As inclined I am to agree with you on a personal level, kids these days are trained to think games just come with MTX, and all bonus content in a game that isn’t a loot box is just paid DLC. All Microsoft has to do is just make this the easiest way to get Xbox games, keep it going long enough, and people eventually won’t know any better or even care anymore. Then they ratchet up the price to make it feel like they’re still profiting from console sales as well.
Latency is enough of a thing that even a child raised on it will recognize the benefits of running the game locally, not to mention mods and other privileges that come with having a local copy of a game.
I’m probably just getting pessimistic with age, but corporations just see dollar signs with subscriptions and reduced expenses with digital distribution. Then they will outlive you and me.
It may be objectively better for players to have physical copies of their games installed on hardware they have dominion over, but we are unlikely to be around to prove that to our great grandkids. We can’t even guarantee even our own children will care enough to try to tell theirs. I’m almost certain owning physical copies of digital content is going to be for niche hobbyists in the future.
People always talk about this being physical versus digital, but I’d say this is about DRM. Physical media decays. DRM-free games can be perfectly copied over and over again, and it comes with the bonus of not taking up space in my apartment. If a game requires a server to connect to or stream from, that’s often just a fancy form of DRM.
My 7yo was upset the other night because I’d been playing FF7R (wanted to finish before the new one hits) instead of joining him in Minecraft or Fortnite or Parkitect or whatever.
He literally thought that FF7R didn’t have an ending because I guess in his mind all games are just live service/hobby things. Even I guess the ones that are story things.
As inclined I am to agree with you on a personal level, kids these days are trained to think games just come with MTX, and all bonus content in a game that isn’t a loot box is just paid DLC. All Microsoft has to do is just make this the easiest way to get Xbox games, keep it going long enough, and people eventually won’t know any better or even care anymore. Then they ratchet up the price to make it feel like they’re still profiting from console sales as well.
Latency is enough of a thing that even a child raised on it will recognize the benefits of running the game locally, not to mention mods and other privileges that come with having a local copy of a game.
I’m probably just getting pessimistic with age, but corporations just see dollar signs with subscriptions and reduced expenses with digital distribution. Then they will outlive you and me.
It may be objectively better for players to have physical copies of their games installed on hardware they have dominion over, but we are unlikely to be around to prove that to our great grandkids. We can’t even guarantee even our own children will care enough to try to tell theirs. I’m almost certain owning physical copies of digital content is going to be for niche hobbyists in the future.
People always talk about this being physical versus digital, but I’d say this is about DRM. Physical media decays. DRM-free games can be perfectly copied over and over again, and it comes with the bonus of not taking up space in my apartment. If a game requires a server to connect to or stream from, that’s often just a fancy form of DRM.
My 7yo was upset the other night because I’d been playing FF7R (wanted to finish before the new one hits) instead of joining him in Minecraft or Fortnite or Parkitect or whatever.
He literally thought that FF7R didn’t have an ending because I guess in his mind all games are just live service/hobby things. Even I guess the ones that are story things.