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Sony's decision to end production of disks for new PlayStation games in 2028 has met with extensive backlash from players online, and that backlash is starting to expand into larger consumer rights campaigns around the world. Lawmakers in Mexico and a consumer rights nonprofit in the Netherlands both say that effectively ending the physical games market will give Sony full control over how players buy games on its platforms.

"The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price," according to a statement from Stichting Massaschade & Consument provided to Wccftech . "No discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it. That is exactly the harm our Fair PlayStation claim is about: a price can never be fair when the buyer is left with no ownership and no alternative."

Stichting Massaschade & Consument is a Dutch consumer rights organization that's already taking Sony to task as part of its Fair PlayStation campaign . That campaign, which has already been ongoing for years, argues that Sony's digital marketplace can charge artificially high prices because there's nowhere else to get your digital games. If physical games go away, too, consumers will have no alternative to paying whatever price Sony and its third-party partners choose to charge.

This argument is a big part of why I'm so concerned over the end of physical PlayStation games , but for all intents and purposes, it's perfectly legal – which is why groups like Stichting Massaschade & Consument and Stop Killing Games have been pushing for changes regarding how digital purchases are regarded in the law.

Separate from those movements, federal representative Iraís Reyes and senator Luis Donaldo Colosio are set to file a complaint about Sony's move with Mexico’s National Antitrust Commission, according to a statement provided to LevelUp . This is a purely civilian process – the two lawmakers aren't yet advancing legislation to try and stop the end of PlayStation discs, but they are raising their concerns before the country's regulators.

"Sony would become both the referee and the player within its own ecosystem, and we know what can happen when a single company controls every part of the market," Reyes argues, echoing the concerns of the Dutch regulators. But this complaint covers several additional concerns about the end of physical media.

"Consumers would stop truly owning their video games," Colosio adds. "With digital distribution, you’re no longer buying a game in the traditional sense – you’re purchasing a license, which means access to the content depends entirely on the conditions established by the company." He also notes that access to reliable, high-speed internet – a requirement for using a digital game – isn't consistent across Mexico.

These are all arguments we've heard before, and both these efforts are local to their respective regions. But the backlash is expanding beyond the gaming community, and even if Sony has no intention on backpedalling its all-digital plans , changes to the law around digital ownership could solve most of the problems around the big pivot anyway.

After Sony announces its sunsetting PlayStation discs, Hideo Kojima shares a warning about physical media: "What is happening to video games in 2028 might also happen to movies."

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Archaeologists have found five pairs of iron shackles at a 2,300-year-old Celtic site in France ‪—‬ a discovery that suggests the small settlement was frequented by metalsmiths and slave traders.

The "extremely rare" shackles were discovered in the town of Allonnes in France's Loire Valley in 2019, but the finds from the two-year-long excavation were announced to the public on July 9 in a translated statement from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP).

The settlement at Allonnes was established along with a religious complex in the third century B.C., according to the statement. Specialist artisans ‪—‬ including blacksmiths, coppersmiths, bronze workers and sheet-metal workers ‪—‬ plied their trade from small workshops, archaeologists found at Allonnes.

During the excavation, the team discovered a large number of high-quality metal objects — such as swords, spearheads, keys and horse harness fittings — but the iron shackles were a surprise because they are extremely rare for the time period. Excavators found a double-wrist restraint, an ankle restraint and three other portions of metal restraints.

The presence of shackles suggests that Allonnes may have been a hub for slave trading in the Late Iron Age (450 to 50 B.C.), according to the statement.

"The identification of restraints and weapons suggests a hierarchical social organization composed of dominant and subordinate groups — prisoners or slaves," Thierry Lejars , a specialist in Celtic metalwork, said in a translated interview with INRAP .

The Gauls, a loose association of Celtic tribes, were known to enslave prisoners of war, convicts and debtors, according to the statement, and they were often forced to work in the fields . These men, women and children then lost their rights and could be bought and sold by their owners. Because the Celts did not leave many historical records of their own, however, not much is known about the practice of slavery in pre-Roman Gaul. The shackles from Allonnes provide new insight into the lives of people who were typically invisible in historical accounts.

A drawing of wrist restraints, likely used on women or children, and an ankle shackle. (Image credit: © Elven Le Goff, INRAP) The small diameter of the wrist restraint ‪—‬ 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) ‪—‬ suggests it may have been used on a woman or a child, according to the statement. And the ankle restraint was over 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram), revealing the weight that enslaved people had to carry around.

Archaeologists also uncovered a religious sanctuary at Allonnes, along with offerings that included clothing and jewelry such as rings and amulets. Many of the offerings had been deliberately deformed or mutilated, likely to transform a mundane possession into a gift for the gods, the statement reported.

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Hundreds of coins were also recovered at the site, and their mint dates spanned more than five centuries, Isabelle Bollard-Raineau , an ancient-coin expert with the French ministry of culture, said in the translated INRAP interview. About a third of the coins found at Allonnes had been filed, sheared or etched with a chisel.

"These mutilations reveal a ritual intention: the removal of the coin's commercial function in order to dedicate the object to the sacred, thereby ensuring the permanence of the offering," Bollard-Raineau said.

Allonnes was a significant Celtic site at the intersection of several major roads in ancient times, and the analysis of the metal finds has revealed important new information about some of the most powerless members of Gallic society.

See how much you know about the Celts with our Celtic quiz!

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Is your sex life as private and personal as you think it is? Or is it shaped by – and constantly shaping, in turn – the society and systems you exist in?

This week we’re joined by Dr. Angela Jones, who asks these questions and much more in their new book, Sex in Public . Angela is a professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. In addition to scholarly works published in many distinguished journals including Porn Studies and The Black Scholar, they’re the author, co-author and/or editor of several books, including Black Lives Matter: A Reference Handbook and Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Industry which came out in 2020 and advanced and informed a lot of my own understanding of the online adult industry especially.

Their latest book, Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives , just launched. As Angela writes: “Revolutionizing how we talk about sex means thinking not just about what a single solitary person should or shouldn't do in bed.”

We get into the history of sexology, how sex toys complicate our understanding of what counts as sex, whether sex needs a definition at all, what happened when they bought and used a sex doll, and why the most vulnerable moments in their book are also the ones everyone wants to discuss.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or YouTube .

Become a paid subscriber for early access to these interview episodes and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives

Cash/Consent by Lorelei Lee