According to the Japanese genius, people cannot own digital data the same way they can own what they physically acquire today.
Unfortunately, we have been rapidly moving toward a digitized future for some time, but Sony’s latest announcement that PlayStation will be fully digital by 2028 has further heightened players’ concerns about ownership rights and the inability to preserve artistic works.
The concern is so tangible that people are looking back at Hideo Kojima’s earlier thoughts on the situation.
“Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative. Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, or in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That’s what I’m afraid of. This is not greed.” Kojima wrote on Twitter.
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We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That’s what I’m afraid of. This is not greed.– HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) August 5, 2021
This has been a very real fear for quite some time, and Stop Killing Games is one of the groups leading the fight against the lack of consumer protection. Its initiative to change the rules, however, unfortunately failed before the European Commission.
“The Commission considers that, at this stage, it cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially. This is due, in part, to existing intellectual property rights. Under EU copyright law, rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations.”
Players are entirely justified in fearing that, in the absence of physical media, their favorite games, or any other work of art, could be taken away from them in an instant. Unfortunately, it is no longer rare for a fairly popular game to reach game over while still retaining a dedicated fan base.
At the end of last year, Amazon got rid of the New World MMO despite its player count reaching 60,000 at peak times. More recently, we witnessed the sad end of Destiny 2 when Bungie announced that it would conclude its ten-year story in early June with the biggest quality-of-life update ever released for the game.
The servers are still running, but because no further updates are expected, the situation around cheating and matchmaking will only worsen from here.
We are undoubtedly entering an unstable and legally underregulated area, and PlayStation’s latest decision increases this uncertainty by taking away the option to choose physical games. Perhaps the Video Game History Foundation is right: maybe the only way to truly own and preserve games is piracy.
And let us be honest: if a game can no longer be bought on Steam and never received a disc release, that is the only way to access it. Here is the final punchline: Kojima wrote those two tweets in 2021. Almost five years ago.
Source: PC Gamer
