Why Are Game-Key Cards So Controversial?

[Shadow1980]

Sure, nothing lasts forever, but physical copies are still durable goods. They'll last a lifetime if you take care of them. I have video games, CDs, and DVDs that are 20-30+ years old at this point and they all still work perfectly fine. Hell, I have books that are way older than I am, including an old Time-Life science book from 1955. People who downplay physical seem to think physical copies only last a few years before they start to obviously degrade, and that simply ain't true. There's plenty of good reasons why physical is still preferred by many. Even beyond the durability of physical goods, there's the fact that you own physical copies (regardless of what some might say) and because they're tangible property there's a second-hand market. Being able to lend, gift, or sell your copies at one's own discretion is an amazing thing.

Meanwhile, your ability to maintain a digital library, especially on console, is up to luck and the whims of the one running the digital store. If you lose a digital copy for any reason, your ability to re-download that game is contingent on the digital storefront you got it from still being accessible in some way. Multiple consoles have had their digital stores completely shuttered. The thing that radicalized me against digital (which I was already skeptical of beforehand) was when I discovered my Halo 2 DLC maps were no longer on my hard drive. This was some months after the OXbox servers were shut off (I was going to play some local MP, which was still an option), leaving me unable to re-download the maps, but fortunately there was a physical option where all but the last two DLC maps were released on disc. Sure, the industry has gotten better about this in more recent years, but why should I trust them to ensure any digital copies will still be available to me in another 20 years? This will become even worse if the industry tries to force streaming as the default. You'll have to subscribe to everything, and if a game is pulled from the service, it's gone-gone, possibly for good. Think of all the countless titles removed from streaming services, some of which aren't available on any of them.

Simply "buying" certain games also becomes more difficult with digital. Games get delisted all the time and have been for quite some time. Some return, but many do not and may never. And since as mentioned sometimes entire digital stores get shuttered, that means the games on them become unable to buy if that was the only place to get them and you never got them when the getting was good. The only way to get those games is physically, assuming they ever got a physical release to begin with. But if a game did get a physical release, then those copies still exist, and the second-hand market makes it possible to find and purchase most games long after they've gone out-of-print. There's still a thriving used games market, something utterly impossible with digital. I can still buy a copy of the Batman: The Video Game for the NES, which was never re-released on any other platform at any point in the past 35 years. Meanwhile, go try to find a copy of Gradius Rebirth without resorting to piracy. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Game key cards are basically the worst of both worlds. They take up space like physical, but don't have the game on them. They're just digital downloads with extra steps, essentially just glorified versions of those little gift card things with a download code on the back. Except you need to keep it just to boot up the game. Like, what's the point? Might as well just "buy" a digital copy from the Nintendo e-shop.


As an aside, I can't help but notice people constantly complain about concepts of ownership steadily eroding. They lament things that were once products becoming services, one-time purchases becoming subscriptions. But they also help that future along. They'd trade just about anything for even a marginal increase in perceived "convenience." I mean, we all know how going to the store to buy things is sooooo hard, and having to take personal responsibility for the things they own is even harder. Well, all your favorite Mega Corps will gladly relieve you of the burden having to own anything or do anything aside from being a passive consumer that never has to get off the couch, laughing all the way to the bank in the process, because they know their customers will take a worse deal if it involves less effort on their part, and that there's no shortage of people who really are happy owning nothing.

Sometimes the path of least resistance isn't the best path. And as Joni Mitchell once said, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone. I'd rather have a hard copy that I actually own that trust the publishers to ensure the games I want to play, the movies & shows I want to see, the music I want to listen to, and the books I want to read will forever be accessible from my account. Unless the laws regarding digital media change (which probably isn't happening any time soon), I am absolutely prepared to stop buying new video games if physical stops being an option, and I will go to my grave believing that the Internet was the worst thing to happen to video games.