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.

  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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    16 hours ago

    I combine the two.

    Burn offline drm free installers onto blank cds.

    Well… Dvds, I can fit some older games into cds but they don’t have the same capacity.

    • Flatfire@lemmy.ca
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      15 hours ago

      Optical media really isn’t your friend. I love it, I have loads of old games on optical discs and I bought a PS5 with its disc drive specifically because that’s how I wanted to buy the media. But I also back up what I can to spinning rust or solid state drives that can sit cold stored until I want them. Optical media will degrade. There are exceptions, like M-Disc, but the medium is slow and space consuming.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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        12 hours ago

        If the files are DRM-free as they said, then there’s nothing stopping backups. I don’t get why you’re trying to paint it as an either/or thing

        • Flatfire@lemmy.ca
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          11 hours ago

          I’m not sure I understand. Whether it’s DRM free or not has no bearing on the reliability of optical media as a backup format. Discs you write to are not generally as reliable as factory pressings, with some archival exceptions, so it’s not the ideal choice. I wasn’t making any argument about whether it works or not.

          • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            JFC, how are you this dense?

            I’ll spell it out for you then:

            Step 1: Buy DRM-free optical media

            Step 2: Place DRM-free optical media into an appropriate reader

            Step 3: Copy DRM-free files off optical media

            Step 4: You now have a digital backup for your cool collector’s item

            • Flatfire@lemmy.ca
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              7 hours ago

              I think you’re the one who misunderstood. The guy I replied to was talking about backing up digital games to disc. I mentioned optical discs have poor longevity, then you took it personally.

      • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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        12 hours ago

        I mean, I have an external hdd I keep a backup of important files on, and an ssd I use to transfer things onto a second computer, and it’s just a full backup of my primary pc.

        • Flatfire@lemmy.ca
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          11 hours ago

          Fair enough. I didn’t assume you were doing that for data generally. My original comment was unnecessarily condescending in tone, sorry about that.