Data is Data… (Gaming)

by MacAddictXIV , Seattle WA, Monday, May 18, 2020, 08:47 (1650 days ago) @ Cody Miller

No, but they can 'pull' your ability to play it. There are plenty of games that require an internet connection (and, presumably, a check-in with a server somewhere) - even if they have a single-player mode, that doesn't necessarily mean you can play it without someone approving (in real time) your doing so.

The physical versions of these telltale games do not check into a server.

That wasn't my point. The statement of yours I was replying to wasn't "A publisher cannot 'pull' my physical media for these Telltale Games", it was "A publisher cannot 'pull' my physical media."

My response was "yes, they can." Maybe not for Telltale, but the point was that physical media isn't safer than digital media in terms of being able to play in the future. Vortech is 100% correct - it's about the publisher/author, not the platform/media.

The likelihood of 'pulling' is astronomically greater with digital versus physical. This is a fact. I am sure SOME physical games can be disabled, but MOST digital ones can be.

Maybe I got this wrong somewhere down the line, but isn't it still true with physical media that if the publisher/developer stops selling or pulling a game from distribution that, according to the EOL that everyone agrees to when buying software, that you aren't allowed to use it? Because it's technically still their intellectual property and you are actually essentially just renting the game. I could be way off, but this was true sometime in the past. If this is still true, then what you are talking about, saving away a disk to play whenever you want after the developer takes it from play that you are actually committing a crime :D

I could be wrong, but that is what I remember.