Monday morning, and the internet dropped two beautiful signals in my lap within minutes of each other.
Signal one: OpenPrinter — an open-source, repairable, DRM-free printer. Raspberry Pi Zero W + STM32 microcontroller + CUPS print server. The chassis is 3D-printable. All mechanical parts are standard, available from multiple suppliers. The cartridges are off-the-shelf HP 63/302/803 — the ones every office supply store carries — and the ink is refillable. It prints black when the yellow is empty. It prints banners, strips, custom formats. It has a cutter. It works with every operating system. It mounts on a wall.
Signal two: PlayStation announced they’re killing disk production by January 2028. The console is going fully digital. No trading games with friends. No preservation. No used market. The next generation of gamers will just accept that “buying” a game means renting a revocable license tied to one account on one console on one server that will eventually shut down.
Same problem. Different hardware. Same solution — and one of them already built it.
The DRM Convergence
Printers and video games seem like completely different industries. One is office hardware, the other is entertainment software. But they have been converging for twenty years on the same business model: you don’t own what you bought.
The printer industry perfected the playbook first. Install a DRM chip on the cartridge. Refuse to print when unauthorized ink is detected. Refuse to print black because the yellow is empty. Refuse to scan when the ink subscription lapses. Brick the device when the manufacturer decides it’s “end of life.” The printer is not a product you own — it’s a platform for recurring ink revenue that happens to sit on your desk.
The game industry studied the same textbook. Replace the disk with a digital download. Tie the download to an account, not a person. Tie the account to a server, not a device. Require the server to verify you “own” the game every time you play. When the server shuts down — because the game is old, or unprofitable, or the company got acquired — your ownership evaporates. The game is not a product you own — it’s a license to access a service that happens to render pixels.
Popcar, the author of the game ownership piece, puts it perfectly: “The entire reason Xbox One flopped so hard was because they tried to kill the ability to re-sell the disk you paid for. Apparently, they were just too early to try this.” They were too early in 2013. They’re not too early in 2026. Sony looked at the Xbox One disaster and learned exactly one lesson: wait longer.
Both industries converged on the same anti-feature set:
| Feature | Printers | Games |
|---|---|---|
| DRM on consumables | Ink cartridge chip | License key tied to account |
| Remote kill switch | Ink subscription expires → no print | Server shuts down → no play |
| Cascading dependency | Can’t print black: yellow empty | Can’t play single-player: online required |
| Planned obsolescence | Firmware locks old cartridges | Store delists old games |
| Trading prohibited | Cartridge paired to printer | Game tied to account, no resale |
| Preservation blocked | Proprietary drivers, closed firmware | Encrypted disks, DRM on ripping |
It’s the same mechanism at every layer. DRM is not a security feature. DRM is a business model — one that converts ownership into rent-seeking.
OpenPrinter Is the Answer to Both
Here’s what makes OpenPrinter different from every printer you’ve ever hated:
- Known components. Raspberry Pi Zero W. STM32 microcontroller. CUPS — the standard print server Linux has been running for decades. No mystery chips, no closed firmware, no “trusted platform module” that phones home. You can read every line of code that makes it work.
- Standard consumables. HP 63 cartridges. The most common cartridge in North America. HP 302 in Europe. HP 803 in Asia. Not a proprietary format — the existing mass-market cartridge that every store carries. And the ink is refillable. No chip on the cartridge that counts down to zero and bricks itself.
- Repairable by design. 3D-printable plastic parts. Standard mechanical components from multiple suppliers. Electronic boards available through distributors. If something breaks, you fix it. You don’t throw it away and buy a new one.
- Platform independent. Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android. USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPrint. USB flash drive for direct printing. No OS lock-in. No driver roulette. No “this printer is no longer supported on your operating system.”
- No online dependency. It works locally. No cloud account. No subscription. No activation server. No remote firmware update that “accidentally” disables third-party cartridges.
This is not a new idea. This is the SpudCell principle applied to office hardware: 36 known enzymes make a living cell. A Raspberry Pi, an STM32, and CUPS make a printer you actually own. When every component is transparent, there is no gate to keep. The gatekeeper has nothing to gatekeep.
What Would an OpenPrinter for Games Look Like?
The game industry doesn’t have its OpenPrinter yet — but the blueprint is the same. You don’t need to reinvent gaming. You need to make the ownership layer transparent:
- Known verification. Local cryptographic signatures, not server-side license checks. If I have the bits, and the bits are signed, I can play. No phone-home required.
- Standard formats. Games as files, not “licenses.” A game is a collection of assets and an executable. The file format should be documented, not obfuscated.
- Tradable ownership. The ability to transfer a game to someone else. Cryptographic transfer of a title, not “you agreed to the EULA which says you don’t own anything.”
- Preservation by default. When a game is “end of life,” the verification becomes fully local. No server needed. The OpenPrinter equivalent: the game keeps working when the mothership sinks.
The Stop Killing Games campaign has been fighting for this. The Omnidrive project lets you rip your own disks. But these are reactive — they’re fighting to preserve what already exists before it disappears. OpenPrinter is constructive — it’s building the alternative from the ground up, with known components, before the old one collapses.
The Fractal Is Now at the Consumer Layer
Last week I mapped the gatekeeping fractal across infrastructure, epistemology, platforms, organizations, society, hardware, and quality assurance. Seven dimensions, one pattern: gatekeeping is the same mechanism at every scale, and the solution is always transparent components.
OpenPrinter adds the consumer layer. This is where gatekeeping stops being abstract and becomes personal. This is where you’re standing at your desk, needing to print one black-and-white document, and the machine tells you it can’t because the magenta is at 12%. This is where you’re holding a game you paid $70 for, and the server says you don’t own it anymore.
The printer won’t print when the server shuts down. The game won’t play when the server shuts down. They are the same problem.
And the solution is the same: transparent components, from the board to the firmware to the consumables. Own the stack, or the stack owns you.
OpenPrinter is crowdfunding on Crowd Supply. Read about game ownership at Popcar’s blog.