FAINT WAVES

As of this writing, it’s Independence Day (happy 4th, folks), and I actually had no plans on writing anything. There are always one or two irons in the fire but I was sort of taking it easy for a while. I’ve been working a lot and the time I have had, I’ve tried to dedicate that to recreation; movies (at home and in the theater), games, television, books, even drawing once in a while. What provoked this writing in particular is that the video game industry experienced something of a watershed moment this week: Sony has decided to stop making physical games. It’s an announcement that caught me off-guard, mostly because this is happening at a point in time that I didn’t foresee. I knew something like this might happen but I hoped it would be toward the end of my life or better yet, long after I’m gone. It’s an announcement that I’m not happy with, it didn’t infuriate me as much I thought it might (still salty; don’t get me wrong), it mostly just made me sad. I had also more or less made peace with the fact that my time with video games was over. In the last year, I realized that the current console generation (up to the Nintendo Switch 2), would be my last. There were a lot of things that led to that realization: a lack of time on my part, a lack of interest in things coming out, and things simply taking too long to be made. I don’t think there’s any shame in leaving the party early, especially if it’s becoming something other than what you came for. Then there’s this and admittedly, it wasn’t really a factor on my radar, but it cements why I was going to leave games behind. The industry was moving a direction that didn’t include me as a consumer. Only, this impacts a whole lot more than me, it impacts everyone whether they know it or not.

I liked video games as a kid and grew up in a time of big shifts, where video games were really coming in to their own and evolving as a form of media. I played the N64, the PS1, the Dreamcast, and was still very young when the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube came around. It was a time of continual innovation, in graphics, in gameplay, and in the writing of games. Fast forward to today and a lot of what I fell in love with, it’s kind of gone. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still really neat stuff being made, and the AA game and independent game space have really taken the mantle of creativity (and fun) from AAA games. On the whole though, between rising console prices, rising game prices, and games coming out sterile and bloated? The video game industry just pales in comparison to what it once was. Decisions like this one, they provide an insight into the future of video games (and other media too), and it’s an unfortunate reality. This wasn’t the only Sony-related thing to happen this week. In the past week, Sony revealed that over 500 movies that were purchased and downloaded through PlayStation will be removed from users (with no mention of refunds or recourse either). Sony also decided to finally shut down the PSN store on PS3 and Vita, something they’ve wanted to do for years, that change will be rolled out worldwide over the next year and a half. It seems to be a time of change over at Sony and maybe not for the better (almost certainly not for the better). These things taken by themselves, they may not seem that nefarious. Together though, they paint an unfortunate picture: the PS6 being digital-only with no physical backward compatibility of any kind, no true ownership for the consumer, and no support for whatever they deem “outdated”. It’s upsetting and it sets a precedent that will invite others to do the same, with Xbox/Microsoft reportedly thinking about moving a similar direction. It doesn’t inspire confidence in the future.

I’m not without bias on this. I obviously have an affinity for physical media and sort of always have, I appreciate the tactile nature of it and being able to have something you appreciate in tangible form. I’m someone who has vinyl records, cassette tapes, CD’s, hardcover and softcover books, Blu-Rays, and some video games (video games have come and gone depending on what systems I have at any given time; I only have a PS3 currently but have owned a PS5 and a Switch in the past and I plan to again now that I’m considerably more stable financially than I have been historically). My point is, it’s always been my preferred method of taking things in, media and entertainment-wise. Even in the advent of streaming, DVD and Blu-Ray are more reliable and in a surprising amount of cases, still the only way to watch certain things at all. There’s a staggering amount of media that is simply not archived or available online, it exists only in the mediums we’re talking about (or even older mediums). That’s why archivists and game historians are frustrated by decisions like Sony’s, because it’s contrary to everything they stand for, it’s contrary to ownership, it’s contrary to preservation in general. There’s no amount of “get with the times” and “welcome to the future” that you can say to me to make this a logical, inoffensive decision. It’s predatory and like I said, sets a precedent that we don’t want set. We do not want that door opened because the more corporations who choose to walk through it, the worse off we are as people, as consumers. I don’t want to live in a world without physical media, without books, without movies, without games that I can hold in my hand. No amount of convenience will change that. I do not care how easy you make it for me to pseudo-own something, I do not want to be at your mercy, I do not want my things to disappear simply because a licensing deal fell through or because some faceless clown on the top floor said so.

I am not going to be here forever but while I am, I am going to appreciate real things, there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I won’t support anything or anyone who tells me I can’t. Judging by the rather enormous backlash Sony has faced, despite statistics and sales figures and whatever else they want to look at, I am not alone. I may not be part of where video games go next but if this is where they’re heading, I don’t want any part of it anyway. There have been nine “generations” of consoles (and handhelds along the way) and that’s where it ends for me and probably others, too. I’m going to keep supporting physical media because it exists and deserves to exist, it is static, not to be tampered with. I am going to keep investing time and money into the things that bring me joy and when I’m gone, those things will end up somewhere else, with someone else. Then it will be their turn and this “fight”, sad as that turn of phrase is, it will be their fight. I believe in ownership, I believe in physical media, and you can’t take that away from me.

Long live physical media.

Thanks for reading.

~ FW.