The past decade has seen a rise in digital media. There has been a rise in streaming services and digital stores, as well as a decline in physical media sales and cinema attendance. This has led to some critics declaring that digital media is the future and that cinemas and physical media have had their day. However, there are signs that there are big issues with digital media and it is not wise to solely depend on digital media.
The rise of digital stores can be attributed to the release of the iPod and the launch of iTunes. iTunes acted as a big disruptor to the music industry because people could buy individual tracks at a low price as well as buying albums, movies, and TV shows. iTunes changed how people purchased and listened to music: CD sales declined, many music fans turned away from piracy and the music charts were revolutionised.
A similar thing happened with video games. Steam launched in 2003 and it quickly became the stop-one shop for PC games. Even for people who brought physical media their games were imported to Steam. I noticed it when I played the Football Manager games and Empire: Total War. Steam dominates the PC gaming market. However, Steam became a monopoly because physical media for PC games has become rarer and many model PCs come without a CD drive. The advantage of Steam is people’s PC game collections can be centralised.
Netflix became a big disruptor in the entertainment industry. Streaming took off in the 2010s with the rise of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Audiences had access to a wide range of films and TV through these subscription services and Netflix and Amazon suddenly became big players in Hollywood. Physical media seemed redundant, and cable and satellite packages only became important to sports fans.
The Pandemic gave streaming services a massive boost. There was a double whammy of people having time and not much entertainment being available. This led companies like Disney and Warner Bros to change their strategy and become more streaming-focused.
However, there are issues with the streaming service which are starting to surface. The streaming service has become more fractious with every major studio having launched streaming services. There’s Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+, and Peacock in the States, and there are more specialised services like Shudder (horror), Mubi (world cinema) and Crunchyroll (anime). The Guardian estimated the cost of having all the streaming services as £2500 a year in the UK. With a cost-of-living crisis affecting the world households are cutting back and streaming services are going to be one of the first things people would cut back on.
One of the advantages of streaming services was centralising film and TV collections. However, this has changed since many media companies pulled their productions from their rivals. Disney has hoarded most of its properties and most of its productions can only be viewed on Disney+ or Hulu. Customer behaviour has changed because people now need to hunt streaming services to find films or TV shows. Luckily Google makes searching a lot easier. The fractious nature of modern streaming has ended up restoring the world of digital piracy.
However, the other extreme is monopoly power. This has happened with the music industry because Spotify has dominated music streaming. This has led to controversy because artists have complained about Spotify underpaying them, leading to artists like Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke withdrawing their music from platforms. Other artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music in protest to Spotify’s lucrative deal with Joe Rogen.
The old brief was the original content for streaming services would be safe. That illusion was shattered when HBO quietly removed six of their original films, including Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of The Witches and the Melissa McCarthy comedy Superintelligence. Joblo revealed in their article that these films were still available purchasing online but it does start a dangerous precedent because it means other streaming services can pull their content at any time.
Warner Bros Discovery infamously cancelled the release of Batgirl. Batgirl was meant to be big released on HBO Max but the new regime cancelled the film so they could write off $90 million of debt. The directing pair, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were locked out from Warner Bros servers when they tried to edit the film. Batgirl has had a funeral screening before it gets locked in Warner Bros’ vault, or worst deleted forever.
Warner Bros Discovery made an even more horrific decision to cancel the animated series Final Space as a tax write-off. It will be removed from HBO Max in the States, and Netflix internationally after their license runs out. The production of physical box sets has already stopped. People who have brought the film digitally have lost their copies because of Warner Bros. The creator Olan Rogers, summed up how horrifying this decision was to him and the people who worked on it. Piracy would be the only way to watch the series.
That’s one of the big risks of digital media, a new dark age of lost media. There have been plenty of films from the silent era which are lost to the aether of time and TV from the ‘50s and ‘60s suffered from short-sightedness because there are many lost TV episodes. Fans of Doctor Who can attest to that. At least the loss was silent films and classic TV was down to naivety, Warner Bros’ actions are callous. It’s punishment to creators and audiences.
Some films and TV shows have been edited for various reasons. When Disney+ launched some films were edited to preserve the company’s family-friendly image, like Daryl Hannah getting digital hair extensions to cover her bottom in Splash. When the protests over George Floyd’s death arose Netflix and Channel 4 removed episodes of Community and Peep Show because they had controversial material.
Buying digital media isn’t a safeguard. Amazon revealed that customers are not buying a digital copy of a film or TV show, they are buying a license. In other words, a digital purchase can be yanked off someone’s library at any time. Playstation users who brought films from the Playstation Store have found this out the hard way that the films they brought are no longer available.
The digital landscape for video games has also been a long burial ground. There have been games that have only been released digitally like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and The Legend of Korra and pulled from digital stores after a few years. The only copies that exist are on the hard drives of people who originally brought them. Publishers have re-released classic games and sometimes to mixed receptions. Examples of this were Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy and Sonic Origins which were remastered and the critical reception was mixed. Publishers have removed older and superior versions from digital stores, so the only option for new players is these new versions.
Gaming has pivoted towards being online experiences. Consoles have developed more online capabilities which resulted in publishers releasing day-one patches. One of the most infamous examples was the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 which launched with a 7.7GB patch that was bigger than the game files. If the servers ever get shut down then the game discs would become expensive coasters.
Online gaming has become more important to the video game industry. This is evident with the current state of First Person Shooters where there’s an emphasis on multiplayer and the single-player campaign is just an afterthought. Some games don’t even bother having a single-player campaign and are just released as an online-only experience. This means if a game is a flop, then it would worthless. The servers would be shut down and there would be nothing to play.
The worst aspect of modern gaming is the rise of microtransactions. Even if someone pays full price for a video game, publishers still expect to fork out for extras. Sports games are notorious for being littered with microtransactions. Star Wars Battlefront II was infamous for being filled with loot boxes, and governments around the world investigated the practice.
These actions are why I still advocate for physical media. With physical media the customer is in control of their media collection and does not suffer at the whims of big corporations. Physical media preserves films, TV, music, video games, and books. Although it’s not a guarantee as Warner Bros Discovery’s decision about Final Space proves.
