iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

That's fair, take care and have a good one.

000

In what way? I literally haven't accused you of such a thing, while you literally did suggest that I don't understand why people value physical media. All of my discussion in this thread so far has been in good faith and under the assumption that you also value it and understand it's value.

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You are correct, Sony won't do this. This is the beginning of the end for Sony being a leading player in the gaming sphere. I just don't like how PC gamers have let PC get away from it, so now we are stuck in a bad timeline that when consoles are no more, we are still doomed to a digital future.

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I'm just responding to the logic they presented and took it to it's ultimate conclusion. Don't talk down to me like I don't understand the value of physical media when I have been collecting physical media for nearly 4 decades.

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And we (again, collective community, not me or you specifically) are partially responsible for that becoming our end point.

010

If we didn't give up the fight for PC physical, maybe the future would be different, but because we collectively (not your or me specifically, but the community as a whole) let it happen and then made rationalizations and justification after the fact, Digital is the future for that end point.

The likely outcome of all of this is Sony losing enough market share that they become third party or otherwise irrelevant. And when we are all on PC, what do we have? Digital Only.

If you aren't happy with PC losing physical games, then you are with me, on some level, lol. All I am saying is that having double standards and rationalizations to say the ethically concerning thing is actually ok to do on PC is going to lead to our future.

I want to follow the logic you just presented to it's conclusion. If PS6 has an optional disc drive attachment you can buy and install, & that disc attachment has write functionality that lets you put one of the digital games on a disc you buy yourself- is Sony's digital only plan now magically ok?

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If No Physical Games is bad, then it's bad. Regardless of the platform. If we are making exceptions and excuses for times it can happen, then we have already lost the fight against the all digital future.

I guess my argument is for us to have standards and values we actually stick to, instead of bending rules for favored platforms.

If you can't apply your own criticism universally, then you are shooting yourself in the foot and undermining your own argument, because you are making exceptions and holding double standards as a default.

000

If your argument is, "It's good that PC has no physical releases but bad that console doesn't", then I disagree. A platform not having physical releases is bad. Full stop, end of sentence. Anything else is rationalization or justification to make excuses for the bad thing that is no physical.

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Sure, but no physical copies is still bad. We should not let ourselves fall into the trap of excusing one platform for doing the bad thing we criticize other platforms for doing. Like yeah, it's too late for PC now. But it still sucks that option is gone, and it was bad that it was eliminated.

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Here is the forcast: Sony is going to struggle to keep itself alive while PS6 is a burning disaster for an entire gen, Xbox probably won't survive the full 5 years before going third party, Nintendo will maintain approximately what they already have going right now.

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It just takes a few years for a console to get jailbroken while DRM is usually cracked much quicker. I guess what I am saying is, we can still champion the strengths of PC, while also still criticizing it for what it does wrong. Like this news still sucks for PS6 even if it's jailbroken day 1.

000

I get what you are saying, but I don't think "you can get what you want illegally" makes the lack of physical releases any better. It's functionally not different from what a jailbroken console can do on that front.

220

I've been thinking about this, and I wonder- PC has been almost all digital for a while. There is no physical with your steam library, or epic games store. But PC doesn't get a fraction of the hate or criticism for this. Why do you think that is?

The future is PC + Nintendo. Playstation is going to bomb PS6 so hard it removes them from the industry, and Xbox is already on it's way out.

000

I've tried my best to explain and bring a friendly discussion to this, but I'm uncertain if you have taken anything away from this outside of thinking I am annoying or something lol. I'm fine to end this here if you are still unconvinced/unmoved by anything I have said. I hope you have a good day.

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Singling out the writing/plot alone misses the orchestra for the small subset of Piccolo players in the back, criticizing why they aren't dominating the score. At this point, despite my constant explaining of what I am talking about, I'm not sure if you will get it.

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And yes, the writing too. But the writing is only a backing instrument in this case, pushing the score forward, but never dominating a movement. They all work in concert.

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You say the scenes are composed for post-hoc reasoning, but the scenes are actually composed as a symphony, The instruments being the acting, the animation, the music, the cinematography.

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You try to say you are talking exclusively about the text, but a big part of your point is about the relationship between the text and those who experience it. And it's in that relationship that I know you are wrong. It might describe some people's relationship with the story, but not all.

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Yet there is clear evidence to the contrary. People have and are experiencing narrative satisfaction and emotion on their first playthrough, and doing so without any supplementary thickening.

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If your claim was that it was post-hoc was really true, then no one would cry on their first playthrough without looking up "thickening" knowledge. They would only be finding narrative satisfaction after the fact.

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In this sense, to me, it almost looks like you are missing this beautiful, full forest to hyperfixate on one very specific tree that doesn't live up to or fit your very particular expectations.

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Or compare to a soap opera- diminishing the importance or story telling power of any of these individual elements, let alone refusing to recognize how all of them are doing a really good job in relative harmony with each other to communicate the needs of each scene.

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It's not post-hoc reasoning that is having many cry in their first playthrough without ever having looked at a wiki or clicked on a hyperlink related to the lore of the game. It's the extremely good execution of these elements that you keep trying to downplay and handwave as unimportant.

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And these elements are doing their job extremely effectively. So to most, it doesn't matter if the writing of the story is largely a series of simple yet effective set-ups and payoffs with character and relationship interactions in-between.

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And all are mostly excellent when it matters most in Xenoblade 2 and are the main things driving the "Dramatic mechanism". They create the emotions that attaches people to the characters and gets them engaged to the drama. It is what is making people cry and hurt at the scenes. Not "thickening"

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Each of these: Acting, Animation, Cinematography, Music- all are legitimate and fully featured art forms on their own. All of which are capable story telling mechanisms on their own.

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Someone sounds hurt? Yes, the acting and animation is doing exemplary jobs at communicating that in a way that triggers emotions. Close Up- yes, the camera work is on point and phenomenal in the major cutscenes. Violins? The soundtrack on it's own can move people to tears, absent any context.

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You are trying to downplay those things as proper story telling tools in their own right, every bit as important as the writing. But what I am trying to communicate here, is that those things are important to story telling too, and XC2 has *very* good "close-ups" and "violins".

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