Should I Even Bother Keeping Up the Fight At This Point....

Wow, okay, so it's been almost a year since I've written a blog here. I really need to get on that. I guess all it takes is something from Nintendo to light a fire under my ass to get going again. 

Before I get into that, anyone who knows me knows what kind of gamer I am, and I'm a collector. I'm not the kind that goes hunting on eBay or go to out of the way mom and pop stores looking for rare treasures (although I used to do that long ago). I'm the kind of collector that just collects what I play; I like to keep my games. I want to address one point that I hear people try to use against me all the time when I debate physical vs digital. 

"You don't own the game! You only own a license to play the game!"

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. We all know that we don't OWN the actual game. No one has EVER debated that fact. Those rights belong to the IP holder/publisher/developer of said game. And as you said, we own a license - in this case, a copy of the game - to play it. The difference between physical and digital licenses is that when you own a copy of a game physically, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the IP holder/publisher/developer to revoke access to your license. They would need to literally hire someone and send them down to your house with a search warrant to see if you even own a physical copy that they could take back from you. 

We've seen this countless times. Games that people once had access to digitally suddenly found their games deactivated. One such case had PlayStation gamers with downloaded TV shows lose access to what they legitimately purchased: shows downloaded into their personal libraries, not subscribed to. Digital games are also subject to availability based on licenses that the publisher/developer have to continue to pay for, so if a game's becoming long in the tooth and is no longer selling, they'll delist the game so they don't have to pay music holders, car manufactures, and other companies continual licensing fees. 

"Well, a digital game being delisted is the same as a game not being sold in brick and mortar stores!"

Well, um... not really. True, if you head to a store like GameStop or Best Buy, you're not going to find a game that is no longer in print, but the key difference between delisting and out of print is that out of print games can be found at numerous sources in the second-hand market. There is no second-hand market for digital games, which is a crime, as it illustrates an unusual power grab for control over IP that isn't currently netting the holder anymore profit. 

So anyway, I've always made it my thing to buy a physical version whenever I could because I love permanence. When console games began launching simultaneously in adjacent digital store fronts, I kept going to brick and mortar stores and ordering physical copies online because for one, I'm a tactile person by nature and prefer the physicality of slitting open cellophane and opening a box, popping a disc out, and putting in my machine. I know most people don't care about that, more as they just want the convenience, but I also have never adopted an eReader just because I prefer the weight and smell of the book itself. Also, I don't have to worry about shuffling around data because my harddrive is full of game files I've downloaded onto it. 

That last line isn't as relevant today as it was even five years ago, because nowadays, consoles need to install off the disc to the harddrive (well, SSD) because optical drives can't stream the data fast enough for the systems to process, yet still, my earlier points remain: those physical copies are mine, and they'll last forever. 

But this generation has been very frustrating in terms of wanting to hold the line in the war of physical versus digital. If you take a look at the design of the first PlayStation 5 models, you'll have noticed a peculiarity with the disc-based model compared to the digital-only model. The disc model's disc drive was a lump on the side of the console (displayed vertically). It was clear to see that this was a design aspect resulting from an afterthought of Sony realizing that there are still a good number of gamers left who want physical media. This was further evidenced in 2024 when the PS5 Pro was released without a disc drive. Thankfully, one could purchase one separately and slap it in, but still, that was a price-based deterrent to put off as many physical gamers as possible. 

In 2023, Microsoft began its push to cease pressing copies of some of their Xbox games.  Some of their biggest exclusives launched digital only, such as Psychonauts 2 (which apparently did have a physical, but for Kickstarter backers only) and Senuas's Saga: Hellblade 2. Both of these games I actually bit the bullet on and bought digitally, because I really wanted to play them. In most cases, if a game I wanted to play came out digital only, I would try to wait it out for a physical copy. Usually, places like Limited Run Games and iam8bit would do physical copies of games the publishers themselves didn't want to. 

And then we have last year, 2025, when Nintendo themselves tossed their name in the hat to further frustrate physical collectors with the addition of game key-cards. If you don't know what a game key-card is, it's essentially a game card that has the license to download the game from the eShop stored on the card. In essence, it works like PS5 and Xbox games that only have the license key to download the game from their respective store fronts. This allows owners to maintain a "physical" copy to sell and trade should they no longer wish to own their digital copy. The issue with GKCs is that Nintendo refused to give developers cheaper 32 gig cards to put their games on, so we were seeing games that could have easily fit on them, some even being smaller than 10 gigs, end up on GKCs because publishers didn't want to spend the extra money on 64 gig cards. So, we've had many games release on GKCs instead of actual physical media, and that puts a timer on the life of those games, because there will be a point where those games will be delisted, and the GKCs will have no value to anyone else but the current owners. I didn't like the idea of GKCs for that reason alone, but sadly, I decided there's no point in fighting these, so I bought a couple: Octopath Traveler 2 and Pokemon Pokopia. If I can't have an actual physical copy, I guess the next best thing is a GKC. 

So today... *big sigh* Nintendo decides to use a price deterrent to incentivize more gamers to adopt digitally by initiating a price disparity between their digital and physical versions. When I first heard about this story, it was originally reported that physical copies were going to be increased 10 dollars, but Nintendo had to clarify that what they were doing was instead was making digital versions 10 dollars cheaper. It only makes sense as there are no manufacturing or shipping costs associated with digital copies, and this is something I've actually championed for years ago. Unfortunately this clarification came while I was writing this blog, and now it's kinda taken some of the steam out of it, because I wrote this with full intent of ranting about Nintendo, how they've become more greedy this generation with raising the prices on games in general and making their most expensive system to date, yada yada yada. But still, the question remains....

Should I even bother keeping up the fight at this point? More and more games (and I'm actually finally installing Crimson Desert, which apparently doesn't have any data on the disc itself) are being shipped in a GKC way on PS5 and Xbox, and the new Xbox might not even have a drive at all, so there will be a point where physical media just isn't a thing anymore. PC gamers witnessed the loss of their games being pressed on disc years upon years ago. They'll be the first to tell console gamers to just give it up and get used to it, which I get, but I wish you PC gamers pushed back as much as us console gamers are still trying to do. 

What I need to do right now is weigh the importances of what really matters to me against the inevitabilities. Do I simply let go of wanting to play certain games (that will most likely be all games in the future) just because I don't like the idea of not owning my copy? Do I really want to keep putting up with constantly downloading them and shuffling data files around on my SSD? Or.. could I just embrace an all-digital future like many gamers already have and actually enjoy the comforts and conveniences afforded to them by simply having all their games in one place, leaving behind cleaner shelves and less cluttered closets? 

Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not I want to give gaming up. Either I'm all in or I'm completely out, and there's simply no way I'm willing to give up gaming for good. Granted, I have the backlog to wait out the next Great Flood, but there's a big enough part of the gamer in me that will want to continue to play the next big new game. I've been relenting over time with the sluice gate slowly opening, but there's just going to be a point where I need to open it all the way up and let the floodwaters take me where they may.