this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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A site for making physical releases out of digital games (europe.pub)
submitted 1 day ago by Fmstrat@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Yea, so this doesn't exist, but should it?

Think about:

  • TheMovieDB style identifiers with box art
  • Auto-generated and/or community created and upvoted DVD labels, case inserts, or USB/SSD stickers you can print yourself (no reason physical media has to be "round")
  • Automated scripts for generating local media savers/installers from GOG and Steam

This doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to create for the niche community of people that want physical copies.

top 26 comments
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[–] HetareKing@piefed.social 1 points 3 hours ago

It feels like it would kind of defeat the purpose. If you like the ritual of physically picking a game and putting it into your machine, there are more practical ways of going at it, like those NFC card-based systems like Zaparoo. If you like having a physical collection, it seems to me that having a bookcase full of labels made with a home printer and with none of the legitimacy of them being "the real thing" would feel rather empty. You can't legally resell it or lend it to others and if you care about preserving the game without being dependent on an external service that can go down at any time, you're probably better off keeping several backups of your hard drive than counting on flaky recordable media (hard drives don't last forever either, but you're more likely to regularly check on the health of a couple of hard drives than potentially hundreds of BD-Rs and SD cards).

Basically, very few of the advantages of physical media would end up remaining.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Our own friendly neighborhood Perfect Dark did a write-up on a project called Kazeta a while back that seemed pretty cool.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Someone should make cases for mini NVMe SSDs to turn them into cartridges. NVMe SSD are technically plug and play and with an NVMe extension cable you could move the slot to the side or top of the case. Expensive as fuck to use NVMe for a single game, but much faster than SD Cards and they don’t wear down as fast and will retain the data longer when unpowered.

[–] PerfectDark@lemmy.world 11 points 16 hours ago

Hey, that's me!!!

:)

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That is a cool idea. Thanks im gonna do some research now.

[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

While different, that's pretty neat.

[–] rursta@retrolemmy.com -3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Use SD cards or other external media as carts

Reads like a joke

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

If you want the game to last forever, it assumes you've already got it sourced from somewhere DRM-free, where you can continually copy it to other healthy media. Nothing lasts forever, but this is meant to replicate a lot of the strengths of old consoles, fortunately without some of their own pitfalls like save batteries.

[–] rursta@retrolemmy.com 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

SSTech requires power to maintain cells.
What we need is liberated schematics Blu-ray burner+ readers, so you can burn even a small cast, and reread until your descendants^50^ make another copy.

[–] HetareKing@piefed.social 3 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't recordable optical media also have a pretty limited lifespan? Unlike commercially produced discs, where the pits are pressed into the plastic, CD/DVD/BD-Rs just have a dye that is made to change colour with a laser, and that dye degrades over time.

[–] rursta@retrolemmy.com 1 points 43 minutes ago

Not inorganic BDs.

Whatever u do, never expose dyes to sunlight.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Even pressed discs can rot. Like many WB Blu-Rays were made with a faulty process and many will rot in the next few decades.

[–] HetareKing@piefed.social 1 points 5 hours ago

All things decay, not even the doping of ROM chips will last forever, but I think the average lifespan of recorded optical media is like, 10 years? That feels rather short.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

Not for this project, you don't.

[–] HairyTeeth@lemmy.zip 13 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

I mean, that's basically what Limited Run Games do.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Didn't they go out of business? I mean....they will NOW! Make a PS6 physical disc all you want, but if Sony never releases a PS6 with a disc drive, what good is it?

[–] HairyTeeth@lemmy.zip 6 points 18 hours ago

Just had a look and they're still in business, although they were acquired by Embracer Group, so... Tick-tick.

But yeah, you're right that even companies like that will go the way of the dodo if consoles abandon physical media.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 2 points 17 hours ago

They also make Switch and Xbox games.

[–] DarkSirrush@piefed.ca 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Erm, there are a few of them that do the box art/moviedb style thing, they just dont host the game files.

Will edit with links in a bit.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You ain't got started yet?

Any which way you look at it, it's gonna entangle with legal battles with the developers..

[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I don't see how, TheMovieDB has been doing it for years.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not if it's a self hosted project for your personal use.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world -2 points 1 day ago

What does 'self hosted' even mean?

I glitched the Internet Archive, and have terabytes of stuff stored there. Accessible worldwide.

However, I cannot share links here, understandably against community rules.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 1 points 23 hours ago

Why would a legal battle ensue? I don't believe OP is suggesting profiting off any of these IPs, just providing a database.

[–] Hope4Every1@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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