I’ve never been a fan of digital only, or subscription services. I’ve mentioned this before in some of my posts. I feel like the shift in the industry towards these things closely align with the decline in quality of the related media. For example, as someone who builds and creates software for a living, and takes pride in the workmanship of the things I create, the idea of “day one patches” to is so stupid. It incentives not testing and building properly because you can easily “fix it in post”.

Not only that, but I’ve never thought the subscription model is sustainable in the long run. Just look at Xbox and Game Pass. Platforms like Netflix only worked until they decided to compete with their client base, and by making their own Netflix-exclusive content, they pushed everyone else to make their own platforms, leading to the massive fragmentation we see today. I also believe the fundamental idea of “people don’t want an album, they want ALL albums”, or “they don’t want A game, they want ALL games” is a flawed premise.

But I’ve already digressed, because the actual thing that bothers me is ownership. I don’t own anything I subscribe to, and I don’t own anything that I have right to use digitally.

This is what Stop Killing Games is about. This is what huge preservation efforts are about. And while I don’t agree with everything in Stop Killing Games, I believe in the premise and the cause. Because if I paid for something, surely that something should be mine?

And this is why I’ve always loved physical media. Because it’s mine, in my hands, and 20 years later I can pop Final Fantasy XII into my PS2 and play it. I can stick Pokémon Soul Silver into my DS Lite and I can play it. I can boot up my Xbox 360, and despite Battlefield Bad Company 2 being a dead game, pop in the disc and play the single player campaign.

Because you can take my online servers, you can take my cloud storage, but you can never take my disc from me. Unless it breaks. Because that’s a thing…

Now, just to make sure I’m not misunderstood, because I will be, I get that there are some cases where the thing that I’m paying for is “an experience” or something less tangible. If I go the cinema, I’m not buying the movie, I’m buying the experience of watching it in a theater with other people. This is different from buying a DVD or BluRay for home use. Same with a concert and CDs or LPs.

But even then, the thing I bought was “the experience”, and that experience cannot be taken from me. I got what I paid for, and it’s mine.

You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy

“You will own nothing and be happy” is a notorious slogan tracing back to a 2016 essay by Danish politician Ida Auken, published by the World Economic Forum. It describes a hypothetical future where goods are leased as services rather than purchased.

Originally, the concept envisioned a “sharing economy” where basic needs are met for free or subsidized through robust public services, eliminating the burden of traditional consumerism. The goal was to drastically reduce global waste and inequality by shifting the focus from material consumption to experiences and community sharing. Which sounds awesome, right? If I only need a wood chipper once or twice a year, I don’t need to own one, and that’s an expense I really don’t need to take. But if our neighborhood collectively own one, and I can borrow it when I need it, that’s a lot better for everyone.

Over time though, the phrase transformed into a popular cultural meme and a subject of intense debate. Instead of a utopian sharing model, the trend has manifested through ubiquitous subscription models and digital rentals. Everyday items, from household appliances and software to vehicles and entertainment media, are increasingly locked behind licensing agreements.

Critics argue this transition strips consumers of autonomy and true property rights, as companies can remotely revoke access to goods that have already been paid for. For many, the reality of “subscription fatigue” and the loss of tangible ownership feels less like a liberating equitable vision and more like modern techno-feudalism.

We’ve gone from “sharing everything will lighten the load and we will be happier” to “you will own nothing and have no choice about how that makes you feel so just deal with it”.

And I’m not okay with this.

Sony’s Digital-Only Strategy

On 1 July 2026, Sony made two new statements for the future of Playstation.

Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles

“In response to shifting trends in consumer preference”

Bull. Shit.

Looking at the response online, which admittedly is probably the vocal minority, but still not an insignificant portion of the consumer base, people agree this is a bad move and not in line with what consumers want. No matter how they skew the data, the reality is that people still want physical media.

Shift in producer spend is the real reason here. Because for years, the corporations having been pushing and enforcing this ideal on us. Why?

Because:

  • Manufacturing, shipping, and retail all cost money.
  • Digital sales have higher margins.
  • The business case for discs gets weaker every year.

Consumers buy digital for convenience, or because they have no choice. But when you take that digital purchase away from them, you can bet they will complain and show their unhappiness.

There’s a huge difference between:

“I choose digital because it’s convenient.”

and

“Digital is my only option.”

The first is empowering. The second removes a choice.

And here’s the rub. Their second announcement, in the same breath as the “all digital future”:

An update on PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita

“we wanted to let you know we will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita. PlayStation Store on PS3 will close in select markets starting this year, followed by global closures for PS3 and PS Vita next year.”

Yeah, that’s right. Removal of your digital stores for older generation consoles.

Sony “giveth” and Sony taketh away.

How did we get here?

I touched on this in some way in my other posts, specifically in the From Purpose to Profit post. While I was focusing on the current impact on AI and where I see that going, the premise I used was the gaming industry, and it’s shift from “make cool things for people to enjoy” to “extract maximum value from customers”.

This is very much just an extension of that.

Last night I was busy on my desktop, I’m going through a hardware cleanup exercise and trying to reduce the amount of clutter and unused machines we have, so we decided to merge my desktop with my wife’s into a single desktop, since I already have an Asus ROG Ally X that I game on. During this exercise, two things happened.

First, I wanted to log in to 3DMark using my Steam account to look at some old benchmarks I ran, and I couldn’t. I recently got a new phone, which means my Steam Authenticator was on the old device and never migrated, so I had to recover my account. But their text message wasn’t coming through, for whatever reason. So I had to try a different reset approach, which then very nearly locked me out of my account entirely, and I suddenly realised how much money I’ve put into digital games on Steam over the years, and how easy it would be for all that to just poof away.

The second thing was while reflecting on this, I was looking at my PS5. I have a mix of physical and digital titles there. Ignoring the free PS+ games, just games I bought because digital was cheaper or I couldn’t find physical copies. If I decided to sell my PS5 for any reason, I would need to remove my account and reset. And then what? What happens to those games I purchased. I can’t sell my account (nor would I want to). I can’t give those games to the new owner. I can’t sell those games on marketplace for other people to enjoy. Unless I purchased a new PS5, those games would forever sit in the cloud, inaccessible to anyone. Not just me. Anyone.

What a waste.

Except Sony doesn’t care. They already got their cut.

And they justify their moves with comments like “in response to shifting trends in consumer preference”, but in reality, they warp consumer preference to fit their narrative. They give away free games which you can only download. They lock sales to digital only copies, or discounts to subscribers, thereby enticing consumers to buy digital copies instead of physical ones. They encourage indies to only release digitally because of the costs and ease. They make digital the no-brainer option, and then pretend that’s what we want because that’s what the data shows.

You rigged the system to get your way and then pretend it’s what we always wanted. I am not okay with that. And you shouldn’t be either.

Yeah, and?

Yeah yeah, I know, right now I’m just venting my anger and frustration, but what am I actually doing about it.

I’m a big supporter of companies like GoG which have active efforts to preserve games. Not only are they DRM free, but you can download offline installers that you can backup and keep forever. But nothing everything launches there.

I’m also a big fan of emulation, for older consoles especially, the ones you can’t get easily anymore or that don’t have proper support.

Most of all, I’m a big fan of physical media. Because I can just use that whenever I want, and I don’t have to worry about anyone taking it away from me. Unless you break into my house, of course. Shame on you for even considering that.

I hate using this quote, because it gets thrown around out of context a lot, but it feels applicable:

“If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing”.

I don’t want to condone or endorse piracy, but I need to ask the question; when we are left with no other choice, what is the answer?

Because I honestly don’t know. I’ve already seen some of my physical media degrade and become unusable, and this has prompted me to backup and rip all the CDs, DVDs and BluRays I own. I’ll need to do the same for my consoles as well, at least the ones that aren’t cartridge based, and for those I’d probably have to go emulator and ROM route. Because why shouldn’t I be allowed to play my games that I paid for?

What now?

Not sure yet. I see a lot of people are cancelling subscriptions to PS+, and there was already a mass exodus from Game Pass when they last raised prices. I suppose the one question is whether I still need to pay for cloud saves, since that’s kinda the thing locking me into the ecosystem. I already prefer buying on GoG when I can, but Steam sales often make that more appealing, but is it really worth the savings?

They say consumers vote with their wallets. And at the end of the day, people are paying for subscriptions and digital content. So maybe I’m in the wrong here. Maybe the 250k people against this idea are also wrong.

I mean, what do I know. I’m not CEO getting millions in bonuses amid layoffs, or from selling shares before they tank, and clearly they are the ones who understand what we, the consumers, want. Right? Has nothing to do with how much they coin out of us, I’m sure.

Obviously I know nothing, because I’m just some poor schmuck who likes to play games, and hopes I can one day when I retire actually clear my backlog.

Assuming I can still access it, of course.

This sucks. The industry sucks. Corporate greed sucks. Wasn’t gaming supposed to be about fun?