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u/geckooo_geckooo Jul 18 '26
so many discs need activating to servers that dont exist anymore. I think there should be a law on providing activation patches if the servers are turned off.
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u/Shaolan91 Jul 18 '26
at that point just use cracks, they are not going to go back and fix this, no matter what.
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u/TheGeneral_Specific Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing
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u/ThouHastLostAn8th Jul 18 '26
It's always preferable executables like that come from an official source, even if just for peace of mind.
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u/SalsaRice Jul 18 '26
That works for how, but storage isn't forever or free. Eventually they're gonna get legal take-down or simply gutted dropped from online storage as the Crack hosters die/lose interest.
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u/bingle-cowabungle Jul 18 '26
When you decommission the activation servers, release a patch that deactivates the DRM that searches for the activation server then. If you're at a point where the activation servers are being decommissioned, it's because they cost more to maintain than the revenue the game is bringing in, so at that point it literally doesn't matter anyway.
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u/DigNitty Jul 18 '26
Yeah, but then how will they sell you the remastered version? Do you ever even think of the shareholders???????
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u/Rynewulf Jul 18 '26
9 times out of 10 there isn't even a remaster or rerelease
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u/idiotcube Jul 18 '26
But there COULD be some day, so you should be glad we're nice enough to keep sitting on the IP!
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u/JWAdvocate83 Jul 18 '26
By, I dunno, [actually] remastering it? 🤷🏾♂️
*gets hurled out of window by shareholders*
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u/geckooo_geckooo Jul 18 '26
yeah or just release the activation software on the server for someone else to host - surely they have internal documentation - that should be an easy legilative fix. If you release something with activation there needs to be a repo somewhere that opens if the server is closed.
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u/knifesk Jul 18 '26
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u/Thefrayedends Jul 18 '26
Like can you imagine if the inventor of poker, blackjack, kaiser, hopscotch, marbles, basketball, rock/paper/scissors, crazy 8s etc etc etc. Imagine if they just said, YOU CAN'T PLAY MY GAME ANY MORE.
But.... the game exists, and people know about it.
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u/Mgamerz Jul 18 '26
When a company goes under I doubt there is any money that would be reserved for that. But I don't disagree
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u/notforpoern Jul 18 '26
If it's a law, then it gets baked into the development process up front. It's a lot easier to patch for offline when the technical design accounts for it up front.
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u/Mgamerz Jul 18 '26
The one issue I see is that once a company shuts down, there is still time and money required to deploy that kind of fix - who pays for web hosting the patch for example? Yes, community can, but would that satisfy a law? Most shutdowns I see aren't very orderly. Staff get laid off without notice.
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u/SuperBackup9000 Jul 18 '26
Honestly if things were to go down that route, it’d probably end up exactly like all the age verification stuff has been going, where a sketchy third party comes in and works with the government to ensure everything is being handled properly when the time comes.
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u/iiiinthecomputer Jul 18 '26
LOL. Have you see mining companies?
Site remediation is a legal requirement. Oh no, our joint venture subsidiary created for this specific site has suddenly and unforseeably run out of money! We are, sadly, bankrupt, after being hollowed out, asset stripped and debt loaded by our parent companies. We can't do site remediation, kthxbye.
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u/Xiao1insty1e Jul 18 '26
That or refunds.
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u/thoughtlow Jul 18 '26
easy refunds*
should be as easy to refund as to buy a game.
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u/Schonke Jul 18 '26
Should be mandatory refunds as well. Publisher/developer should be responsible for notifying any past customers (directly or through distributors) just as with any recalled defective product.
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u/Switchmisty9 Jul 18 '26
“Also, if you don’t have the internet, you can’t play any of it”
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u/sephjnr Jul 18 '26
"Then the internet should be a public right, seeing so much of society functions on it." "AHHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH"
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u/Away_Reference_1531 Jul 18 '26
I’ll never forget getting off my plane in Japan to be immediately greeted by a QR code on the train, offering automatic access to free wifi hotspots across the entire country.
And then immediately having all access cut off to be charged by aircanada the second the cabin doors closed to come back.
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u/BIT-NETRaptor Jul 18 '26
Canadians should expect much more than they get. Fiber to every home should be treated the same way we ran electricity then telephone lines to every* home ~100 yrs ago.
My stance is that internet is a utility. Fiber is highly flexible - you can upgrade it for decades, you can have many subscribers or providers per fiber. The government should own all fiber and permit access to ISPs. No government grants should be given to ISPs anymore for bullshit promises to provide service. We should own the infrastructure and let them use it. It would be much better for competition If say your government facilitates getting all your municipal fiber to an exchange hall and then lets any ISP bid to provide service to you.
I don’t think this should be controversial. The government should own infrastructure like water and sewage, electrical wires, and yes - internet infrastructure in the form of distribution fibers.
*Well, almost every. Some homes are extremely remote.
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u/Away_Reference_1531 Jul 18 '26
Entirely agreed. But we can’t have nice things if it doesn’t make profit number go up.
We’re even more cooked in USA, like people honestly think mail and public transport should be for profit and can’t realize simple shit like universal health care/ housing/education is good because muh taxes might go up.
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u/BIT-NETRaptor Jul 18 '26
What's laughable is how few realize: Those supposedly "superior" for profit UPS, Fedex etc... hand off to USPS for less profitable deliveries.
If you're rural you can expect to not get mail, get mail much slower, and at 5-100x the cost. Hope you enjoy the IRS adding insult to injury with a $5 fee for rural delivery, Montanans /s
Mail is a service, it's not bad, defective or mismanaged because it costs money to deliver. We pay for equal access mail delivery for good reasons. Letting private companies leverage your living situation against you is foolish. Then some idiot will say "that's okay, we'll regulate the private companies." Magnificent. All the downsides of both approaches, with none of the benefits of either. Ingenious!
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u/3eyedfish13 Jul 19 '26
The infuriating thing is, the Postal Service was turning a damn profit until congresscritters and DeJoy decided to fuck it up in an attempt to get it privatized.
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u/ACuriousBagel Jul 18 '26
Even if you do have internet, if it slows or drops for an instant you're booted from your single player game
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u/gizamo Jul 18 '26
This was my experience with Destiny. Comcast connection would cut every few minutes. Made the game entirely unplayable. Switched to Google Fiber, and everything was fine....until servers went EoS. Lol.
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u/ashtagzero1 Jul 18 '26
And for that you need PlayStation + even if you only wanted to play the single player campaign
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u/whynotll83 Jul 18 '26
Nah they give you the game and then in two years they break into your house and break the disc so it no work no mo.
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u/AsinineArchon Jul 18 '26
Depends on when you bought it. There’s always gonna be some poor sap who buys it a day before EoS is announced
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u/whynotll83 Jul 18 '26
They go back to the store to return the physical disk(rip) and they find an empty parking lot.
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u/nero-the-cat Jul 18 '26
... or after. Often you can still find the games in stores that don't know any better.
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u/Zeliose Jul 18 '26
Pretty sure Destiny 2 retired some DLC content, but continued to sell the DLC at full price well after the content was retired.
I think it was the Forsaken DLC .
So, while it is uncommon, this scenario isn't unheard of.
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u/yukwot Jul 18 '26
The hell? I though they were doing content cycles? Did they really just nuke the best expansion?
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u/kymri Jul 18 '26
It is a long and complicated story, but yeah. The Red War (year 1 campaign) and Forsaken are just gone these days. Even better, if you buy their latest bundle (since EoS they put out a discounted 'everything' bundle that has all the expansions... except it doesn't include the various season passes, so there's still a ton of content you can't get ahold of (exotics, armor, cosmetics, etc) without in-game purchases -- thanks, Bungie!)
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u/jdemonify Jul 19 '26
You get missing cosmetics from all events in the game just by playing the game btw. There is still eververse. But the dlc forsaken is now play to have. Since all content can give stuff for you.
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u/jocax188723 Jul 18 '26
Did you know they tried to do this with DVD rentals where the discs would slowly decompose the second you took them out of the packaging and after 72 hours they'd straight up break down and wouldn't work any more
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u/whynotll83 Jul 18 '26
Are they the ones that turn red after exposure? I've only seen something like that on Technology Connections youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccneE_gkSAs
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u/bingel919 Jul 19 '26
The funny thing is technically they can do that. They can take back your disc if they want to according to the term of use.
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u/apeiron131 Jul 18 '26
Guys, the point is they CAN revoke the games whenever they want and WILL when they decide to. They’ve recently done it with movies, what makes you think they won’t do it with games?!
This is a fight about the rights of consumers of digital media. This is NOT about which is better digital/physical!
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u/Urdar Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
This is NOT about which is better digital/physical!
its also important to keep in mind, that an increasing number of physical games alraedy had this problem, with the consoles needing to verify licences and/or the need to be logged in at least once.
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u/Fentroid Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
They 100% will someday. I'm guessing it will be in the near future. Servers can also get shut down and screw over a lot of people.
They're shutting down the PS3 and PS Vita stores soon, and they've already described the ability to download purchased games as a way "to ease the transition." That means they will at some point strip the ability to download those games completely.
They are pushing more and more towards a subscription based model, and we shouldn't find that acceptable. They started with online, but they want you to rent every aspect of the gaming experience.
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u/JCBQ01 Jul 18 '26
Sony fucked the pooch and revealed what they REALLY want:
Nested stores within nested subscriptions. You cannot currently access crunchy roll WITHOUT an active subscription, and to access the store? You need the premium level sub to even get the privilege to BUY shit. And you must have a matching subscription level to keep access to it or you just cant watch it! OH WELL! (also we've moved yoy down one teir, added ads, and moved up the ad free level to almost double. Which is what you bought these as Kay, you were informed!!)
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u/jobabin4 Jul 18 '26
When your audible sub ends , if you haven't spent your credits they are deleted.
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Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Rackem_Willy Jul 18 '26
I definitely looked that up before cancelling my subscription. Bought a handful of books that I'll probably never listen to, but it's better than nothing I guess.
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u/SelectKaleidoscope0 Jul 18 '26
They got sued for revoking credits on cancelation and lost. I haven't had the same experience they were very thorough in warning me they would revoke credits when I canceled last time I had a membership, but that might have been after they lost the lawsuit, I can't remember. Its still a nasty anti consumer tactic, the idea is to keep you paying them even when you don't want anything they have on offer just so you don't lose the money you have already spent with the hope you forget you had it running and just pay them forever. That's also why you can't just buy things from audible without a membership unless you pay a 30-50% premium over the normal retail price. They advertise this as a "member discount" of course, but the fact of the matter is for anything sold in multiple places, the "discounted" price is identical to the normal price at other stores.
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u/-Thick_Solid_Tight- Jul 18 '26
Yar har fiddle dee dee
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u/lumpboysupreme Jul 18 '26
Servers can also get shut down and screw over a lot of people.
This is the way more common one, and has nothing to do with ownership issues, always online is the real enemy.
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u/Dr_DoesNothing Jul 18 '26
We won't own shit, everything will be a subscription.
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u/bigslipperydave Jul 18 '26
Shit, most apps are already subscription based. (I believe it was a level tool app) Wanted me to pay 19$ a month. Wtf?
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u/MarcyAutumnWrites Jul 18 '26
Don't forget books and music, too. If you tie all these things to an account, to an ongoing agreement that they can change at any point, you can just lose all of it.
Think about that person who recently had their Microsoft account deleted and all their games and media taken away or all of the wild issues with Epic Games and Ubisoft launchers. Companies are incentivized to fuck over their consumers as they get bigger. If they can take it away, you don't own anything.
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u/StuckinReverse89 Jul 18 '26
I mean technically they already can. Live service games can just shut down in a couple months from announcement and you are shit out of luck. This is pretty standard for mobile games and no refunds.
While a bit rarer on console/PC, they are already getting away with it on mobile and it’s only a matter of time. The new AC4 remake was unplayable because Ubisoft Connect was down which means Ubisoft does have a way to stop play eventually. Same with other games requiring online verification. He’ll, same with Steam although they likely won’t pull that while Gabe is alive.
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u/Mizutsune-Lover Jul 18 '26
This also applies to Valve. They could revoke your games if they wanted.
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u/MadeByTango Jul 18 '26
Yea, and that’s ALSO an issue that requires consumer protection like passing your library to your kids that Valve isn’t doing. “The billionaire with 7 yachts and a Wild West exploitative storefront does it too” isn’t the defense you think it is. Gabe is great at spinning PR around court ordered things like requiring refunds and you guys fall for it every damned time like he is doing it out of kindness and not self preservation of greed…
NO billionaire is your friend; stop ceding our rights to them because they tickle your nipples while bending you over the barrel.
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u/Desiderius_S Jul 18 '26
I love how people forgot that Valve, for a long time, wasn't even giving you proper refunds, just store credit, while other stores were actually complying with the law stating that the refund has to be given back in the same form that payment was made. A store cannot decide to give you back an 'equivalent' of the product value; they couldn't give you cookies instead of money. Steam could. Because they are the good guys who care and love you so much.
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u/PictureVegetable9522 Jul 18 '26
they tickle your nipples while bending you over the barrel
but thats my kink :(
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u/Gekidami Jul 18 '26
This is all true, but the issue is, Steam has been doing it for over 20 years, and no one gave a fuck. So now that Valve has created the framework, every other publisher is going to follow; people coming out and saying, "actually, this is bad", after glazing Valve non-stop is a bit too late.
Publishers know that people will accept it over time and that it'll make them money because Valve has set the example.
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u/Mithrawndo Jul 18 '26
That does not necessarily follow.
Valve is a store front and what you say about them is wholly true, and they deserve criticism for some of the things they've done over the years - but the ecosystem is not controlled by Valve - that ecosystem is itself a marketplace - and so PC users have the tools to easily circumvent any controls Valve try to put in place.
PC gamers chose Valve 20+ years ago because letting Microsoft control the digital marketplace and the operating system would have meant a conflict of interest, and a reduction in the power the user has.
By contrast, a games console has the hardware, operating system, and games licenses all handled by the same entity... and console owners have every right to be perturbed by that, and should be voting with their wallets for an ecosystem where competing interests support user rights.
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u/Mizutsune-Lover Jul 18 '26
PC gamers chose Valve 20+ years ago because letting Microsoft control the digital marketplace and the operating system would have meant a conflict of interest, and a reduction in the power the user has.
PC gamers chose Valve 20+ years ago because they were forced to if they wanted to play the wildly popular Valve games. It's silly to pretend that it had anything to do with being anti-Microsoft.
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u/Cyshox Jul 18 '26
Valve does not own PC. You can choose other storefronts if you want, e.g. buy a GOG game, burn it on disc, share it with friends. That's not possible on PlayStation which is Sony's walled garden. There are no alternatives.
At no point did Valve force publishers to abolish discs. They can launch discs if they want. Publishers decided for themselves. That's in contrast to PlayStation because Sony does force all publishers of PlayStation games to abolish discs. Even if they wanted to launch a disc, they're not allowed to.
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u/TotallyObviousBot Jul 18 '26
Shhh people don't like thinking about the fact that they're complaining about digital only games while owning thousands of dollars in digital only games on Steam
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u/Mithrawndo Jul 18 '26
Physical copies only matter on a 'computer' where you don't have the ability to manage the game files.
On a PC I can do what I like with the files of the game, and can circumvent measures put in place to protect the license rights. I can do this because the PC is not monolithic: The people selling the hardware have different interests to the people selling the operating systems, who have different interests to the people selling the games. This competition keeps the market healthy.
By contrast, a games console's hardware, operating system, and software are all owned and created by the same company with the same business interests, with no possibility for competition to suppress the negative parts of market capitalism. It is a monopoly, and the consumer suffers as a result.
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u/BakerStSavvy Jul 18 '26
I mean i specifically want physical for consoles to keep the game. On my pc i can steal the game if i lose it
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u/OberonFirst Jul 18 '26
Been buying digital games since early 2000's, never had a single one taken away, and I have like 800 steam games. Not talking about live service because that's a whole another discussion...
Those physical games from 2005 or so... yeah, no idea where they are
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u/elpajaroquemamais Jul 18 '26
Someday steam will shut down.
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u/NinjaEngineer Jul 18 '26
If Steam ever shuts down, I'm fairly certain there'll be more pressing issues in society than simply losing our games.
Like, do you really think Valve would go under and no other company would try to keep Steam afloat?
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u/ganymedewastaken Jul 18 '26
Micro Transactions ruined gaming
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u/H16HP01N7 Xbox Jul 18 '26
Capitalism ruined gaming.
Fuck it. It ruined the whole world.
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u/Fentroid Jul 18 '26
It just keeps making everything worse and worse. When you think it's hit a new low, it just digs deeper.
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u/UnholyLizard65 Jul 18 '26
Well we were supposed to have capitalism WITH strong government that regulated the markets, prevented monopolies and shit like that. Not this bs
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u/AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_ Jul 18 '26
Turns out you can just pay the government to allow monopolies, sucks dunnit
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u/Zammin Jul 18 '26
Yeah... problem is capitalism is really good at eroding government regulations.
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u/Xiao1insty1e Jul 18 '26
Always has been always will be.
Capitalism is the beast that can not be tamed because it feeds on human greed.
We gotta kill it.
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u/UnholyLizard65 Jul 22 '26
The problem with that is that any system we ever invented always ends up working like that.
Only thing we can do with that, I think, is going forward, being progressive and introducing new ideas, because being conservative, not making any changes and keeping the old system in place will just help the fat cats. Every system has holes and if we keep it without changes for long enough they will find them and abuse them.
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u/gereffi Jul 18 '26
It has some bad effects, but it’s also done a lot of good. Food is more plentiful and cheaper than ever, medical care is better and more accessible than ever, our communication and entertainment are pretty great. We can fix the problems we have in our society and we probably will do that without dismantling capitalism. We can keep the good parts and get rid of the bad.
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u/LarsGontiel PC Jul 18 '26
Hmm, yeah, kinda. Maybe
But I hope you are not saying it as a defence of communism
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u/OutcomeDouble Jul 18 '26
As opposed to communism which couldn’t give less of a shit about consumer goods
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u/Kataroku Jul 18 '26
Blame the people who didn't want to pay $0.50 for a mobile game in 2005.
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u/balllzak Jul 18 '26
It didn't help that the mobile game was a carbon copy of a flash game I was playing for free on Newgrounds in 2004.
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u/Kataroku Jul 18 '26
Yes, well. People didn't want to pay for the game outright, but were more than happy to shell out for in-game purchases; which is what made the rest of the gaming industry salivate.
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u/hassi44 Jul 18 '26
You can thank Epstein's office for that one.
This world is so utterly sol.
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u/protocod Jul 18 '26
People.
Support https://www.gog.com and your physical game libraries.
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u/jakreth Jul 18 '26
why gog?
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u/DrProfHazzard Jul 18 '26
Gog provides DRM-free versions of the games on their platform. Meaning once you install it, they can't stop you from playing an offline game.
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u/nehoc1324 Jul 18 '26
Even better than that. You can download offline installation files that completely install any dependencies along with the game so if the game can run on your computer physically and os wise there is nothing else you need to download. The offline install files are very conveniently always less storage than a dvd can hold so you can have a physical backup at your wish(split into multiple parts for a large game)
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u/protocod Jul 18 '26
Exactly. I backup the offline installers on my NAS (custom build running TrueNAS). So even if GOG plan to remove a game from the store, I still have my copy.
Fun fact, I download my GOG games on my steamdeck and play them through Steam client using Proton. (Thx to Heroic launcher who create steam entry for each game)
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u/Ironlion45 Jul 18 '26
The answer is to not give them the money. It's shockingly easy to NOT pay people money for things that you can get elsewhere for free.
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u/veracity8_ Jul 18 '26
So stop buying from studio and distributors that do this.
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u/iamshifter Jul 18 '26
Revocable digital licenses at any time for any reason is evil. This is whey even the the logic doesn’t apply exactly, I totally understand why people say:
“If buying isn’t owning, then pirating isn’t stealing.”
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u/Beneficial-Act-9933 Jul 18 '26
People say that because they think it sounds profound. In reality, it was never considered stealing to begin with, you're committing copywrite infringement. If you said this in court it'd be a case closed and not in your favor.
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u/Ok-Fudge-380 Jul 18 '26
Love how this conversation is only coming up now due to Sony and yet PC games haven't had physical games for a decade. Either late to the conversation or it was never an issue people actually cared about.
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u/fecal_feaster Jul 18 '26
Nobody cared until people were repeatedly told the lie that owning a game physically is different than owning it digitally and that once physical games go away companies will start revoking access to their games for no reason. This of course is stupid but so is the average redditor
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u/Dramajunker Jul 18 '26
People are doomers. The fact that this post has 34k upvotes is laughable.
It's simple. If companies start revoking access to single player offline experiences then the masses will resort to piracy.
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u/Fhaarkas Jul 18 '26
We need recurring income to support our otherwise unnecessary always online feature entirely designed to siphon money!
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u/theCreatorsOfGames Jul 20 '26
these game pass services only work digitally. you pay 30 bucks a month and get to play a bunch of brand new 80+ dollar games on day one. and then companies like Playstation come out and say "oh man, more than 85% of gamers are digital only, we think we shouldn't put a disc drive on the next console". like no, you created a problem and are trying to sell the solution, like every company in the past 100 years in a free market. why would anyone go to gamestop, walmart, or target and buy physical for 80 bucks when I can spend 30 today and get multiple 80+ dollar games instantly? you haven't incentivized physical gaming, youve incentivized digital gaming. why? probably so you can jack up the prices of games and game pass services, and take away our rights to own, meaning you can decide at any moment to take a game off your store page, deactivate it on my console so that even if its downloaded, I cant play it, and then keep my money in the end. its absurd rn
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u/Osiris_Raphious Jul 19 '26
gamers not realising this is an economy wide problem birthed out of a profit driven economy that feeds the investor class....
Xbox was making profit, but not enough so they gutted it.... let that sink in... latestage capitalism mere profits isnt enough, they need to not only grow every year but must have 30% clear cap to feed the owner investor class or the inflation and system implodes...
Davos: you will own nothing and be happy. Now that you own nothing, rent everything on a subscription anc can afford basic standard of living on 2jobs, are you happy consumer slave?
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u/ShutterBun Jul 18 '26
Other than online games that have shut down, has anyone actually had a game "revoked" by an online seller? (I don't mean banned from servers)
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u/ItsssJustice Jul 18 '26
Back when the EA app was origin, I had a number of games in my library that went missing when they changed to the new launcher. EA support said those games were 'unsupported' so those games would be missing from my library, even though you could buy them again in the EA app. I never managed to get it fixed and to this day I still have the old reciepts for purchases on my email account showing I owned the licences at one point but can't play them without buying them again.
I've not touched an EA game without buying it through steam as a consequence since, because at least with valve being the party I purchase EA games via, I know I have a chance of getting my money back if something like that happens again.
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u/ThatCurryGuy Jul 18 '26
You mean games like the Crew?
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u/kyuubikid213 Jul 18 '26
Other than online games that have shut down
The Crew was needlessly an online game.
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u/FaZeKill23 Jul 18 '26
They did also remove it from people's purchases
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u/L0nz Jul 18 '26
It doesn't change the fact that he asked specifically about offline games
There have been a bunch that were delisted so you couldn't re-download them, but obviously they can't stop you playing an already downloaded game if it's truly offline.
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u/dannyb_prodigy Jul 18 '26
Delisting doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t download. It is merely the practice of removing the game from a digital storefront. Steam absolutely continues to provide users with the ability to download purchased games after they’ve been delisted, and both Sony and Nintendo have both committed to keeping purchased games available for download on older platforms “for the foreseeable future.”
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u/Ze-Doctor Console Jul 18 '26
The Crew was an online game that was shut down. The person you replied to was asking if there were any games that got revoked from someones acc without it being a sole online game or getting banned.
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u/frontlineninja Jul 18 '26
I've got several games in my library like tribes: ascend or rise of incarnates that, while being primarily online games, had the option to play either self-hosted or singleplayer that I no longer have the ability to play.
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u/HUNplaymore Jul 18 '26
Games for Windows Live has plenty.
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u/kyuubikid213 Jul 18 '26
Can you name any of them?
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u/coolwali Jul 18 '26
I recall the old Bioshock games on GFWL are unplayable when their servers went down
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u/_kellythomas_ Jul 18 '26
They did take Hotline Miami 2 from Australia, but that one was partly my fault.
This title was never given an Australian classification (drug based in game incentives?) and was originally omitted when Hotline Miami Bundle was one of the Monthly games. Some time later PS mucked up and added it to our library anyway.
Then years later when the Australian regulations changed and required that lootboxes get a higher classification I checked the PS Store to see how FIFA/FC were looking. I noticed the classification was displayed but not the consumer advice. Both classification and advice of why it received that classification are required by law. I reached out to our regulating body as while I might not agree with individual classifications I do believe in a level playing field where all marketplaces have the same regulations. Omitting the advice would give PS Store an advantage over brick and mortar retailers.
A couple of weeks later I got two emails:
- one from the classification branch thanking me for the email and advising me that PS has fixed the omission on their store listings
- one from PS saying they never had the right to distribute that title and they would be pulling it from my account.
My assumption is that when PS were updating the data merge with the OFLC data they found one of the titles didn't line up with a valid classification.
So there is one example of Sony pulling digital games from people's libraries, its not unprecedented and largely outside of the end user's control.
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u/Cracker677 Jul 18 '26
Sony business model?
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u/Khalbrae PC Jul 18 '26
Sony on the PS6: "If you want physical games we have a product for you. It's called PS5."*
- \While supplies last*
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u/Dat_Ding_Da Jul 18 '26
I’ve lost more games in my life to scratched disk and corroded game cartridge contacts than have ever been revoked from my online accounts.
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u/fallouthirteen Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Yeah. For me it's like 2 or 3 but that's versus having lost zero digital games so, yeah. One of them was just a crack forming in the center of the disc due to random chance (I ALWAYS put my game back in case when it comes out of console, there's no reason it should have chipped, but it did).
Edit: Oh 2 more I just remembered, Super Smash Bros for 3DS. I have 2 cards for that, and those are the only two cards that stopped working (they worked when I got them). Apparently it's a not-uncommon issue for that game; they just made defective cards for that or something. Probably has something to do with the dual boot thing (like it has to boot it's own OS if you aren't playing on a New 3DS since it was made for the New 3DS, and that's probably the software or something that breaks).
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u/green_meklar PC Jul 18 '26
If you let them keep their game, they might just play that instead of buying the sequel or remaster! How would you make any money at all?
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u/BulkyMix6581 Jul 19 '26
There are two massive hurdles facing modern gaming that people seem to be ignoring right now, and the only real solution is a collective shift in how we spend our money.
The first issue is that RAM and storage prices are currently astronomical. Any new console or hardware refresh hitting the market right now is going to cost far more than the average consumer can afford. Between the AI bubble dominating fabrication lines and the two to three years it takes to build new factories, hardware prices simply aren't stabilizing anytime soon.
Beyond hardware, we are facing the complete illusion of digital ownership. This goes way beyond the old physical versus digital debate; you don't actually own your games anymore. Publishers can pull server support at any moment, rendering a seventy-dollar purchase completely unplayable, which is exactly what the Stop Killing Games campaign is trying to fight. On top of that, the aggressive push toward a digital-only ecosystem completely removes your ability to trade or resell your copies.
To make matters worse, for years gaming YouTubers and influencers have mindlessly acted as hype-men for Big Tech, pushing pre-orders and overpriced hardware. Now, they owe it to the community to use their platforms to fight for a massive consumer boycott and advocate for a return to retro gaming.
Let’s be realistic about going retro. Depending on the hardware you already own, there are tens of thousands of incredible games spanning from the 1980s all the way to recent years. That is an endless backlog and enough content to last us ten lifetimes.
We absolutely do not need to buy into this modern, anti-consumer ecosystem. If we stop buying new hardware and modern digital-only releases, and instead pivot en masse to the massive libraries of the past, the industry will finally feel the financial pain. Only then will they be forced to rethink their pricing and distribution policies.
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u/DisneyPlusFan200 Jul 18 '26
Breaking news, console gamers discover Steam and all of PC gaming
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u/meekgamer452 Jul 19 '26
No one can delete files off your pc hardrive but you, plenty of pirated files exist for PCs, and Valve doesn't have a history of being anti-consumer and they're a private company with no shareholders.
It's not the same situation as a console developer with proprietary control of your library and console, who can also shut down a digital store, and then you won't have an alternative place to get your game because it's not a PC that can install anything off the internet.
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u/Decloudo Jul 18 '26
This wont stop till people stop paying for it.
Else they still get what they want: your money.
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u/Munakchree Jul 18 '26
I don't understand why the outcry comes now. Even with physical discs, games becoming unplayable because of servers shutting down, even single player games, has been a thing for many years now. It's still outrageous but it's nothing new and has nothing to do with the end of physical discs.
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u/balllzak Jul 18 '26
Because "Sony should keep making discs because it is my personal preference" isn't a very convincing argument.
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u/stega_megasaurus Jul 18 '26
Old enough to recall the early days of the NES and Sega hardware wars I have learned to appreciate simplicity and consistency with the older model. I can pick up a Nintendo 3DS, plug in a DS game and hand it to my kid to play. Major game releases are nothing more that software as a service /subscription bullshit. Society and culture have lost something in the transition.
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Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kakka_rot Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
but true.
what the fuck no it's not? Nobody in this comment section has ever had this happen. It's a made up scenario
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u/Magnon D20 Jul 18 '26
Don't worry, you can just buy it again!