We need to top calling it digital “ownership”. You don’t get to own anything as a customer on those platforms.
PlayStation keeps reminding us why digital ownership sucks
Submitted 11 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23989290/playstation-digital-ownership-sucks
Comments
shrugal@lemm.ee 11 months ago
ultra@feddit.ro 11 months ago
If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.
obamabinladen@fanaticus.social 11 months ago
It never was
Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
In the case of pc platforms like GOG, and itchio, if you get a drm free version of a title, theres nothing the company can do to both stop you from storing it on an external storage (or multiple) if you wanted. They wouldnt be able to revoke it if its a single player game.
Syrc@lemmy.world 11 months ago
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 11 months ago
Technically, you still don’t own it. You have a licence that they can revoke at will. They just can’t enforce it.
Kissaki@feddit.de 11 months ago
because rights that can be taken away on a whim are no rights at all
They’re rights to temporary access.
I agree with your main point that it’s not ownership though.
shrugal@lemm.ee 11 months ago
What you’re talking about is being allowed to use something or being tolerated, that’s different from having a right.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Playstation keeps reminding us that digital ownership is not ownership.
Vendul@feddit.de 11 months ago
Obligatory if buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing
Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 11 months ago
Yep. Rental is the more accurate term.
boredtortoise@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Yeah. Digital ownership is very convenient. Sony’s model is loanership or something
HKayn@dormi.zone 11 months ago
It’s all loanership, no matter which platform.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 11 months ago
“You will own nothing and be happy”
Except they forgot the “be happy” part.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s because they don’t care about that part. Others being happy doesn’t buy them a private jet. Selling the illusion of ownership very much does.
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
In this case. But if you owned the keys to a room in a public accessible vault, you could properly own and have access to it.
Since its public, Sony couldn’t just take it away.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
It should be illegal to take back / away a digital purchase because of a rights change or any other reason. Sure, maybe I lose the ability to download again if the company goes out of business, but other than that, my media, my fucking property. And not in a distribution sense. Like it was a physical copy. It’s not like they’re allowed to enter my home and steal my blu-rays.
Natanael@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
They’re not offering true purchases, they’re offering one time payment leases - and they should be forced to market them as such if they’re not willing to guarantee perpetual access.
Secret300@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
What the hell they talking about? Digital ownership is amazing. I can stream all my content from my server and keep it forever as long as I backup regularly. What sucks is buying shit digitally because then you don’t own it at all
locuester@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Yeah they’re not talking about ownership here. They’re talking about custodial “ownership”. Like when you buy bitcoin and keep in on an exchange - you down actually own it.
Some people think if you buy a movie from Sony or any other online only marketplace you actually own it….
account_93@lemm.ee 11 months ago
It’s a “permanent” rental, Until something like this happens.
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I think “licensing” is the correct word here, instead of “ownership”.
The users in question don’t “own” anything, they merely “license” it.
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Points at the Jolly Roger.
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
🏴☠️
Snowpix@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
And it’s a heave-ho-hi-ho, comin’ down the way “Stealin’” films and movies and all the other games And it’s a ho-hey-hi-hey, corpos bar your doors When you see the Jolly Roger on Francisco’s mighty shores!
IamtheMorgz@lemmy.world 11 months ago
OoO this would be fun to try to do the whole song…
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I miss Armored Core Masters of the Arena. I will not under any terms, ever touch AC5 because of exactly this fucking bullshit brainwashing nonsense. It was perhaps the best video game I’ve ever played and that’s not a short list. I quit them and I’d only give exceptions to Sauerbraten these days and, well, I just don’t do it anyway cuz I now prefer board games because it’s like playing games with real people. I’m not good socially and need the means to practice, in all honesty.
So yeah, fuck Sony, and fuck PS. I refuse to even pirate their nonsense. I have zero interest in anything that isn’t FOSS.
Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 11 months ago
Counterpoint: digital ownership — true ownership when you have the actual files — is amazing. It’s the media panacea we’ve wanted for years. Storage is cheap, content is boundless, and if you curate your own collection you can usually get it anywhere you want.
sudoku@programming.dev 11 months ago
Too bad it’s not applicable to defective-by-design appliances like the PlayStation 5.
AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
It isn’t vulnerable to physical degradation.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Yeah, I’m at the point where I view all storage as temporary, just on different time scales. Storing anything indefinitely requires ongoing maintenance to replace degraded media with fresh media.
Shurimal@kbin.social 11 months ago
Back the fuck up! If you only have one copy, you have none.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah, lots of newbies fall victim to this. Nobody wants to believe hard drives fail, until their hard drive is dead and they’ve lost all their data.
Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Yea but literally nothing is. The best thing you could do is have multiple backups in multiple locations.
Buck@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Unless you use mdiscs. Those still degrade, but it’ll take centuries.
nyan@lemmy.cafe 11 months ago
If there’s DRM involved, then you’re renting, not buying. Take that into account when considering how to spend money.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Not sure why anyone at this point is stoked to own a Playstation. Literally all of their games are going to be on PC, GTA6 will eventually be on PC, not to mention all of the cross platform games on PS5 that are, you guessed it, also on PC.
Between digital storefronts removing content you paid for and the price tag on all new releases, it just doesn’t make sense to engage with this new generation of “you don’t actually own your games now”.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Because it costs like a quarter of an equivalent gaming PC, and there’s actually an option for physical disc ownership unlike PC.
Radicaldog@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Honestly, buying a disc for a new game and selling it a month later is still the cheapest way to play new things without being constrained by a subscription’s library. PC is excellent for old/indie stuff going cheap, but discs are awesome.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
“But consoles suck compared to PCs of the same price!”
~People who built their PCs before bitcoin was popular
LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Lots of reasons to enjoy having a Playstation. Having a full PC setup is expensive when you factor in more than just the case build. It’s nice to have something you can boot up and get right into. Everyone acts like their system is superior but the superior system is whatever one best suits your needs. I personally would absolutely love a PS5 varient that didn’t require internet and just let me play my single player games in peace.
Toribor@corndog.social 11 months ago
I think the big cost savings on PC come from a lack of subscription fees. Plus a huge variety of storefronts to choose from so prices tend to be low. Games get cheap fast if you wait a little bit.
It’s pretty easy to match console performance with a budget PC, but it definitely isn’t as easy. I can’t wait until I can pause/resume games on my desktop like I can on the Steam Deck. Huge quality of life feature.
yamanii@lemmy.world 11 months ago
After this I’m getting an external drive and backing my gog library, since it and itch io are the last bastions of ownership (shame I can only pay in USD on itch).
NiaTheCat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
[deleted]yamanii@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thanks for the tip
Syrc@lemmy.world 11 months ago
aniki@lemm.ee 11 months ago
[deleted]Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Just remember, any game that requires patches will not be able to get patches after the switch loses support from Nintendo
So you own the physical cartridge but the patches that were (in some cases) required to make the game work will be unable to be downloaded in the future
This is why I support modding consoles, that way I can continue to have a fully functional console long into the future
Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
On the switch, the titles that require the day one update to function is generally a lot lower than the other platforms.
Its the reason why when a game leaks in advance, piracy can play it, because the cart dump is usually the complete functional game
Norgur@kbin.social 11 months ago
Thing is that most games on physical media aren't much good in the long run either for the very same reasons. Even the single player ones have a myriad of little bits and bobs of online connectivity nowadays. I expect 95% of them to break once their servers go down. Most of them for super stupid reasons..some version mismatch here, a weird timeout in the launcher there. And being on closed systems,.there will be no way to patch them by the community on consoles.
The only games I expect to still work are Nintendo games. That's not because they are the food guys but because their understanding of this whole internet thing is so laughably bad.
brsrklf@jlai.lu 11 months ago
Nintendo had games breaking at parts because of interrupted services, even games that are single-player or playable offline.
Some examples :
Fire Emblem : Shadow Dragon has a shop that connects to the internet and is the only place you can get an item required for a specific class promotion. I shit you not, the only reason it needs access to a long dead server is to check the current date, because the shop’s content depends on the day of the month.
Similarly, Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime Trilogy had an “online” component… Some of the in-game rewards could only be obtained buy spending “friend credits”. What happened is you earned a credit, you couldn’t spend it yourself, you had to send it to a friend and have them do the same for you. This was the only way the games used the online service. Bonus, they rereleased Trilogy on Wii U, long after the server shutdown, and did not do anything to let you go around that.
And also on the Wii U, Mario Vs Donkey Kong Tipping Stars had a level designer. You could unlock parts for the designer with stars, earned by playing levels… Shared on miiverse. They shut down Miiverse, even before the end of the console’s (short) life, and they even kept selling the game after that, with only a short message to warn “not all functionalities” were available. The truth is that without the miiverse stars you could barely unlock anything for the designer, so it was basically useless even for offline.
15liam20@lemmy.world 11 months ago
On addition, remember how Sony bought OnLive then shut it down? Fuckers.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 11 months ago
OnLive was a decade ahead of its time, and it worked decently.
Problems were nobody really expected it to last and prior wanted to be able to keep their games off the service shut down.
I think their biggest mistake though was targeting gaming. Imagine if instead they offered enterprise software rental.
Say your business needs to use ArcGIS, but just for one little project. Pay 200 bucks to rent the software for a few hours, make a deliverable, and that’s it.
Or what if you want to do a quick Photoshop project? Pay 10 bucks for an hour of time workout having to download anything or buy a $1000 software package (CS was a purchased product back then), then email yourself the final image.
It also would have been great for anti-piracy purposes for some software, since the client only ever gets an AV stream.
AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah sometimes companies buy competition not to absorb them but to destroy them.
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I own 4 PS5 games, all are physical, all were bought used and I can sell them on if I want. This November I opted not to renew PS plus.
It amazes me this is still possible but I’m not complaining.
ricdeh@lemmy.world 11 months ago
DVDs are also digital though. I cannot really imagine analog video games
crackajack@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Sony had been at the top for the past ten years so they now feel emboldened to think they will get away with predatory monopolistic behaviour. Just like Microsoft after Xbox360 era when the console had proved more popular than PS3. So now, Microsoft with its Gamepass is seemingly retaking the lead.
FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Playstation plus price increase, taking bought media away, banning accounts for no reason. What’s next for Sony?
SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Sounds like class action baby
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 11 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Affected users who may have spent years building a robust digital library were suddenly left without access to content they had bought through no fault of their own.
Even though downloading and accessing digital content is often easier than trudging to a retail store to buy a physical copy of a game, you’re putting your faith in the platform holders to maintain their digital storefronts, the content on those storefronts, and their account systems so that your access keeps working.
The recent closure of Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS eShops was a stark reminder that companies have the power to decide when you can buy digital content.
While you can still redownload Wii U and 3DS games that you’ve purchased, it seems inevitable that Nintendo will stop letting you do that one day.
And Sony isn’t offering any compensation for titles you’ve already bought or a way to transfer those purchases to another store.
The PlayStation account bans were as swift as they were unexpected, and while resolution for most arrived within a few hours, Sony still hasn’t shared any public communication about what happened or why users should continue to trust the platform.
The original article contains 525 words, the summary contains 194 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
“ownership” lol
In the current stage of late capitalism we do not actually own anything, we cannot question the sanctity of “Capital” and we are already monitored in many ways 24/7
Pohl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I have content I purchased on steam 19yrs ago. Shit was built for completely different hardware but I can go install and play it right now. The physical console games I bought that year only work in consoles that have long since broken. I can go play HL2 whenever I want, to play my copy of THPS3, I have to find and buy a PS2 that still works.
Digital ownership can apparently work just fine
Sony is reminding us that Sony is a shitty company. The company that bought you amazing technology like the memory stick ™ probably cannot be trusted.
HKayn@dormi.zone 11 months ago
Don’t find yourself in a false sense of security.
Your games on Steam are just as ephemeral as any other digital content purchased online.
BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 11 months ago
All the physical games i ever owned went up in flames when my house burned down. I can still play games i bought on steam in 2008
prole@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
True, but at least at this point, Valve is not a publicly traded company. Gabe clearly understands that piracy is a distribution problem.
stardust@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Even then in a worst case scenario due to the open platform piracy is a possibility. That’s where some of the peace of mind comes from compared to purchasing of digital goods for a closed system.
Pohl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Dude it’s been 20yrs. I bought a game 20yrs ago and I can still play it. The physical media that I OWN did not last that long.
Any day it could go away. Just like my PS2 games went away when the only hardware on earth allowed to play them died.
A quarter of a human lifetime and counting is ephemeral? You think you are going to be able to get a blue ray player in another 20yrs? You know that making one requires paying fees to Sony, right? If you want media that lasts for generations, buy paintings and sheet music.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 11 months ago
You’re just one heartbeat away from seeing Steam turn into an EA competitor by some billionaires son/ self made CEO
burliman@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Agreed. Physical ownership is the shelf of old DVD and CDROM PC and XBOX classic game boxes in my basement that take up space, collect dust, will never work again, and will only be a remembrance of nostalgia for a bygone day. Plus I’ll probably never seriously want to play them again… let’s be honest. I can watch a video of someone else playing, it scratches the same itch, and saves me the trouble.
I like digital ownership, but there needs to be protections so we can’t be screwed.
Pohl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I agree. It’s hard to draw lines though right. Say your country made a law that companies could not pull the sort of shit Sony is pulling here. They would have to put a timeline on it right? It’s unreasonable that they should support a 10$ digital purchase for centuries. But 10yr old content disappearing is also horseshit. So what is a good line? What expectations is it reasonable to have as a consumer?
What can I reasonably expect when I pay a few bucks for a downloaded movie. I feel like that is what we are really debating here. To me, getting 20+ yrs of support for a game on steam seems like an insanely good deal. I never got that for physical games. I am forced to admit that digital games on steam are a better deal than any physical games I have ever bought.
Digital ownership CAN work but you have to decide who you trust. I would never trust Sony (or other console manufacturers) to maintain my digital library over the long term. But I guess trusting valve worked out. Shit, all my old ebooks still work too, and that’s Amazon, hardly a paragon of ethics.
The problem isn’t digital ownership, it’s the companies that are selling stuff and/or the regulatory structure that they operate in.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve never even owned a PlayStation but I’ve owned enough absolute shit made by Sony that I started boycotting them like 15 years ago. They really are a truly shit company. It always amazes me they are considered a quality brand.
Pohl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Word! The nastiest vendor lock in bullshit you’ve ever seen. My bitchin’ yellow Walkman aside, bad products top to bottom.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
What about the PS3 era of Sony made you go “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”
TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 11 months ago
It's still PC architecture. May not be 64 bit, but there's nothing stopping a modern x86-64 processor from directly running software made for an IBM PC from the 1980s without a VM or emulation.
Drivers are a different story.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
It’s not just PCs and Steam. I can still play my Original Xbox games from 20 years ago on my Series X (they predate Xbox Live, let alone digital versions of games), and I can still play the digital 360 and Xbox one games that I bought as well.
Gamers give Sony and Nintendo way too much of a pass for shitting on backwards compatibility.
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
there’s been instances of issues with steam games. like paid characters and skins in games being removed after the ip owners decided it was worth more money. dead by daylight did this multiple times.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Or GTA getting patched to remove music from a game you already “own”.
Pohl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Im not arguing that all digital ownership works great for consumers. But it can work. Shitty companies who’ll always be shitty and it doesn’t matter how you possess the goods, you bought them from shitty companies.
As a general rule which applies to all products: if the company you are paying has to pay another company a license fee for your product to work, it’s not going to work for very long. Be it a Blu-ray Disc or a marvel skin, your vendor will stop paying their vendor as soon as they can.
Womble@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s nothing about owning physical media that would prevent that.
shrugal@lemm.ee 11 months ago
A monarchy is great if you have a really nice and competent ruler.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
In all fairness, PS1s and PS2s still work fine (albeit, some may need a laser replacement, and you might need an HDMI adapter) but it’s not like it’s impossible to play old PS games.