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Ron Wyden asks for rules about whether you own your digital purchases
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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The only difference between a physical and digital copy of a video game is the format of the license key (on disc vs attached to your account). In either case, you're buying a license key that can be revoked by the manufacturer at any time. A playable game isn't even on the disc any more, since games aren't finished by the master date any more (so you need to have internet access regardless of if it's a disc or digital copy)
At least California is doing something and forcing stores to make it clearer that you're only getting a revokable license rather than actually buying the product: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
This isn't strictly true because most games do still have a playable version on the disk. What is more is that it's not as straight forward to revoke a disc, especially for passive media and the license is legally transferable due to doctrine of first sale as I understand it.
At least on my Xbox, there's games where it wouldn't let me play them unless some updates were installed. "day one patches" are very common in the video game industry these days.
The first sale doctrine applies to physical goods. The game companies are moving towards the games always being digital goods, and the disc simply being a physical license key for the digital games. I'm not sure if the doctrine would apply in the same way in this case.
Except for the fact that Nintendo is doing exactly that on the switch. Physical games have a digital license embedded in the cartridge itself. In this way Nintendo can stop people from ripping games and sharing the backups with friends. With that said be careful when buying used switch games.