My love of collecting physical copies of media - from tv series and movies to video games - began when I was little and helped create some of my fondest childhood memories. Whether it was the VCRs of Disney movies or the DVDs of questionable quality that my uncle would buy from some seedy guy at the Pipework’s Market, my family’s media collection was always overflowing.
As a society focused on technological development, we are beginning to phase out physical media as we steadily approach a digital-only era and that’s not a good thing. I notice friends and family are increasingly ditching physical media for digital, opting to read books on Kindles or download their games digitally.
I often receive some laughs for making the effort to put a Blu-ray disk in my PlayStation to watch a movie, rather than getting it up on one of the many streaming services that are currently available.
With so many different streaming services now available to consumers, companies are even opting to do away with physical releases altogether and focus solely on digital.
Last year The Walt Disney Co. announced that they would no longer be releasing DVDs or Blu-ray throughout Australia, with “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” being their final release here.
As someone who has collected every single Marvel Cinematic Universe release on Blu-ray since 2008’s Iron Man, it’s extremely sad to see these physical movies go the way of the floppy disk.
Without physical media, we are solely reliant on the internet and subscriptions. This is a huge problem for those of us who can’t afford multiple subscriptions. Not to mention that we aren’t always guaranteed the best quality or that a title won’t buffer multiple times due to poor internet connection, ultimately taking you out of the story and leading to frustration.
In 2022, a ‘Willow’ TV series based on the beloved 1988 film of the same name was released and met with mostly positive reviews. Less than six months later Disney pulled the series from the streaming service along with many others in a cost-cutting measure. There is currently no legal way to watch the series, to the disappointment of many fans across the globe.
Movies aren’t the only media that are getting ditched physically. The video game industry is also heavily digitally dominated, with console gaming for 2023 being 83 per cent digital versus 17 per cent physical.
This gap is likely to keep increasing in favour of digital media as Sony and Microsoft have begun abandoning the disc drives for their respective consoles; the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox series S. These newest console iterations from the gaming giants offered consumers digital-only versions which were cheaper, steering both Sony and Microsoft towards a digital future.
Last year, Remedy Entertainment announced that its latest game, ‘Alan Wake 2’, would receive a digital-only release across all platforms. In a frequently asked questions page on the Alan Wake website, Remedy explained that the reason for this was “many players have shifted to digital only. You can buy a Sony PlayStation 5 without a disc drive and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S is a digital-only console.”
But is the impending digital age really such a bad thing? Well in short, yes. At least for the movie, television, and gaming industries.
You don't actually own any of the movies and games you purchase digitally. Instead, what you’re paying for is the digital license to use the media.
Last year PlayStation announced that users would no longer be able to access Discovery content that they’d paid for, explaining in a statement that:
‘As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.’
Sony’s announcement sparked heavy backlash and concern as users began to question digital media ownership during a time when physical media preservation was a hot topic within both the games and film industries.
Following the backlash, Sony quickly announced that Discovery Media would in fact not be leaving users PlayStation accounts thanks to updated licensing agreements. But this isn't a permanent fix, as those licensing agreements only extend access for 30 months, not forever.
The death of physical video games also means the end of trading in your older games. At a time when new AAA games (a term used in the industry to describe games released by major publishers) are currently setting you back upwards of $120, this is a huge issue. Especially during a cost-of-living crisis whereby people are having to sacrifice their hobbies in order to make ends meet.
For me, the collection and preservation of media has been, and will continue to be, an important part of our shared human history. During a time when digital media can be edited or simply taken away forever, it’s never been more important to collect, own, and preserve physical media.
Despite the increasing difficulty, I fully intend to continue building my physical media library. I do this not only in the hopes of preserving art in a snapshot of our time but so I can share them with my children one day, so they have a chance to make their own fond media memories.
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