Do you prefer your games bought digitally on a storefront I.e. Steam, PSN etc OR on a disc in your shelf?
Personally on PC I always get games from GOG and Steam because obviously most titles are digital and it is convenient for me. (Despite owning TF2 on disc since 2007! Yep!)
When it’s consoles though, I always wanna get it on disc and I am glad I go the extra mile for it especially when new games like SF6 are on preowned sales. Look at the PSN fiasco with shows, this is why I prefer physical media on consoles because you can keep it.
PC = Convenience, laziness and most are digital only anyway
Console = Don’t want scummy corpos taking stuff I bought away from me, disc it is.
I didn’t have much physical space in my last apartment, so I got used to buying as much media digitally as I could. I got used to it, and now prefer it. And now that I’ve shifted from console gaming to PC gaming, I’m pretty much all in on digital.
Most of the time physically, it is just a code to activate it on steam.
On PC the pirates says, what you can do with it.
On the console the company says if you own this movie/game you BOUGHT or not. ( See the Playstation movie “incident” where Sony removed many movies some people BOUGHT, but at least the backlash made Sone reconsider the BS they wanted to pull of. )
P.S. Yeah, yeah i know. “It iSnT BuYiNg YoU OnLy PuRchAsE a LiCenSe tO ThE PrOdUcT”
But still its such b.s. that you declare it as BUYING instead of RENTING, Sony have them on their neck of the console gamers, because piracy or third party stores are not existing so they can pull of those stunts.
I’m pretty much all digital. I know the arguments for “you don’t really own those digital copies of media,” but it still feels like it’s mine because I can still go and play any of those games whenever I want. I’d just need to reinstall it with an Internet connection.
My PC doesn’t even have a disk drive so I can’t play physical unless I get an external drive, and I don’t really care enough to do that.
I often buy physical for games I know I’ll like, for the rest, mostly digital.
When I end up liking a specific digitally bought game a lot, I try to buy a physical copy as an “archive” copy, in the case the store shuts down. An example would be Hades, which I bought digital, and ended up buying a switch physical copy from Limited Run Games.
Disks are for games I want to be able to pull out of a box 10 years from now and go “oh man I remember this”. I have the box from a DSi that I filled with GBA games, and a shelf for Switch and PS4 games that, when they’re retired for something else, it’d be nice to come back to once in a while. My daughter has gotten into my GBA games lately, so that’s been nice.
PC games, they’re so much more available. Steam is steady, GOG is steady, I feel I can leave it to them to keep and I’ll have any particularly treasured games 10 years from now, anyway.
I recently redownloaded Driver Parallel Lines some 14 years after I bought it. PC is doing so much better than consoles on keeping things backwards compatible - imagine a PS5 casually letting you play PS2 or PS3 era games at no extra cost!
I ended up playing my physical copies way less than digital ones because I can’t be arsed to juggle disks and cartridges.
I sold most of my physical collection when upgrading from PS4 to XSX and bought those games digital there since Microsoft has proven to be solid when it comes to backwards compatibility.
All of my portable consoles (Switch, Vita, DSi, N3DS, Analogue Pocket) are jailbroken and digital only because memory is so cheap that I can hold all noteworthy games on a single SD card. In time current systems will end up in a similar state so there’s little point getting attached to dust collecting boxes.
I don’t really have a strict one or the other preference anymore.
Nintendo 1st party stuff I always buy physical, Dreamcast I collect for so that’s physical too but for Xbox I buy mostly digital when on sale. I guess for Xbox its different because I have Gamepass (the £1 upgrade deal they used to offer, still 18 months remaining, but I won’t renew) so I haven’t bought a new game in like 2 years now. The there is PC… My games are all over the place!
Plus with a family we just dont have the space to keep everything forever that we buy anymore.
I prefer roms and emulators above all else as I know that as long as I back them up I’ll be able to play them. Other than that I use steam for convenience as a linux only gamer but I’m all for gog and their DRM free stance.
As for physical. The hardware fails unless its a ps2 😄. So at the end you are left with a ton of discs and you Will have to rip them to play them. Also some games are just shipping unfinished on disc and need to download patches or whatever.
On PC I’ll buy digital because worst case if it comes unavailable I’ll torrent a copy.
For consoles I am staunchly in the physical camp because it is more likely I’ll be able to play those games in 10 years when the maker has shut down their store.
Do they even make physical PC games anymore? Last ones I bought were either discs that immediately downloaded an updated copy of the whole game, or the box just contained a download code.
For the switch I buy physical, but it may be the last console where that makes sense.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. The last “physical” PC game I bought was Mass Effect Andromeda, and it was just a box with a code. I still buy physical Switch games, though, but partially because I get them with Amazon reward points, which sadly aren’t usable on digital items.
Honestly digital for me all the way, of course I object to some of the questionable delicious by some companies regarding taking away digital owned media, but as long as it’s not an issue digital.
I’m a very indicisive person and it’s so much better to just be able to switch the game without getting up and going halfway across the room, going through the process of putting it back in the case and taking a new one out until I figure out what I want to play.
I tried to buy physical PC games as recently as 2014, and what i got was a steam code and and 8 DVD’s, and the game still needed a patch to work. So Physical on PC games to me is DRM free. I can put it on my own thumbdrive/USB to make it physical if I wanted it to be.
As for my preference. It depends on the game and deal. If I know I want the game, and I’ll buy it no matter what, then I’ll aim for the DRM Free copy.
Otherwise it depends on the sale. I mean for $3 I don’t mind loosing access to SimCity 3000, $3 is a good price even for limited access. Let alone free.
What I refuse to buy is a offline game like GTA 5 that requires a proprietary launcher and account to even play. Here I will just abandon PC gaming entirely and go to consoles. Rock Star, Ubisoft, EA games in particular I primarily buy on consoles.
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I can log on to anybody’s computer in the world, install Steam, and have full access to my entire game library.
I can make almost anybody I know (with limits) a “family member” and share my library.
I can stream my games from my computer to my phone.
My steam deck lets me play my entire library anywhere.
I see no personal benefit to using physical media anymore.
I guess a disclaimer would be that I trust Valve but you truthfully, I don’t trust all game companies/vendors.
I didn’t have much physical space in my last apartment, so I got used to buying as much media digitally as I could. I got used to it, and now prefer it. And now that I’ve shifted from console gaming to PC gaming, I’m pretty much all in on digital.
Most of the time physically, it is just a code to activate it on steam.
On PC the pirates says, what you can do with it. On the console the company says if you own this movie/game you BOUGHT or not. ( See the Playstation movie “incident” where Sony removed many movies some people BOUGHT, but at least the backlash made Sone reconsider the BS they wanted to pull of. )
P.S. Yeah, yeah i know. “It iSnT BuYiNg YoU OnLy PuRchAsE a LiCenSe tO ThE PrOdUcT” But still its such b.s. that you declare it as BUYING instead of RENTING, Sony have them on their neck of the console gamers, because piracy or third party stores are not existing so they can pull of those stunts.
I’m pretty much all digital. I know the arguments for “you don’t really own those digital copies of media,” but it still feels like it’s mine because I can still go and play any of those games whenever I want. I’d just need to reinstall it with an Internet connection.
My PC doesn’t even have a disk drive so I can’t play physical unless I get an external drive, and I don’t really care enough to do that.
I often buy physical for games I know I’ll like, for the rest, mostly digital.
When I end up liking a specific digitally bought game a lot, I try to buy a physical copy as an “archive” copy, in the case the store shuts down. An example would be Hades, which I bought digital, and ended up buying a switch physical copy from Limited Run Games.
Disks are for games I want to be able to pull out of a box 10 years from now and go “oh man I remember this”. I have the box from a DSi that I filled with GBA games, and a shelf for Switch and PS4 games that, when they’re retired for something else, it’d be nice to come back to once in a while. My daughter has gotten into my GBA games lately, so that’s been nice.
PC games, they’re so much more available. Steam is steady, GOG is steady, I feel I can leave it to them to keep and I’ll have any particularly treasured games 10 years from now, anyway.
I recently redownloaded Driver Parallel Lines some 14 years after I bought it. PC is doing so much better than consoles on keeping things backwards compatible - imagine a PS5 casually letting you play PS2 or PS3 era games at no extra cost!
I ended up playing my physical copies way less than digital ones because I can’t be arsed to juggle disks and cartridges.
I sold most of my physical collection when upgrading from PS4 to XSX and bought those games digital there since Microsoft has proven to be solid when it comes to backwards compatibility.
All of my portable consoles (Switch, Vita, DSi, N3DS, Analogue Pocket) are jailbroken and digital only because memory is so cheap that I can hold all noteworthy games on a single SD card. In time current systems will end up in a similar state so there’s little point getting attached to dust collecting boxes.
I don’t really have a strict one or the other preference anymore.
Nintendo 1st party stuff I always buy physical, Dreamcast I collect for so that’s physical too but for Xbox I buy mostly digital when on sale. I guess for Xbox its different because I have Gamepass (the £1 upgrade deal they used to offer, still 18 months remaining, but I won’t renew) so I haven’t bought a new game in like 2 years now. The there is PC… My games are all over the place!
Plus with a family we just dont have the space to keep everything forever that we buy anymore.
I prefer roms and emulators above all else as I know that as long as I back them up I’ll be able to play them. Other than that I use steam for convenience as a linux only gamer but I’m all for gog and their DRM free stance.
As for physical. The hardware fails unless its a ps2 😄. So at the end you are left with a ton of discs and you Will have to rip them to play them. Also some games are just shipping unfinished on disc and need to download patches or whatever.
On PC I’ll buy digital because worst case if it comes unavailable I’ll torrent a copy.
For consoles I am staunchly in the physical camp because it is more likely I’ll be able to play those games in 10 years when the maker has shut down their store.
Do they even make physical PC games anymore? Last ones I bought were either discs that immediately downloaded an updated copy of the whole game, or the box just contained a download code.
For the switch I buy physical, but it may be the last console where that makes sense.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. The last “physical” PC game I bought was Mass Effect Andromeda, and it was just a box with a code. I still buy physical Switch games, though, but partially because I get them with Amazon reward points, which sadly aren’t usable on digital items.
Does a disc even matter these days? There’s still a 100gb patch and likely internet connection required?
Yes. You can resell discs.
The discs are also digital! The correct terminology would be “virtual”.
Honestly digital for me all the way, of course I object to some of the questionable delicious by some companies regarding taking away digital owned media, but as long as it’s not an issue digital.
I’m a very indicisive person and it’s so much better to just be able to switch the game without getting up and going halfway across the room, going through the process of putting it back in the case and taking a new one out until I figure out what I want to play.
I tried to buy physical PC games as recently as 2014, and what i got was a steam code and and 8 DVD’s, and the game still needed a patch to work. So Physical on PC games to me is DRM free. I can put it on my own thumbdrive/USB to make it physical if I wanted it to be.
As for my preference. It depends on the game and deal. If I know I want the game, and I’ll buy it no matter what, then I’ll aim for the DRM Free copy.
Otherwise it depends on the sale. I mean for $3 I don’t mind loosing access to SimCity 3000, $3 is a good price even for limited access. Let alone free.
What I refuse to buy is a offline game like GTA 5 that requires a proprietary launcher and account to even play. Here I will just abandon PC gaming entirely and go to consoles. Rock Star, Ubisoft, EA games in particular I primarily buy on consoles.