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Comment by sergiotapia | Hacker News Reader

This is why I purchase all of my games physical.

Edit: To clarify I have stopped buying any big titles on PC. I may splurge $2-5 on a key site but that's about it. I own console games because I want to leave my grandkids something.

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I do not understand focus on digital delivery platform. Seems a red herring.

If you bought this very same game on DVD, would it not still require same activation servers? It's my understanding this is ubisoft the publisher activation thing, not steam the delivery platform thing.

That doesn't help though. Consider the Orange Box (HL2, TF2, and Portal). You could buy this on DVDs from a brick-and-mortar store, but playing it required you to set up a Steam account and activate it there.

I distinctly recall buying HL2 from a store named "Game" shortly after release, only to find it required some shit called Steam, and the Steam key had already been redeemed.

Eventually got a working key after returning to the store and complaining vigorously, and then had to wait approximately a million hours for the game to update itself over our shit tier dialup connection and eventually become playable.

My "moment" came after purchasing Batman Arkham Asylum and being hit with a request to create a Games for Windows Live Account. You could skip the GfWL account creation and I did. Soon thereafter was an update. I updated and found all of my save games were lost. Ohh, you didn't create a GfWL account, too bad you didn't create a GfWL... that's the supported configuration.

I stopped following and playing most AAA games at this point, but I was already getting older anyway. I still play video games, but I'm much more careful about the above such things.

GfWL tying your saves to a profile was extremely mean spirited. They justified it by “you need a profile to save games” as if you’re on a Xbox 360 designed with that requirement. Which amounted to a folder with your account ID + saves encrypted with your account key.

Offline profiles were added at some point to alleviate this but, they could’ve just started with null profiles and saved all that, clearly GfWL adoption was more important.

GFWL tied saves to the account email rather than the unique ID. If you changed the email associated with your LIVE account, the game would look somewhere else for saves. As a teenager, this is how I 'lost' my red faction saves

Physical games can still have DRM.

The best way is to buy at https://www.gog.com/

They offer lot's of DRM-free games, even newer titles so you can actually own the games and back them up wherever and however you want.

If only it were that simple. A physical DVD simply reduces the download time. It typically still copies onto the console HD (the DVD being used as an annoying proof of ownership.), and still depends on online services.

Does it? I had an 80+ GB practically-day-one-download waiting when I bought Forza Horizon 5 for my XBox. The disc might as well have been a blank.

DVDs can hold up to 8.5GB of DRM client software.

PS5 uses BDXL discs which support 100GB each. Xbox allegedly does too. Games have also shipped on multiple discs for a long time.

Sorry, 100GB of DRM client, then...

Per disc. As I said in my comment games also often ship with multiple discs.

Sorry, I'm being a bit cynical here -- I'm suggesting that the DVDs contain nothing but extremely bloated crapware to download and decode the game that should rightfully be yours. Of course, I've got some morbid curiosity about what's actually on those disks, but not enough to actually look. My deepest condolences.

RDR2 came on 2 disks and still had a massive day one download.

Which is why I said typically. It's still an annoying dongle though.

Assassins creed games as far back as AC2 on PC had uplay bundled on their game discs. Physical copies don't get around DRM, only distribution

That’s a good start! But it doesn’t always help; I have plenty of physical copies of games that won’t work without Ubisoft servers.

On PC you’re actually at a disadvantage if you do. At best it’s just the same as digital (boxed Steam key), at worst it’s some alternative DRM that stops working much before Steam/Origin/uPlay does, e.g. SecuROM, Games For Windows LIVE, etc.

You don't own physical games either, well besides the physical plastic. You're purchasing a license to use it, this is how all software/music/movies work. They have the ability to revoke that license at any time.

with Xbox - the disk only holds the license. which is very absurd. first time you insert the disk you download the game. wish I knew this before buying an xbox one s console. xbox is pretty anaemic for single player games that don't connect to the internet.

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