Reliance on downloads and streaming services have created holes where movies, music and games might vanish.
I'll state this now. I'm biased. I am a collector of video games, movies, TV shows and anime. While downloads and streaming are convenient, they lack that sense of ownership that a physical item provides. Not only that, they put control of these pieces of entertainment in the hands of corporations and out of ours.
Over the past decade, acceptance of streaming services and downloadable games have taken a huge bite out of the sales of physical media. Some big box stores don't even carry CDs any more. The DVD/Blu-ray sections of stores has shrunk as more and more people are content with streaming over owning a library of movies and TV shows.
This shift in consumer behavior has moved us from a focus on ownership to a focus on convenience. And while I don't have a problem with digital distribution being an option, I do fear what will happen if and when it becomes the only option.
Physical media is ownership
When you buy that disc or book, its yours to use however you want, whenever you want. You can lend it to a friend or resell it. You never have to depend on a third party to make sure its available to you when you want to use it. You don't have to rely on your Internet connection to access it. I've had problems with every streaming service I've ever used, and I've lost access to them entirely when Internet outages occur. Some parts of the country do not have access to reliable broadband, so physical media is the best and sometimes only way to access these types of media.
Physical media is access
Some movies and TV shows may never become available on streaming services. If you want to watch Three's Company or Back to the Future, you have to actually own it. And there's no guarantee that your favorites will be there in the future. Contracts for content licenses are renewed and expire regularly on streaming services. Owning the content is the only way to assure you will be able to enjoy it in the future.
Physical media is preservation
Movies, TV shows and video games that don't land on a digital distribution service are in danger of being lost forever. How can we play digitally distributed games that are removed from gaming marketplaces (without using legally and morally questionable practices?) There's been a sudden rise in interest of VHS cassettes recently due to the number of movies and shows that never received a release on DVD or which aren't available to download or stream. Physical media will ensure that these things are preserved, remembered and enjoyed by new legions of fans.
Of course, there are exceptions and ways around these pitfalls, but for those of us who aren't tech savvy, access can be a big problem. I want to make sure that my children are able to experience the movies, tv shows and video games that I grew up with and actually owning a copy of these pieces of entertainment is the only way to be certain to have that option.
Ten years ago I was pro convenience. With the ability to have thousands of songs in my iPod I always thought this should happen everywhere, it's more practical. I bought an R4 for my DS Lite and got the roms for all the games I owned and a lot that I never bought. Then I found out I didn't care fore the pirated ones: If I illegally downloaded something was mostly for testing, both I usually never spent more than 2 hours on it.
Being able to carry as many DS titles with me made me realize that with so much options I with me I was playing less and less.
More recently I started buying and collecting vinyl records. Then it struck me: Having to stand up, put the record on, place the needle (here we say needle contrary to "stylus". Not a hipster thing) is an effort that made me appreciate more the music I was playing. Then after some 20-30 minutes I had to get up again and flip the disc. That's when I realized what in 2006-2008 I first experienced with roms in the R4.
I don't own a kindle anymore. For the times that I had (all three I've had are now with former girlfriends) I never had more than 1 title on it: The one I was interested on reading. I saw (nor see now) reason to have 1000 titles with me, unless it's a references book.
Physical media also means investment: You can gift or resale your music, games or books, but it becomes tricky with iTunes purchases or Nintendo digital games. You could do a yard sale and get some money, exchange them, put them on eBay, but couldn't do so with digital media, that's the investment part. Maybe it will be worth a lot in 20 years, who knows.
Physical media also means support: Here in Venezuela the music industry doesn't work as in the US. Independent artists (most nowadays) put a lot from their pockets to record and produce their music. When they sell that in venues, concerts, stores, that money goes back go them not only as a return of their investment but as profit. And I really like them to profit from their work as I profit from mine. And I really like the idea of they getting the money to pay for their loans instead making the middleman (record company in this case) richer.
Excellent points. You raise an interesting point about the act of playing a record. It does make you more connected to the media. It becomes more of an experience than just making a few clicks on a device or computer.
Video games are the same way, where no emulator can capture the feeling of plugging a real cartridge into a game console.
I can tell you now we need to use disc and other media, We DON'T own any digital media like we may think.
I know first hand we can lose 10's or thousands of dollars in digital items.
about 4 years now i was banned from steam for use there trading system and was traded stolen items and all party's where banned. my account value at time was about 12000 in games and about 5000 in steam items. they changed there TOS right before this big ban of a few people and here was then nothing we can do but hope one day we can work with them to un ban us witch i have been trying to do as i do not have money to get laywers all legal action.
so no it is not good idea to buy digital game moveis cd's
Some will argue that physical discs/books/etc. are less secure than digital ones like you might have on Vudu or Google Play because they can be scratched, broken, stolen, ruined in a house fire, etc. But in extreme cases, they're covered by your insurance. The scenario like you laid out is putting all your faith an a company to have your back, not stab you in it.
Its true, you never really own anything you buy and access from a cloud service, and they can change the TOS on you overnight or simply go out of business and you lose everything.
I'm very sorry to hear about your experience with Steam, that really sucks.
Physical media has one big issue - shelf life. The average CD will be unusable after 50 years un normal conditions and a 100 in perfect conditions. So unless you are continuously backing up everything you have stored on current physical media a lot of with will just decay with time.
Great post! Would you mind if I included it in today's "best of gaming"?
That's true. These won't last forever, but hopefully in the future we have methods of archiving this type of content into formats that can easily be accessed by different devices. That being said, for the next few decades I think that most cartridge and disc based media will still be useable as long as they're stored correctly and well cared for.
Sure, I'd love to have this article featured in your 'best of gaming' post. Thank you!
I hate getting downloadable games. If a game is available physically I always get the physical version. I love having the actual game to collect.
In most cases, I pass on digitally distributed games, and I'm happy to pay a premium to get them if they do get a physical release. I'm happy to pay $40 for Axiom Verge on the Switch in physical format (it comes with some nice bonus stuff too.)
yeah I recently got RiME and I thought it was digital only and I was so upset when I found out it had a physical release. I am going to get the physical version when the game goes down. its already down from 30 to 20 bucks
I've been working on my own article along the same lines. I completely agree.
I'll keep my eye out for it.
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