Time to bring back physical media on PC?

2026-07-02 13:47 UTC

People want retail games and if the big 3 can’t cover that market a new and more sustainable subject will fill that space. Maybe it’s time to bring back physical media to PC, a more open system where publishers could make profit selling their retail games similarly to vinyls for music.

Replies (2)

@NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2026-07-02 22:56

similarly to vinyls for music. This one sucks so much. Vinyl coming back is awful. It is heavy, it costs a lot and takes a lot of energy to transport it is made of plasticizers, usually phthalates with lead as a stabilizer it degrades from every use the waste chemicals are often dumped into rivers and streams in poor populations a lot of energy is used in the steaming and pressing the sound quality is not as good as people think it is (inner distortion anyone?) and the “warm” and “feel good” sound are easily replicated in other ways. I don’t want to dwell on this one. Lets just say mastering and your equipment have a lot to do with this.

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@Mereo@lemmy.ca 2026-07-02 14:09

No, it’s not beneficial. The difference between consoles and PCs is that PCs have an open infrastructure, which lets you back up your data to any medium or service you want. For example, if Steam goes out of business and doesn’t release the DRMs, they will easily be cracked. You cannot say the same for consoles.

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