this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
96 points (94.4% liked)

Games

37347 readers
1855 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here and here.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.

Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago (9 children)

Fuck you Nintendo. Because if you lose or damaged the game card, making it unreadable by the card slot, you won't be able to play the game. Due to the game card having the license that allows you to play the game. You'll own nothing and you'll like it, gamer.

[–] KRAW@linux.community 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Isn't that how all physical media works?

[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works -1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

No. You have to download the game and need the cartridge to play it.

[–] ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

People are referring to damaged physical media = can’t play it. That’s always been the case. You mixed 2 different things into the same point, which are wildly distinct and why people say they agree partially.

[–] monotremata@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

It's not unheard of, though. Modern Warfare 2 had only a 70MB file on its disc, basically a license, and required you to download the actual game.

Note I'm not defending this. It's a nightmare for game preservation and pushes us ever further in the direction of never owning anything. I'm just saying Nintendo isn't breaking new ground with this particular outrage.

load more comments (7 replies)