By Ben Godina
Temporary Secretary
In the last several columns, I’ve talked about my love for music, books and movies. The one thing they all have in common is I can go to a store and purchase a physical way of consuming that art. With the recent announcement from Sony that, starting in 2028, they will no longer be producing physical versions of video games for their gaming consoles, a major conversation has emerged on the importance of physical media.
I have been a long-time proponent of owning physical media, urging my friends to collect at least their own essentials. I own all of my favorite movies, TV shows, albums and books in a way I can access them essentially forever.
I’m certainly not a hater of streaming; I love the offerings of HBO—or Max or whatever they’ve changed it to since I started writing this column—but HBO specifically holds examples of the dangers it creates and why physical media is so important.
“Westworld” was a widely popular HBO original streaming show based on the 1973 movie of the same name. The titular Westworld is a wild west-themed adult theme park, where guests can enjoy the luxury of highly advanced A.I. robots. A few years ago, HBO quietly removed the show from their platform; since then, “Westworld” has never been available on another streaming service or available for digital rental or purchase on a marketplace like Amazon.
The only way you can watch the show is to find a rare DVD or Blu-ray, and even then, the show ran for three seasons, so good luck finding all three. I have spent the better part of three years searching for the complete series, as I love the concept of the show and HBO original series. To this day, I still have only ever found the first season on regular DVD. I am a frequent enjoyer of flea markets, garage sales, video stores, thrift stores and vintage markets, and I have never seen a second copy or another season of the show.
The other option for watching is piracy, and as someone who respects art and the time put into making art, I have also been anti-piracy, because directly supporting film and television is often the only way the creators get to continue making art and money. However, instances like this, where a piece of content is completely unavailable because companies are so protective of their I.P. they’d rather no one see it than let another company make money off of it, make my morality begin to waver.
My favorite movie ever is “Tick, Tick… BOOM,” a Netflix original adaptation of the stage musical of the same name. That movie came out my senior year of high school and hit me like a ton of bricks. No movie has ever made me so scared and so excited about the future at the same time, and it means a significant amount to me. So much so, I carry a tattoo of lyrics from the show on my wrist every day to remind me what I do it all for. I am terrified every day that someday Netflix will decide they no longer need it on their platform and POOF!—the movie that changed my entire worldview could be gone overnight. Netflix has never released it on physical media. No DVD. No Blu-ray. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Physical media doesn’t simply serve as an easy way to access art at home. It is the preservation of history. Many movie directors today, like Guillermo del Toro, have urged the necessity of collectors and collections as a way of preserving, going as far as calling them “custodians of art.” Music is in a safer position, as vinyl record collecting has made its way back into the mainstream, however, paperback book sales have fallen by 84% in the last decade. This has led many publishers to announce the end of production on mass market paperbacks. For over 100 years, mass market paperbacks have served as the majority of book sales, usually reissues or pulp, but with the end of production, that would mean many modern books in need of new editions will never get the chance.
With smaller numbers of physical copies in the world, the likelihood of a piece of art becoming lost to us drastically increases. Streaming and the internet have made viewing art more accessible than ever before, however, it has also created new issues and put the future of physical media in serious jeopardy.