There has been a lot of talk about Sony’s recent decision to drop physical games for the Playstation 5 in early 2028, and I would have contributed my thoughts earlier, but decided to consider things a bit longer, to see how it all plays out. Anyway, I don’t think this need be as “doom and gloom” as many believe it will be, as long as Sony, Microsoft, and the other game publishers are willing to work with the gaming community.
Is that likely? No, but there is still a chance. Anyway, what am I babbling about?
I feel it is inevitable that the game industry, just like movies and music, will move to basically digital-only distribution in the future. There may be the occasional collector’s edition physical release, much like bands occasionally put out albums on vinyl here or there now, but that’s it. That said, this need not be the end of the world when it comes to game preservation.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows for purchasers to make a backup physical copy of their purchases, be they movies, music, or whatever else might be covered by the DMCA. Games also fall under this law, so I see no reason why we game purchasers aren’t allowed this same ability to backup our digital games, as we might like any digital music, movies, or books we buy. The only thing stopping us are the game distributors themselves.
This can change.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can change the way they distribute digital games on their consoles, so that we can make backup copies. Burn them to Blu-Ray disks, store them on hard drives or sufficiently large enough thumb drives, and so forth. For single-player games, this should be relatively simple to accomplish, it’s just a matter of will and some changes to the coding on their consoles.
Now when it comes to multiplayer games, live-service games, and so forth, that becomes a bit trickier. Yes, the distributors could allow us to download these game clients, but after the games are sunsetted, those clients would become useless. This would of course then require the game publishers to release the ability for players to run their own private servers for these games, something I’m sure they would be completely loath to do in any way at all, especially for live-service games… and even more so if those games were shut down in anticipation of the release of a sequel to said game.
That said, the DMCA is pretty clear here, as I recall. I’m no lawyer, but if we buy something covered under the law in question, we’re supposed to be able to copy it for our own use, and that should include any videogame we purchase. If they are going to use the DMCA to go after people “pirating” games, then these publishers are admitting that all provisions of the DMCA apply, including our ability to backup these purchased games.
Now I’m sure they will try to use the End User License Agreement of their games to say that we’ve agreed that we don’t actually own the games we buy, but that’s bunk, and I’m sure the courts would agree. If we can make a backup of the music CDs and movie DVDs and BluRays we buy, then we should likewise be able to make backups of any game we purchase. Period.
Even those played online. Yes, that would include MMORPGs like “World of Warcraft”, even. Suck it, Blizzard.
The code exists to run private servers for these games, once they are shut down. There is no reason that it could not be provided to the players, along with the final game client for the game, so that private servers could be run locally. I’m sure this would be a very tricky legal argument to sort out, but is the very same one the “Stop Killing Games” movement is currently working on.
Corporations cheered when the DMCA got passed. Now maybe they won’t be so happy, when it bites them in the ass after all these years.