https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/sony-is-reminding-us-again-that-we-dont-own-our-playstation-games/
The future of gaming is going to be all digital, whether anyone likes it or not.
Some things are too bizarre to make up, and Sony's inability to read the room is one of them.
Over the last week or so, the media giant has sent emails to PlayStation users with its entire Terms of Service, which includes a reminder that their digital games are "licensed” and not “sold.” The communication comes as gamers continue to protest Sony's removal of physical media from the PlayStation 6.
As an isolated incident, Sony's email isn't really anything untoward. It lets the user know that they have recently accepted the most recent Terms of Service, Code of Conduct, End User License Agreement and Privacy Policy. The company even included full copies of each in the email.
But the timing of Sony’s email appears intentional, not just unfortunate. PlayStation users are furious over the company’s decision to remove the physical disc drive from the PlayStation 6, as well as its announcement that it will stop producing game discs altogether as of January 2028. Sony announced the end of physical discs just a few days after removing several digitally purchased movies from users’ accounts.
The email was spotted by The Verge's Tom Warren, who posted about it on X over the weekend: “Sony emailing everyone about PlayStation terms of use during a backlash over the end of discs and a lack of digital ownership is certainly a choice.”
The backlash has grown large enough to inspire a PlayStation boycott — starting Sunday — with players pledging not to buy, log in to or play games for a week to protest Sony’s abandonment of physical media for the console.
So, right in the middle of a protest centered on concerns about game ownership, Sony is reminding us we’re merely buying a license to use a game under the company’s terms.
A move like this from another multibillion-dollar company underscores the new normal in gaming and tech, where companies appear to be shifting further away from the idea of ownership. Instead, they ask consumers to retain access to products that may be revoked or restricted at the company’s discretion. These changes didn't come in one dramatic wave, but in a steady stream of small consumer-facing microaggressions that have built up over time.
Take the recent HP printer controversy, for example. HP programmed its printers to lock users out if third-party ink is detected. That means you can buy an HP printer and own it — but if you don’t fill it with the official (more expensive) ink cartridges, the printer can sass back like an angsty, spoiled teenager and refuse to work.
There are subtler attempts to chip away at our agency (and purchasing power) as consumers. Apple raised MacBook prices this year, then started a program where the company will literally rent you one, presumably because you can’t afford it otherwise. You wouldn’t own the MacBook, so Apple could lock you out of your device if you missed a lease payment.
When it comes to music and movies, streaming has been the norm for years — we’re dutifully reminded every so often that we’re renting the ability to listen or watch something rather than owning it. I’ll never forget a couple of years ago when the entire library from the rock band Coheed and Cambria's was removed from YouTube Music due to a licensing dispute while I was in the middle of listening.
Sony and other gaming companies are starting to adopt the same lending-access business model in software and digital entertainment: In this brave new world, mega corporations can own everything and make us “purchase” rentals entirely on their terms. That means they can change, restrict, discontinue or shut down access, but we can never keep, lend, sell or pass down a product.
The shift is leaving older generations (millennials like myself included) increasingly nostalgic for a time when buying something meant taking home something tangible — something that belonged to us.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Username on Monday August 31, @01:46PM (3 children)
>players pledging not to buy, log in to or play games for a week to protest Sony’s abandonment of physical media for the console.
I get the not buying, but the other two will help Sony. You should do the opposite, delete your game cache and re-download the games while doing the most intense actions per second in the most packet inspected game. Saturate the servers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday August 31, @01:54PM (1 child)
They'll use it in the news for marketing, or raise the price of a new AAA game on release from $79.95 to $84.95
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31, @10:34PM
They can do whatever they want as far as I am concerned.
They have a different problem with me. They will have to get me to want it enough to justify the cost .
( The jewelery stores have the same problem with me. I have ceased chasing wimmin. Let 'em pick up their purses and go. So what do I need status crap for? I'd rather just get off these endless earn-n-tax wheels ).
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Tuesday September 01, @02:20AM
Sony would not care about and likely not even notice such small amount of traffic.
The only effective boycott would be to refuse to rent a game ever again and refuse to ever connect the playedstation to the internet again (no more rent money, no more surveillance money).
But playedstation gamers aren't the sort that can handle not playing games for a week.
(Score: 5, Touché) by VLM on Monday August 31, @01:51PM
The irony is even with exploding file sizes, the cost of distributing physical storage, inflation adjusted, has never been lower.
Eproms used to be kinda expensive in the 80s 90s and they stored "a game" Now you have multi gig USB flash drives for less $ before adjusting for inflation.
Whipping out a random 1978 issue of Byte, 4 kilobits of static ram was like $9 on the surplus market so you could stick 4K bytes on a S100 CP/M computer for like $75 with shipping taxes etc. Some places were selling 4K RAM boards for like $80 because they were buying in bulk or maybe cheaper dram. Poly Pak (remember those dudes?) was selling a 2708 8Kbits for $13 figure eproms were about twice the cost of sram back in the day.
If you screwed up an eprom when fooling around handling it between the eraser, burner, and WTF you were working on, thats was a good amount of money, unfortunately. I played with eproms in the early 90 when they were substantially larger, and then again later on for retro purposes in the 2010s. EEproms are much less of a PITA.
Another "funny" note is eproms used to be SO SLOW like 400, 500 ns. Why? Who knows. I also remember the fun of weirdo crazy programming voltages and some chips from some mfgrs being marked as 21V, some as 24V, some as 35V, it was crazy back in the day. And yeah you'd smoke an eprom if you set the programmer to 35V and it was only a 15V chip.
Back around the video game crash in 1983 it was hard to justify pirating atari carts using eproms when an eprom cost as much as like 4 games after the bubble popped.
Anyway, yeah, storage has never been cheaper which ironic because they want to take it away. Goodbye independent video game stores, good bye FLGS, good bye used game stores, had a nice run.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SemperOSS on Tuesday September 01, @11:05AM
We have reached a strange time where our freedom and independence seems to be capped more and more. One thing is the digital freedom/independence, like here, another extends into "real" life in the form of increasingly onerous rules and regulations (age verification laws, to name one) and crime and war — and less and less consideration for other people.
For some odd reason, we seem unable to learn from our past mistakes and keep repeating them or even making worse versions of them.
C'mon guys (meant in the non-gendered way), let's fight it as best we can!
Open Source Solutions and Digital Sovereignty is the new black