been offline since I bought it and every game has run fine after installation. I'm aware that Cyberpunk doesn't run well but it never should've been on PS4 in the first place.
Digital storefronts like GoG do allow you to own your game by giving you the ability to download DRM free versions of games. It's possible to do but publishers like EA have primarily live service games which means DRM is their bread and butter.
Game preservation is important to me so GoG is a godsend for the work they do.
All those games may run fine for you, but you're still missing day one patches for most games. Maybe even some content you wanted and didn't realize was even there without being online to download patches and hot fixes. Also more and more reports of console discs not having any data on them and just being a code to allow you to download the game.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is the reality of gaming today.
It sucks. I've been backing up PS3 games on my hard drive for a while now and I'd like to be able to do that for the PS4 too.
My contention is why we need day one patches in the first place. Surely, if games were properly tested, they wouldn't need to be patched as soon as they release. Just seems weird to me that they release a patch immediately following release when that could've been done before release?
I don't disagree. But these days going gold doesn't mean the same. They all seem to take the last month or two to still iron things out before it really releases.