Oh. So he is an asshole like Elon. Good to know.

We are fools each time to expect any different :(

Correct. If you own some data, nothing stops you from writing it to whatever media you want, be it laser discs, ribbon or HDD. Do console gamers own anything? Most probably not.

It's true tho, we never owned games, music, or movies on physical media either. We owned the revokable rights to view/use that copy of the media for private usage.

Every teacher that showed a movie in class broke a federal law.

It was just one of those things that was unenforceable and no one understood.

It doesn't mean we should accept not owning media, it just means we have zero chance of fixing it if we never understand it. A purchase should be lifetime usage, regardless of media. What you're buying is a license to view/use it, method doesn't matter.

Like how some people back in the day would only download a movie if they owned the DVD. That should be legal.

But trying to explain that never goes well

"A mentality issue that we've built a business model around. Now that our exploitive behavior is laid bare, you want to complain about it. I just don't understand why you're so attached to the 'metaphor' of ownership that we've been using to extract money from you."

Naw man, that's just what they want you to believe because it benefits them.

We've de facto owned copies of whatever was purchased until the Internet changed the way ownership functions.

Laws are written by people. Traditionally, greedy people.

I think everyone understands just fine, we just won't be able to change that until the people who write laws are changed.

You mean the same guy that told people to work two jobs for the honor of buying his five hundred and ninety nine dollar console in 2006? Oh yeah, he's an asshole.

Again, we know that we don't own Crash Bandicot, the IP, but, we wanna own a copy of a game that features Crash Bandicot.

No, that's literally how software/media has always worked...

If you "own" code, then you can copy, distribute, and profit off of it 100% legally.

That's why software/media you "buy" is a license for personal use.

That's the entire point of the issue....

Did you think Blockbuster or any other rental store could buy a copy from Walmart and rent it out? Those were different licenses and the rental stores paid a shit ton more for their copies to be able to rent them.

Because it's never been about the physical media, but the license attached to it that determines fair usage

De facto, yes. De jure, no.

All of them are, especially when you get anywhere near the size of Sony.

Did you think Blockbuster or any other rental store could buy a copy from Walmart and rent it out? Those were different licenses and the rental stores paid a shit ton more for their copies to be able to rent them.

Yes and no. They did have licensing deals for video, but for video games they relied entirely on the First Sale Doctrine. Nintendo tried to sue because they didn't want to allow rentals, and lost.

Keep doubling down Sony, you’re doing great

No, it's a corporate greed issue that we don't want to deal with. Fuck him and capitalism.

Straight up wrong. There's an exception to copyright for educational purposes for starters, so you're really being a dipshit eating your foot more than you are correct.

He's half right. An all-digital future is an inevitability, one way or another. In a world where games have a long tail of updates and DLC, what's printed on the disc is often quickly obsolete anyway, it's not necessarily the version you want to preserve and won't be that useful by itself in 50 years time when all servers are gone.

But consumers are angry because you haven't given us an alternative that lets us trust that we own our games. The problem is that we don't trust you or the industry, not when the industry is actively fighting against ownership with DRM and games being shut down left and right. If you want to earn our trust, show us what your solution to these problems is. Don't just tell us we're wrong to want to own our games, solve the problem.

That cannot be revoked arbitrarily by fuckheads like this piece of trash.

Did you think Blockbuster or any other rental store could buy a copy from Walmart and rent it out?

YES! That's how it fucking worked! For the exact same reason libraries can just buy a book, and then lend it out, because they fucking own it. That's what the money was for!

Rental chains only developed contractual relationships with movie studios because it's otherwise kind of difficult to buy five thousand copies of one tape. Studios sued, and lost, and came back with a truce.

The first sale doctrine is over a century old. Every medium has tried insisting it's special, and been slapped down as just another product. Software has been long awaiting that slap. Their excuses aren't anything new. Your rights have not changed.

Revoke my books. I fucking dare you.

And nobody struggles with this for books. Not one soul.

An all-digital future is not by any means inevitable...

Can I sell my digital copy to someone else? Or borrow it to them?

You keep making it different, asshole.

We're already a lot closer to it than you think. Do you know how many modern games don't even fit on the disc in the first place? Or ship incomplete because in order to meet a target release date they have to start pressing discs before 1.0 is actually finished? And what about all the updates and DLC?

In 50 years time, when servers are all gone and you can't redownload the data that wasn't on the disc, do you still own your games?

ceos getting upset at people pirating their games is a mentality issue.

SD cards instead of CDs. Problem solved.

Lend

This metaphorical disc has the metaphorical bits of the game on it. Which I will metaphorically keep and backup forever. …metaphoricallly speaking.

But it had Ridge Racer!

I'd borrow you one of my fucks, but I don't have any.

I give you knowledge for free, broke ass

Did too much hair dye seep into his brain?

Are you unaware of digital book markets?

Have you seen the prices on SD cards lately?

These days "borrow" can mean "lend" because it all comes down to common usage. Dictionary writers are historians of language, not arbiters of it.

I mean he is right that it's a metaphor for owning games.

And he is very wrong that it's a mentality issue.

Honestly I even believe him that physical discs are not feasible anymore to produce, but then again I ask: "don't we have a point in making sure we still own a copy of the product we bought?" It's not like we don't have a reason to be anxious about this.

And then if we go back to the discs, if you get rid of that, what's the point of consoles? The differences between PC and console get slimmer by the day, and this exacerbates it.

You misunderstand me.

It hasn't always worked the way it does today. I know you buy a "license". But when you bought that cd rom or floppy or dvd or whatever physical media, you didn't have to do anything else to make it work. That copy ALWAYS worked, and you could sell it when you no longer needed it. Or you could let your friend borrow it.

"Fair usage" doesn't really work the way it used to.

It wasn’t a metaphor until the games became too large for the storage media that the console manufacturers chose. They could choose better storage media.

Sure, but like I said. People write the law... Greedy people usually.

Gamers who want to rent a PS6 will simply work a second job to afford it.

Digital book markets are why I will never fully switch from physical books. I prefer to own my shit and give it away if I want, can’t do that with an ebook or a downloaded game.

CEO has CEO opinion, news at 11!

Exactly. I don't need a disk. If he would distribute games like GOG do nobody would bring this disk thing up.

The only people upset about not having a physical copy are the same with control issues in all other aspects of their life. Probably preppers too 😂 friggin boomer mentality.

Owning a disc hasn’t been synonym with owning a game in a long time. And that was already an issue!

I think he's correct that it's a mentality issue: but the issue is with Sony's mentality, not the consumer. If the PlayStation store operated like gog.com there wouldn't be as much of an issue.

I think he also underestimates the advantages of a separate disk per game, especially when he mentions hardware prices in the same breath...

No one is trying to claim they own the IP, and no one is claiming they own the source code to the game either.

That seems to be the way all these fucking companies try to frame things to justify telling you to pay them and then fuck off. They're trying to justify having you pay them for nothing, and then enforce it legally.

They’re trying so hard to implode. All we have to do is nothing and they’ll be gone in a few years.

He'd probably argue you couldn't legally do that with the disc copy you had though.

I've only ever heard people who have English as a second or third language mix them up.

I understand that physical discs have become a metaphor for 'owning' games. I really understand that mentality...

Yeah, the fact that you call it a "metaphor" proves you don't understand it at all.