I’m usually focused on the end product, in this case the game’s story, rather than how we get it. However, every now and then we’re forced to talk about the delivery system because if we can’t receive the story we can’t interact with it. The entertainment industry has always had an issue with home video, for example, because you buy it once and unless it gets destroyed or a new format shows up they never get your money again. On TV or returning to theaters, and now on demand and live streaming, they still get licensing rights to get money from.
Video games oddly never had that problem until recently, when they were being owned by Hollywood companies or subscribing to their mindset. Video games in arcades and various food establishments (our local Cumberland Farms had a Centipede game) and bars at a quarter a game were still either rented through a third party company or just bought from the game manufacturer. They weren’t getting any more money once it was sold than the company I bought my basic pinball machine from. So the move to home video just cut one middleman out of the field because gamers were still going to stores to get them, and the stores had to buy the cartridges and CDs. It’s only in recent years where that wasn’t enough.
So you had downloadable content (DLC) for bonuses like extra levels and in-game items, which was fine. Then you got loot boxes, items that almost felt required to play a game, especially MMOs that already had a monthly fee going to keep the servers active. Now you have companies who want to get rid of physical copies altogether as another method of getting your money on a regular basis even if you aren’t paying for an online experience. Sony is already plotting to get rid of physical media. As a guy with a declutter side project, I still defend physical media because you buy it, you should own it even when it’s not for sale. Otherwise you just paid for a rental. This led to the Stop Killing Games movement, that has been fighting for physical game and “you buy it, you own it” around the world. And it looks like they finally have an ally in the US government. They could use one in the EU.
If you follow Ross Scott and Stop Killing Games, you may now that the EU just threw them a bomb, but I’ll let him explain.
The scariest words used by any government official: “for the children”. See also various activists. The question is if the goal is to kill off video games in European Union countries, as certain parties love to blame video games for increases in violence and crime the way they tried with comic books back in the 1940s, or the government trying to track more of its citizens. Either way, control freaks are still in power and continue to grab more. “For the children.”
Meanwhile, the United States government may actually benefit the Stop Killing Games movement on their main issue: making sure you can still play a non-massive multiplayer online game after you bought it. Yes, SKG still wants to be able to create their own servers for older games that still has players. The praise around World Of Warcraft Forever, a version of the “vanilla” classic version of WOW by Blizzard themselves, has made a number of classic fans happy, or at least the few I follow. (I wonder what my old Reviewers Unknown colleague The Media Hunter thinks of it? His channel is currently in my YouTube backlog. His show used World Of Warcraft in place of a camera. Wish I had thought of something like that. I hate being on camera.)
The problem has been companies killing games that don’t need to be online except through their “anti-piracy” DRMs that require servers the publishers want to shut down. That means you won’t be able to play the game…but you can totally play their allegedly upgraded remakes and new entries. The money you spent on the older games are now wasted, but they already have that. Need your new money now because their next yacht is more important than your rent.
Enter US Representative Ritchie Torres of New York. He’s dropped a proposal to direct the FCC to do what Stop Killing Games has requested: allow people to own the games they bought. From his press release:
Over the past few years, video game companies have moved toward digital-only games and consoles, removing the option to buy or use physical games. These digital games are often sold as revocable licenses rather than owned outright, leaving players dependent on the company’s continued support. NBA 2K25 is a clear example. The game, which retailed for $69.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the All-Star Edition, will be delisted from digital storefronts on October 30 and will have its online servers shut down on December 31, only two years after its initial release. No consumer should have a game they paid for pulled out from under them on a company’s arbitrary timeline.
Being delisted is one thing. Games stop being sold in stores once the company stops producing them, or get sold on clearance. The DRM (digital rights management) servers that keeps the game from being pirated, or so they claim is the reason, going dark without a patch means the game will no longer be playable even if being online is only a requirement for the DRM. You can’t even sell your copy to someone else, because they want that other person to also buy the new game and won’t be getting the money themselves. It’s the thought that any time money changes hands they “deserve” a piece of it. Nobody does that with any other piece of media, nevermind anything else.
IDW didn’t demand a share of the Transformers comics I just sold off recently, and the sellers of the exercise equipment my dad just bought didn’t demand a piece of the action from the seller. As far as I know. I didn’t ask them. Nor should they. I bought it, I decide whether or not to sell it, trash it, or give it away if I have no further use for it. Hollywood and those in the game industry that share the corporate side of their mindset believe they deserve your money forever. It’s worse than lease to own, because there is no own. It’s a rental fee from the same studios that make landlords the villains of their stories.
“When you pay for a game, you should own it,” said Rep. Torres. “Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale. Families in the Bronx and across the country save up to buy these games, and they deserve better than a license that can vanish at any time. The Power To The Players Act ensures consumers own what they buy and can keep playing long after a company moves on.”
Under the bill, buying a video game would give the consumer ownership of the game rather than a license to play it. Games with online functionality would also be required to provide an offline mode before the servers supporting them are shut down.
The legislation aims to close the gap between buying a game and owning it. By preserving consumers’ ability to own and resell their games, the bill would ensure that players can keep playing the games they paid for with friends and family for years to come.
Again, this is the kind of thing Stop Killing Games is actually trying to do versus what the PR guys for the game companies claim they’re doing. This is rare for a Congressperson, and even rarer from a Democrat. Usually when a Democrat discusses video games they’re more like Joseph Lieberman or Hillary Clinton acting like they’re the enemy. Of course they’re also old and Torres is young enough to have actually played video games and should know better. My generation was there when video games began. So good on Torres.
Meanwhile, while Sony is trying to kill all physical games in favor of online downloads, their biggest competitors are trying to hold onto physical…for now. X-Box supposedly has a job opening for a “games supply strategist“, but does that really mean physical games or just another corporate term for just getting the games out there? Nintendo says they’re focusing on digital because there are plenty of fans who want them, but the Switch 2 used “game keys” that still require a good part of the games to be downloaded, meaning you really only own part of the game. When that goes down the game is useless if something happens to your download and you still can’t sell it down the road if you’re done playing it. Plus a recent issue with a game based on the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Rankin/Bass special led to the game not being able to BE downloaded already using the physical key. It’s not the same as the old game packs Nintendo stuck with as long as they could for quality control. Allegedly. They saved video games with quality control in the NES days but who knows what they’re thinking now?
So now the corporate are ready to destroy what their predecessors worked to save. Oddly, both generations did it for greed and control, but the old masters were willing to play the long game and give players, in other words customers, what they want in exchange for cash. Today, they need a quick report to give their investors and both are too impatient in their quest to have all the money all the time right now. Of course the government has their own control issues they’re pushing for. As usual, it’s the average gamer who is suffering for all this, and stopping smaller companies from joining their ranks (since they remember how they started) is also a corporate goal. It all boils down to people who don’t care about entertainment being in charge of entertainment, and the people they should be entertaining only doing so by watching them fail time and again as a sense of karmatic catharsis.
Are video games doomed in the way Jack Thompson always dreamed? If so, it’s not his victory, it’s the same corporate suicide that nearly killed it last time.
