Physical media has been up against decline for years, as manufacturers and retailers drop DVDs, Blu-rays, and video games on disc in favor of their digital alternatives, including streaming and downloaded copies of films, television programs, and games. The lure of the digital is real — instant to obtain, easy to store. No waiting. No cluttered shelves. And you can shop around from the comfort of your home, in your pajamas.
But the cost of the decline of physical media is higher than one might think. Transitioning from tangible items to intangible digital copies housed in the cloud has robbed consumers of whatever ownership they might once have claimed over media. The change might seem subtle, even irrelevant, to most of us, at least on first glance. However, its implications are anything but trivial.
In October, the video game platform and store Steam added a disclosure to its checkout process, letting buyers know that they weren’t actually buying the game they’d added to their cart, but rather a license to play the game. What this means, as the Verge put it, is you don’t own the games you buy from Steam — at least those that require you to be online to play.
Its inclusion was driven by a change in California law that mandates the disclosure. As things stand, video game companies can — and have — removed games from libraries or stopped servicing them, treating certain games more like subscription-based services than owned products. In 2023, Sony did the same for television shows purchased by consumers after its licensing arrangement with…
Auteur: David Moscrop
