The concept of intellectual “property” is asinine.
Scientific knowledge should not be treated as a commodity, leverage, or a privilege.
Greater understanding benefits all of humankind, and it is morally indefensible to gatekeep progress to the benefit of any minority.
First off, your PC can 100% be bricked remotely, go read up on Stuxnet…
The problem is the assumption that there is nefarious intent behind this move.
Sony and Microsoft tried to give us digital entitlement resale AND friend loaning with Xbox One and PS4 and a whiny minority of “core gamers” kicked up such a fuss during E3 2013 that Microsofts stock tanked and both of them backpedalled… It was senseless then, and it’s even more senseless now.
A SIGNIFICANT portion of people who buy video games already have already abandoned physical media and don’t care…
Excluding Nintendo, ~5% of total video game sales are physical media.
THIS 100%
Modern game discs are literally just Mountain Dew Verification Cans™
Both Microsoft and Sony had this exact infrastructure built ready to go for Xbox One and PS4 prior to launch.
We were going to get full digital collections with a marketplace that would allow entitlement sales AND the ability to loan entitlements to friends for set periods of time.
When Microsoft announced the plans at E3 2013, a whiny minority of “core gamers” kicked up such a fuss that Microsofts stock tanked and they backpedalled… Sony hadn’t made any announcements yet and presented the EXACT opposite of Microsoft’s plan literally 8 hours later despite the fact that their existing hardware DevKits and system software functioned exactly as Microsoft had described. Sony got to look like the “hero” while both of them then scrambled to completely reengineer their hardware and system software prior to launch…
We lost a bright future that day.
The commitment to physical media has crossed the line from nostalgia into change resistance, driven by manufactured conspiracies. This transition is in the best interest of the majority of gamers; the vocal minority is just out of touch with how the broader community actually consumes that media.
For millennia, non-static art (song, theater, performance, and oral storytelling) existed purely in ephemeral mediums without physical storage. The concept of “owning” a physical piece of interactive software is a historical anomaly that has existed for barely forty years.
Economically and technologically, video games are the cheapest and most accessible they have ever been. Simultaneously, the depth, breadth, and quality of content are light-years ahead of what was imaginable in the 80s. We are living through the golden age of the medium, yet critics are lamenting the hypothetical loss of the 99% of games they were never going to replay in ten years anyway.
Like it or not, software IS fundamentally a service now. A modern video game is not a static painting or a collectible display piece like a Funko Pop to put on your shelf; it’s a dynamic, adaptive, and interactive ecosystem shaped by ongoing player data and developer iteration. Holding a plastic disc hostage provides no value when that disc only contains an unpatched, broken, Day 0 build of the game at its literal worst.
The romanticization of physical games is no different than audiophiles insisting that vinyl is the only “pure” way to experience music. It is an aesthetic preference masquerading as a consumer rights crusade.
The VAST majority of gamers don’t identify as “gamers”. They don’t read gaming media, they don’t engage in online discourse about video games, and they don’t give two shits about any of this sensationalist nothing burger fear mongering.
If YOU are a “concerned gamer”; physical media is dead. Acknowledge that you are an INFINITESIMALLY MINISCULE minority and get over it, or find a new hobby.
A couple thousand chronically online whiners don’t get to decide the future of the industry.
Homosexuality is not seditious.
Get your feelings under control.
…another reply with an emotional appeal and no cogent perspective.
Questions aren’t strawmen… the opposite actually. Challenging my integrity because you disagree with me IS an ad hominem attack though.
The intellectual exercise of challenging your upbringing, indoctrination, and convictions is too much for a lot of people.
Characterize me however you need to in order to avoid those uncomfortable questions about your own bias though…Have a good one.
…and again I ask; you are 100% confident that the prevailing world order, largely established by Britain, America, and NATO more broadly, is the lens through which we should view human good?
To paraphrase what you said earlier: just because a system exists doesn’t mean it’s just or right.
Doesn’t it seem a little suspect that a thing isn’t considered “bad” or objectionable until NATO members stop doing it?
The current world order was built on centuries of racism, oppression, slavery, and foreign interference; with a helping hand from 780,000,000,000 tonnes of atmospheric CO2 emission… Maybe we shouldn’t see that perspective as the moral high ground?
Interesting take that anyone who doesn’t agree with the utility of western style representative democracy must be a spy or a robot…
Do you feel like elected officials in Canada speak to the needs and desires of the working class more often than not? Do YOU feel well represented in Ottawa?
If like 80% of Canadian citizens, you were born and raised here; have you ever taken any time to consider the miraculous coincidence that the system you were born into just happens to be the “right” one? Is that just luck of the draw for you, or is it possible you’ve been indoctrinated?
Got it, so YOUR country’s government has the right to decide what people can and cannot promote publicly, but other countries do not.
I see you are big on nuance…
So you think it would be appropriate for another country to grant asylum to a Canadian citizen, if they fled prosecution for a Section 318 or 319 offense?
Are you under the impression that fleeing felons under warrant in other countries are given travel documents and allowed to exit before standing trial for their crimes?
What magical world do you live in?
…and FWIW, we have people in prison right now in Canada for violation of prohibited speech laws.
Where did I say that?
Also, morality is entirely subjective.
…And a good chunk of the world has colonial capitalism and centuries of out-group exploitation to thank for whatever prosperity their nation enjoys. Also, a good chunk of the world’s high-idealed systems would undoubtedly crumble under the weight of 1,400,000,000 people.
I’m not saying that everything China does is how I would like to see things done; but I suspect we could agree that letting dissension fester until radicals storm your houses of government and compromise your elections isn’t a workable solution either.
As a secular humanist, I have to weigh the casualties of a system against the good it provides its body populace. With most liberal western democracies currently facing extreme wealth disparity, working class desperation, and some level of existential crises over ideological extremism; maybe we should reserve some level of judgement until WE have lifted 800,000,000 people out of poverty.
I’m not sure that any of the ongoing experiments in absolute individual liberty are going particularly well…
According to you?
Your moral code should define the legal codes for all humankind? Do you not believe in the right to self-determination?
China is the world’s largest producer of both total and high-impact scientific literature. Chinese research institutions publish more than 1,000,000 papers annually, which is double what the next most prolific nation publishes.
Looking at the last 20 years specifically, China accounts for a 27% share of the Top 1% most cited papers, with the US coming in 2nd with a ~25% share
When accounting for raw purchasing power, China spends >$1,300,000,000,000 annually on R&D compared to the US at $1,010,000,000,000.
China is home to 24 of the top 100 science and technology clusters, delivering >7,570,000 person-years of R&D manpower annually.
As for their espionage tactics; again I fully reject the position that information and knowledge are property, so I do not see accessing those without permission as theft.
Looking at the raw numbers, and the material outcomes we all benefit from, I have more faith in China’s ability to turn knowledge into meaningful human progress than any other nation on earth.