Why Is Digital Accepted On PC And Not Console???

[AngelaHornung]

So first let me establish a couple things:

 

1. I'm for physical media and like Luke said during WAN show once "real physical media, not just discs disguised as digital download codes".
2. The title could be a tad click baitey as I'm not sure if it is truly accepted on PC, but feel like its been much more accepted, at least from my perspective as someone who actually returned to consoles for the physical media after being a PC gamer for quite a while. 
3. I'm not defending digital only, its good for some, but I don't want it to be the only standard, just pointing out an oddity that I've noticed and could be entirely wrong about, hence why I'm asking the community.

So in my perspective it seems that Steam and Blizzard being digital only have been wildly accepted as just natural and I can't remember anyone ever really blinking an eye or raising an eye brow at the topic. PC was all digital and console was not. However as modern consoles have begun to switch to digital I've seen a flurry of discussions about media preservation, proper ownership, games being taken away after the fact (thanks Ubisoft) and loss of access due to down servers whether they're for the game or the platform you purchased them on. Those discussion points are great and I want them pushed further as I want physical media to stay permanently, but it feels like it's really only being and only has been directed at the consoles. 

 

Perhaps these discussions did take place as physical media for PC gaming began to drop off and I was just too young or not in the scene when it was occurring, but if we're going to have these discussions about media, ownership and online services, should we not have it about ALL forms of media on ALL platforms? How come streaming movies, music and downloading games on PC have seemingly been accepted but we draw the line at consoles. Should the line not be where any possibility of the removal of perpetual ownership of a piece of media is concerned? Perhaps I'm just becoming the old lady screaming at the clouds. lol 

 

Would love to know your thoughts on the subject and any information I might be missing. Also just for good measure, f### Ubisoft. lol 

[AngelaHornung]

Just now, AngelaHornung said:

So first let me establish a couple things:

 

1. I'm for physical media and like Luke said during WAN show once "real physical media, not just discs disguised as digital download codes".
2. The title could be a tad click baitey as I'm not sure if it is truly accepted on PC, but feel like its been much more accepted, at least from my perspective as someone who actually returned to consoles for the physical media after being a PC gamer for quite a while. 
3. I'm not defending digital only, its good for some, but I don't want it to be the only standard, just pointing out an oddity that I've noticed and could be entirely wrong about, hence why I'm asking the community.

So in my perspective it seems that Steam and Blizzard being digital only have been wildly accepted as just natural and I can't remember anyone ever really blinking an eye or raising an eye brow at the topic. PC was all digital and console was not. However as modern consoles have begun to switch to digital I've seen a flurry of discussions about media preservation, proper ownership, games being taken away after the fact (thanks Ubisoft) and loss of access due to down servers whether they're for the game or the platform you purchased them on. Those discussion points are great and I want them pushed further as I want physical media to stay permanently, but it feels like it's really only being and only has been directed at the consoles. 

 

Perhaps these discussions did take place as physical media for PC gaming began to drop off and I was just too young or not in the scene when it was occurring, but if we're going to have these discussions about media, ownership and online services, should we not have it about ALL forms of media on ALL platforms? How come streaming movies, music and downloading games on PC have seemingly been accepted but we draw the line at consoles. Should the line not be where any possibility of the removal of perpetual ownership of a piece of media is concerned? Perhaps I'm just becoming the old lady screaming at the clouds. lol 

 

Would love to know your thoughts on the subject and any information I might be missing. Also just for good measure, f### Ubisoft. lol 

Also yes I did switch from PC to console and switched from PC to a Mac, I know I'm the worse! XD 

[emosun]

it's accepted more on pc because media preservation on pc is easier than console. it's not hard to obtain movies/tv shows or games when sailing the high seas.

closed ecosystems like consoles it's less accepted due to basically being at the mercy of microsoft/sony/nintendo

 

5 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

Also yes I did switch from PC to console and switched from PC to a Mac, I know I'm the worse! XD 

then you did what the majority of people on earth did except instead of moving from a pc to a cell phone you went from pc to mac/console. so not really unique in that aspect.

[8tg]

I think it has more to do with media longevity, and digital only consoles and a lot of the games only function with an internet connection. Granted the same is true of many pc games digitally, but on PC there’s a lot more potential control over the media.

Old consoles it’s less of an issue with the media these days because people have already made entire new hardware to handle digital versions of the games. 
Something like the Dreamcast has a mod that lets you just plug in an SD card and play any Dreamcast game ever made.

Something like that isn’t as easy to do with modern DRM and hardware. I’m sure someone in the distant future will figure out how to get Destiny 2 working in single player via a modded Xbox One S, but as of right now that media and system are existing on a finite timescale.

 

With digital games on PC, there’s a lot that’s done to preserve or control them. Like I have GTA IV on steam. That game requires the rockstar games launcher to work as is. And that doesn’t work on old versions of windows anymore. So even though GTA IV came out when windows 7 was new and vista and XP were relevant, you can’t play that game on those systems anymore.

So there’s a few workarounds that have been introduced that allow you to play GTA IV on those old systems by bypassing the rockstar games launcher. Just run the .exe like any other application.

That was doable on PC. DRM made the media harder to access, made it require an internet connection, made it unusable on old systems, and the community said screw that and fixed it themselves so the game can live on.

Can that be done with digital only consoles? Can you bypass the DRM, and play your owned digital media standalone 30 years from now? Can you back it up so that the media can outlive the hardware? That has yet to be seen with modern digital consoles.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, 8tg said:

So even though GTA IV came out when windows 7 was new and vista and XP were relevant, you can’t play that game on those systems anymore.

says who

[johnt]

I accepted it bc I hated storing discs and floppies. It’s not like discs were the only medium for games lol one version of flight sim had like  24 floppies. It wasn’t sustainable. It’s also become extremely obsolete. I can download the entire earth in a crazy resolution from steam in under an hour. I hate gaming on a console when my nephew has to find the disc and pop it in just to verify ownership. It’s stupid. 
 

but I also don’t like having five different drm stores to navigate for all my tastes now. Each one becoming more resource heavy than the previous version. I mean the windows store is a joke. A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!! But it’s easier than managing physical media when I want to play something. 
 

I used to pirate games when I was very young, so I guess I’ve always been okay with digital only. 

[8tg]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

says who

Rockstar 

the way around this is a third party patch that reverts the game to an older version that existed before the rockstar games launcher

just the normal version of gta iv you get on steam requires the rockstar games launcher from the start, and since that doesn’t work on old windows…

 

steam is bad enough for not working on windows 7 or xp/vista anymore, on paper it doesn’t support 8/8.1 but it still works on them 

[AngelaHornung]

29 minutes ago, johnt said:

I accepted it bc I hated storing discs and floppies. It’s not like discs were the only medium for games lol one version of flight sim had like  24 floppies. It wasn’t sustainable. It’s also become extremely obsolete. I can download the entire earth in a crazy resolution from steam in under an hour. I hate gaming on a console when my nephew has to find the disc and pop it in just to verify ownership. It’s stupid. 
 

but I also don’t like having five different drm stores to navigate for all my tastes now. Each one becoming more resource heavy than the previous version. I mean the windows store is a joke. A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!! But it’s easier than managing physical media when I want to play something. 
 

I used to pirate games when I was very young, so I guess I’ve always been okay with digital only. 

Man I must have all the wrong opinions in your mind, I love grabbing the case and the disc and popping them in. Something about that physical plastic, also is the Windows store really that bad? 

[AngelaHornung]

28 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Rockstar 

the way around this is a third party patch that reverts the game to an older version that existed before the rockstar games launcher

just the normal version of gta iv you get on steam requires the rockstar games launcher from the start, and since that doesn’t work on old windows…

 

steam is bad enough for not working on windows 7 or xp/vista anymore, on paper it doesn’t support 8/8.1 but it still works on them 

Yeah but who is still playing on Windows 8, also that box looks like the Windows 8 UI. Do you still have a Windows 8 machine?

[emosun]

42 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Rockstar 

oh i guess for people that think steam is the be all end all of running games...... then sure for those people rockstar tells them what to do.

[AngelaHornung]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

oh i guess for people that think steam is the be all end all of running games...... then sure for those people rockstar tells them what to do.

Certainly while not the be all end all, but its like the Amazon of PC gaming, its where most people will go. 

[da na]

Because it's a lot easier to remove DRM and online requirements from a PC game than a console game. 

[8tg]

26 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

Yeah but who is still playing on Windows 8, also that box looks like the Windows 8 UI. Do you still have a Windows 8 machine?

It is windows 8.1, but it doesn’t matter. The existence of the DRM to begin with is the problem. It’s an example of media longevity where an item of media was constricted in its possible playable states, and the benefit of the PC as a platform in terms of being able to keep user control of the media means it doesn’t matter.

It’s not shown to be doable as of yet with digital consoles.

 

[8tg]

15 minutes ago, emosun said:

oh i guess for people that think steam is the be all end all of running games...... then sure for those people rockstar tells them what to do.

Thats the point you dingus.

With PC the idea of digital media is less of a concern because you have the control over the media to work around dumb things like game launchers. That’s why nobody really cares about the media being dominantly digital only. As opposed to consoles using digital only content, where these types of workarounds are a lot harder or currently nonexistent.

[emosun]

21 minutes ago, 8tg said:

As opposed to consoles using digital only content, where these types of workarounds are a lot harder or currently nonexistent.

 

1 hour ago, emosun said:

closed ecosystems like consoles it's less accepted due to basically being at the mercy of microsoft/sony/nintendo

way to read

[Vicarian]

Digital only copies of games are becoming more prevalent on consoles as well.  For instance, the PS5 has versions that shipped without a disc drive.  PlayStation, Microsoft, and Nintendo all operate digital only storefronts.  Many retailers are ceasing to stock physical PC media, and big publishers seem to be moving away from that space as well.  This could be due to the dominance of Steam and seemingly every publisher under the sun trying to scrape a bit of crumbs from Valve's 30% feasting table.

All that said, I'm part of the demographic that those moves make sense for.  I prefer digital media.  I've had too many discs of games get broken on accident.  Most heartbreaking was my copy of Morrowind, my favorite game of all time.  I replaced it, but had to purchase another copy.  Zenimax was having none of my "I accidentally broke my disc" story.  At least with digital copies of games, I don't have to argue with a publisher to grant me the ability to continue to play a game I purchased and ended up losing through no fault of my own.

Somewhat tangentially related, just saying that publishers don't always make good decisions: publishers enjoy killing good games that many people enjoy (e.g. Ubisoft and The Crew).  I support the "Stop Killing Games" endeavor by Ross Scott, but as I'm in the States, I have little recourse for action since I don't own a copy of The Crew.  So, even digital media isn't completely safe in the end.

Late stage capitalism, right?

[AngelaHornung]

So effectively it seems that it is agreed upon that consoles are being held to a higher standard in terms of the issue of physical media due to the following reasons that aren't as or present at all on PCs.

 

• Closed eco-system
• DRM

I suppose I can see the merit, but personally I think the issue is a lack of choice to have physical media and the DRM. 

[Doobeedoo]

To me it's kinda whatever on PC as it's really more to do with DRM anyway. What's the point of say physical media if it requires online authentication for a game that doesn't even need it?

So really the thing is that games that are not online should not have DRM though, physical or offline games you bough. But here we are with Steam and Battle.net though, we have GOG as alt.