keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:14:

The typical argument for physical media (I OWN it!) I think is pretty weak. If you have downloaded the game, you own your copy of it now.

This is valid to a point, except that digital downloads can change with time. This is usually done to accommodate newer operating systems i.e. a game from 2004 might get a tiny patch which fixes a crash on an 8-core CPU running Windows 11. While this is a good thing, the tiny patch may also prevent that 2004 game from running on WinXP, if it was built assuming Windows 11 kernel functionality. And that's not hypothetical, it has happened with some GOG games already.

Another reason why digital downloads may change is because some license has expired. This is most common when popular music tracks are used by older games. That too has happened, most (in)famously with GTA: San Andreas, which removed a bunch of music tracks in a surprise update on Steam.

Now, in some cases, you could download a digital copy, keep it on your hard drive, and prevent the game from updating. That's fine too... until your hard drive or computer breaks down. Then, you would have to re-download the updated version of the game, which may be undesirable as explained above.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:40:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:14:

The typical argument for physical media (I OWN it!) I think is pretty weak. If you have downloaded the game, you own your copy of it now.

And that's not hypothetical, it has happened with some GOG games already.

Didn't know about that. I thought the version numbers in GOG were some build dates code. Is there some game you remember that broke in this method?

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:14:

The typical argument for physical media (I OWN it!) I think is pretty weak. If you have downloaded the game, you own your copy of it now. It's just as easy for companies to put absurd DRM schemes on a disk, but they can't change the fact that you have that series of bytes on your hard drive and you can do what you want with it now, including cracking their licensing apparatus if you can figure out how. It's why they do those things in the first place, in a futile effort to get people to stop copying their software.

The problem with digital downloads is you have to maintain that digital copy of it somehow. And depending on the service it was downloaded from, this can vary in practicality.

For something like GoG where you can download offline installers, it's great. For other services, it may be less practical.

Take something like Silent Hill: P.T. It was removed from Sony's storefront, so now PlayStation 4's that have an installed copy are worth a lot of money for those who wish to play it on the original PS4.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:40:

This is valid to a point, except that digital downloads can change with time. This is usually done to accommodate newer operating systems i.e. a game from 2004 might get a tiny patch which fixes a crash on an 8-core CPU running Windows 11. While this is a good thing, the tiny patch may also prevent that 2004 game from running on WinXP, if it was built assuming Windows 11 kernel functionality. And that's not hypothetical, it has happened with some GOG games already.

Yup, I've encountered this with various Wadjet Eye adventure games. Updates to the underline engine broke Windows XP compatibility. Which is really frustrating since those were traditional 2D / pixel art games and could accommodate 4:3 CRT monitors. Not being able to run them under Windows XP makes it more annoying to run them with a classic CRT setup.

Errius wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:38:

yes if you are browsing Wayback Machine and see missing images (broken links), wait a while and refresh the page, because they w […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-10, 14:57:

I can only guess, but I think that the files must have been stored somewhere on a very rarely accessed server or HDD.

yes if you are browsing Wayback Machine and see missing images (broken links), wait a while and refresh the page, because they will sometimes appear.

They are obviously being stored in some high latency storage medium that takes time to retrieve data from.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-04-10, 06:25:

Itll come back just not as it was .. the new tech I'm hearing about for recording to optical media increases its storage to two hundred terabytes for standard single layer DvD sized discs...imagine discs with dual or triple layers with 600 terabytes of storage.

That's interesting. I never understood why optical technology stalled while HDDs just kept getting bigger and cheaper.

My first HDD was 32 MB (not GB) so this is all amazing to me.

We didn't have the tech to produce the required lasers at the time, we do now and can produce it cheaply enough to make it commercially viable, same with the discs. Advancement takes time and money so it never truly stalled just had to take the back seat for a bit. But at 200 terabytes a disc .. good god its going to come back in a big way, neither Spinning Rust or Nand can compete with storage sizes that huge cheaply enough.

I guess the question now is what are the transfer rates and writing speed of these drives/discs and how long before we consumers get them.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:48:

Didn't know about that. I thought the version numbers in GOG were some build dates code. Is there some game you remember that broke in this method?

See here: Some GOG offline installers not executing under Windows XP

Basically, anything that's on the GOG Preservation Program is unlikely to work under WinXP.

dionis32 wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:16:

@Jo22: agree on cloud.

But I was talking more about reading the physical support. Let's say you save some files on CDs/DVDs and you store those disks in good conditions. So far, so good. But what if optical readers are no longer fabricated and cannot be recreated? Then you have perfectly good disks but you cannot use them because you don't have anything to read them with, physically speaking.

There are plenty of disc drives from the 80's and 90's around, still in fully working order and both DVD and Blu-Ray drives are still being manufactured today. And I imagine most serious collectors would probably stock up on fresh drives, the day manufacturing ceases. Beyond that, there would most definitely be people around that are capable of refurbishing old drives. It's mostly the capacitors that age and motors that wear out, which are the main concerns and that's pretty easily fixed.

Barring an apocalyptic event like nuclear war, i don't see us losing the ability to access disc data anytime in the foreseeable future.

And then of course if nothing else, there's always ripping/data dumping. 😉

I too miss physical media for a host of reasons, the two primary being: I actually own a physical object I can use and play whenever I choose. The other being the overall aesthetic, I love old-school box art.

I'm not against the advancement of technology, but most physical media wasn't replaced with better media, it was eliminated and replaced purely for control (DRM). All the tricks they used to use for DRM to prevent people from making copies relied on methods that could be bypassed because the end user had pretty much everything they needed to figure it out and get around it. With the rise of the Internet, and more specifically ever increasing access speeds, that changed everything. It was now possible to not only more effectively fight piracy, something I fully support, but possible to control the entire user experience in real time.

The problem is, at least in here the US, you don't own the software you buy in most cases, you never have. You bought the privilege to use it, but really have no rights to it at all. Prior to the internet, there really was no way to effectively enforce that. Today, it's completely different, and it's much easier to enforce. Where it goes sideways is when developers/publishers take it to the extreme with things like activation limits, 24/7 online DRM, and using these same tools to constantly push you to spend more and more money to use what you "bought". They can alter your game experience, good or bad, in real time, whenever they want. Some platforms, like Steam, have basic user protection agreements in place to try and address some of this, if you want to sell you product on Steam, you have to agree to them, but those only last as long as Gabe is still alive and the company keeps that in place.

I know I'm old, but like many others, I miss the simplicity of just buying a game, taking it home, and playing it.

Errius wrote on 2025-04-10, 15:38:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-10, 14:57:

I can only guess, but I think that the files must have been stored somewhere on a very rarely accessed server or HDD.

yes if you are browsing Wayback Machine and see missing images (broken links), wait a while and refresh the page, because they will sometimes appear.

They are obviously being stored in some high latency storage medium that takes time to retrieve data from.

Hi, yes. Archive of Wayback Machine is gigantic, it doesn't casually make a copy of the whole archive every time, I assume.
The very old sites archived might be stored on equally old servers, maybe.
The last mirror copy of that archived website perhaps had been made 10 years or more before I had retrieved it.

Lots of edits.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-04-10, 17:10:

The problem is, at least in here the US, you don't own the software you buy in most cases, you never have. You bought the privilege to use it, but really have no rights to it at all. Prior to the internet, there really was no way to effectively enforce that. Today, it's completely different, and it's much easier to enforce. Where it goes sideways is when developers/publishers take it to the extreme with things like activation limits, 24/7 online DRM, and using these same tools to constantly push you to spend more and more money to use what you "bought". They can alter your game experience, good or bad, in real time, whenever they want. Some platforms, like Steam, have basic user protection agreements in place to try and address some of this, if you want to sell you product on Steam, you have to agree to them, but those only last as long as Gabe is still alive and the company keeps that in place.

And this why I still have computers running WIndows 98 and Office 97

ncmark wrote on 2025-04-10, 22:19:

And this why I still have computers running WIndows 98 and Office 97

For me it's Open Office. I'm all about open source software these days. 😀

Hm, when I was brewing patches for old games, I was careful to not break them on old operating systems. I don't recall in which game I saw this, but there's one game where you can actually see menu option in the graphics menu for both Direct3D 11 and Glide (at least if you run it on modern system and have Glide wrapper installed). One of those games that kept being maintained long after initial release date.

Though I suspect it's not uncommon for modern day enthusiasts that hack them to simply use modern Microsoft's tools to write patch DLLs, then this alone is enough to prevent execution on an old OS. If you package the game with current Inno Setup, then it won't install on Windows XP. I remember a time when Inno Setup supported Windows 9x - 7... And subject of operating system support tends to bring up heated arguments among different people in regards to what versions should be supported.

I've used 5.25, 3.5, CD, DVD and they all suck, they all gave me headaches and they all confirmed if you want a backup, duplicates on same media are not a very safe choice.

I used to carry a Quantum 20 GB HDD in my backpack, together with IDE cable and a screwdriver. The HDD was just thrown in the bag. I would come to a friends house for coffee and in 20 minutes unscrew their PC and copy what I want from it.
That drive lasted for 10 years, used as a primary drive, and as a transfer drive, and half of the stuff I had on it weren't backed up. It is still 100% operable to this day.

Somebody's wish to be attached to a physical product does not in any shape or form justify the return of shitty obsolete media types. Good riddance.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-04-11, 11:59:

Somebody's wish to be attached to a physical product does not in any shape or form justify the return of shitty obsolete media types. Good riddance.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-04-11, 11:59:

I used to carry a Quantum 20 GB HDD in my backpack, together with IDE cable and a screwdriver.

😀

Viruses

There were times when I thought that I could get physical media shipped to me faster than I could download modern AAA games (none of which I'm actually interested in, fortunately) or certain dev tools (WTF, Xilinx?) on my DSL Internet. Of course, physical media today would be at least 256GB and flash-based for speed.

I am actually surprised that things dont ship on SDCards. The format supports being made read only, and various forms of encryption to discourage duplication. It's also reasonably common to have a reader in modern laptops, it's small, light, reasonably performant, and inexpensive.

I can only conclude that it is simply cheaper to distribute on a cloud host.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-04-16, 04:22:

I am actually surprised that things dont ship on SDCards. The format supports being made read only, and various forms of encryption to discourage duplication. It's also reasonably common to have a reader in modern laptops, it's small, light, reasonably performant, and inexpensive.

I can only conclude that it is simply cheaper to distribute on a cloud host.

As you said its cheaper to have the user download the software at their own expense or to provide a download stub or software key on a 1 cent paper/plastic CD much like physical steam games.

The only time I see any kind of physical media with software on it is if you are paying through the nose for the software or its not secure/not cost effective having the software on a cloud sever.

VIRUSES

I download everything on my Internet PC which has Virus protection and real time scanning.
I then transfer the files to my home Retro computer NAS which also has Virus protection and Scanning.
From here I can download files to my Retro PC’s

Better disinfect it with Clorox while you're at it