🚨 SO WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE PAYING $70 FOR? AIR? Sony’s legal position keeps dragging us toward one ridiculous question: if I don’t own the digital game I just paid for, what exactly did I buy? Not a disc. There isn’t one. Nothing I can resell. Nothing I can transfer to another person. I sure as hell can’t put it on a shelf. Sony doesn’t even want me calling it “mine.” So I paid $80 for permission. At that point, it starts feeling like I’m buying air. Here’s what gamers should really think about. If Sony keeps ownership and controls the storefront, the license, the distribution, and the terms of access, how does the consumer have any meaningful leverage over the price? And how exactly do you price invisible permission? They can charge $40, $70, $80, discount it next week, bundle it six months later, or change the conditions attached to accessing it. Hell, under certain circumstances, access can even disappear. Meanwhile, what did you actually walk away owning? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Nothing you can resell to recover part of what you spent. That is a hell of a business model. Think about it. A digital game can be duplicated and licensed millions of times around the world without Sony ever transferring ownership of an individual physical copy to you. The customer takes out the wallet. Sony keeps the control. For decades, paying full retail price meant you bought your copy of something. Nobody thought buying a Resident Evil disc meant you owned Capcom or the Resident Evil copyright. You owned the copy sitting in your house, just like a book, a DVD, or a music CD. That’s why this court case matters. The act of purchasing still looks and feels like a purchase. It’s Sony’s definition of what that purchase gives you that changed. Digital storefronts have flipped that relationship upside down. Now we’re being told: pay the purchase price, click the Buy button, build a library worth thousands of dollars... but don’t confuse any of that with ownership. And depending on the terms attached to that license, you may not have the control over that library that the word “buy” leads you to believe you have. That’s bullshit. It’s not the lack of a physical disc that bothers me. It’s charging consumers like they’re buying a product while giving them the rights of someone borrowing permission. @Sony, stop pretending this is traditional retail. Because if gamers are only buying permission wrapped in the language and pricing of ownership, then we need to start asking a much bigger question: Why are we paying ownership prices for permission slips? Watch the breakdown: youtu.be/YASu9NXwgIU Credit to @YongYea for putting this argument under the microscope. @PlayStation @Sony #PlayStation #Sony #DigitalGames #GameOwnership #PhysicalGames #Gaming If you like this content, follow me. Game On!