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[galvatron]

Generally, I don't value digital games the same given the market around the game (resale, heavy discounts on steam, humble bundles, etc.), not because of the games themselves.
Having a switch has made digital more appealing, but it's hard to justify 20%+ per game due to skipping out on GCU/Prime and resale value despite how rarely I resell my games.

 

[beyond_death]

Personally, absolutely not. Unless the game is digital only or significantly cheaper than physical, I won't even consider it. Thing is, alot of of the times it is cheaper to buy physical, which is fucking ridiculous.

 

[royox]

Nope. With digital I'm not paying for the person selling games in the shop, the shop, the truck driver that transported the games, the people that packed those games inside of the truck, etc.

That's why I only buy digital when it's cheaper.

 

[Rickenslacker]

In previous generations? No.

Currently? With no manuals and discs themselves being nothing more than installers for outdated versions and glorified DRM? If anything, I consider digital to be of more value. Switch eschews this, but for PS4 and Xbone I don't see much inherent value in retail aside from sales.

 

[hiptanaka]

Not at all. Physical games have intrinsic value; digital games don't.

 

[Geddy]

A digital copy is worth $0. Once you buy it, you can't sell it. Not really any other ways to look at it... You're renting a license to play a game until the retailer decides you can't play it anymore.

The value of a physical game is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. You own the copy outright and have it forever. Not sure how this is even debatable!

 

[zulux21]

no.

ignoring the fact that I can almost always get physical games cheaper at launch because of GCU or prime....

you have

digital - a copy of a game you can play that cost you $60 at launch.
physical - a copy of a game you can play
a copy of a game you can lend to a friend
a copy of a game you can sell if you are done with it or don't like it for $60 at launch.

I mean technically at least on steam there is returns if you play less than what an hour. but at least for me I don't think there is any game I would buy early on that I would give up on it in that time.


now down the road you can look at cheaper prices. but that doesn't seem to be the point. you are asking if I consider them equal and if I consider a $15 digital game equal to a $20 physical game, that doesn't make them equal by base price.

 

[Kill3r7]

At one point in my life I use to consider physical more valuable but now with kids, digital is a lifesaver.

 

[RoninChaos]

Yes, the plastic the disc and case come in, the thin paper cover are not expensive to produce. Why some people think/thought not coming in a physical form equates the product needing to be anything more than a few cents cheaper is beyond me. Seeing some people want like $10 difference baffled me.

The only time I can for see a difference is when the physical one comes with something. If my "deluxe" version is the same physical and digital but one comes with like... a figure then its suspect.

Seeing people not go digital for a release because they want their box (for games that are not big enough to take the extra hit of a physical version) and other reasons always makes me a bit annoyed. Particularly when its a lower end series but the fans wont support it while its on life support as a digital title.

Also holding out on digital simply because of the "what if" scenario is nonsense too. "I wont get this game cause of denuvo drm! what if their server goes out" what if it dosn't. What if they lose the license and I cant redownload it what if what if what if. There is a what if for everything, so what.

Why are you worried about other people's money? Or what they find important? Digital should be cheaper than physical because there's no way to resell your item or do ANYTHING with it. There's no manufacturing costs. No shipping costs, no retailer cost. Its not just a few cents difference.

And if you buy digital on Any platform besides steam you basically have fuck all. You're renting the game indefinitely.You can't sell it. You can't trade it. You can't get a refund. Hell up until steam started doing refunds, if you bought something that was buggy or janky as fuck, you were screwed. There should be a trade off for not having the physical item that allows you to do what you would with any other consumer item you purchase and that trade off is a discount on the price. Valve understands that and that's why you've seen such insane sales over the years on steam.

Also, with the advent of Amazon Prime and the GCU giving 20% off of games, digital is even less appealing unless it's monumentally cheaper. Why pay 60 for a digital came when you can get it for 48 physical? Those numbers should be reversed.

 

[Thorrgal]

No

 

[Cleve]

Nope. I can't resell them, and I get retail for 20% off. Fortunately, the platform I mostly buy digital on, PC, has this shit worked out and I can get digital games, even new releases at 20%+ off and I'm willing to sacrifice the resale aspect for digital convenience, but there's no way I'm paying a premium for digital. I also live in the US, and Sony think it's okay to provide us no refund mechanism, which is pretty fucked.

Physical have less value to me as they cost more (on PC) and cost physical space allocated to them. Also if the disc becomes damaged or corrupt it's sayonara.

What PC games have you been buying that are anything more than an installer and a cd key that binds to an online service? There's no real value to PC physical, sure, as the deals are just as good if not better on digital now, but once or twice I've bought physical PC (If best buy does a $10 cert + 20% off) and just tossed the box & discs.

 

[Vinnk]

No. Because other than to the purchaser who finds value in their connivance and experiance they actually have no value.

No resale.
No trade.
No actual ownership.

 

[Nheco]

I also agree that they should be cheaper, but I prefer to pay for my laziness: just download the the shit and play. Also, I don't need to bother with storage space for a lot of boxes.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

I paid 60€ for Yakuza 0 on PS EU shop over getting the retail for 40€ because I hate getting up to swap discs. So yeah, I'm afraid I'm the opposite.

 

[RdN]

I consider digital to have more value, since no disc swapping or clutter.

That's me as well.

But I can see why people who usually sells their games preffer physical discs.

 

[Ajszenk]

Digital holds more value for me. The ease of swapping games without changing discs and space I save by not having 100 disc boxes around my house are more valuable to me than the $10 I might save by staying with physical releases. I never resell my games so that argument doesnt hold up for me. Not to mention I never have to worry about my digital games ever getting scratched or becoming unreadable.

 

[boiled goose]

Lower value. Can't resell.

Would be better if digital content was not lost during gen transitions

 

[NimbusD]

Not really. It's a sunk cost vs an investment. I can always sell or lend a purchased physical game, digital games I better like or I just threw my money out the window.

 

[MaDKaT]

Nope. I generally had no issue dropping full price for physical games in the past. Granted that has changed a lot with all the 'Day-One complete the game updates'. But as I have started gaming more and more on PC I notice I will just sit on games in my wishlist until they discount a lot.

 

[tkalamba]

No, digital games hold considerably less value in a very literal sense. You cannot sell a digital game once you're done with it.

Also in most cases you can pay less for the physical copy from the start.

I can't share my physical games with someone else in an other area and play together at the same time like I can with digital and family sharing. This alone makes my digital purchases more valuable, atleast on my Xbox. My brother and I split every game.

 

[Acidote]

No. Retail is worth it more for me. Specially on consoles.

 

[Opa-Pa]

Value as games, sure, a handful of my all time favorites are digital-only and I don't dismiss games as inferior for not being available physically.

Value as products though... No. I tend to hold up on getting full price digital games unless it's something I've been waiting for, and see spending more than 20$ on them as an investment worth thinking over a lot because if it ends up being bad then that's that. Basically I see them as intrinsecally inferior products as you technically get less than with a physical copy, which tend go be cheaper for me outside of sales, which are the only instances where I truly feel comfortable getting digital games lol.

 

[BakedTanooki]

No. I don't consider my digital games being a part of my collection.

I know every single game I own in my physical collection (+500). In comparison, I often forget which digital games I have, even if i only have like 50.

It just feels different and for some reason, I don't care as much about my digital games.

 

[Memorabilia]

Nope. Not even close. I collect physical and ascribe value beyond utility of the game. Digital is nice for convenience, but I have a hard price ceiling for digital of $10. I simply won't pay more than that for a non-physical product. I have a large digital and physical collection, but I probably pay an average of $5-$7 for digital games vs. ~$30 on average for physical games...so that's a pretty significant value difference to me.

 

[SocksAndShoes]

Absolutely not. "Value" means nothing if I can't resell it.

 

[NahaNago]

No. I won't buy a full price digital game right now. Maybe in the future like 10 years from now I'll feel comfortable paying full price for a digital game but as of right now they don't seem to be of equal value even though it's the same content.

 

[TLZ]

No way equal. Physical are always more valuable. If I buy anything digital they have to be VERY cheap.

 

[MaximusPayne]

Although I can't trade a digital game I can game share with my brother so yes.

 

[SlavetodaBOX]

No resale equals less value. Putting that aside I sure like the digital availability on older games, I really don't need all of those discs laying around.

 

[potatohead]

Personally, absolutely not. Unless the game is digital only or significantly cheaper than physical, I won't even consider it. Thing is, alot of of the times it is cheaper to buy physical, which is fucking ridiculous.

Yep especially on consoles later from release

People used to say very naively ohhh digital will make all game prices cheaper because now there's no boxes or manuals win win for everyone!!! Very silly

 

[Creepy]

NO.

My gaming collection is my physical games, my consoles, peripherals, limited edition stuff and all that jazz.

If I cant touch it, it's not real, not part of the collection and therefore has no value.

I don't consider my steam account part of my collection, It's just a digital space of games I own physical anyway, a thing to piss about with when I'm going to be stuck at my PC for a while.

 

[Anno]

To me they're quite a bit more valuable. Don't need to worry about boxes around the house and I'll never lose them. They just sit in my Steam library forever. I know in the traditional sense they aren't but since I wouldn't ever sell them or trade them in it's something that doesn't really help me.

 

[stalker]

No, I try to never buy anything digital that is above 10€. I think I only broke this rule for Mario Kart 8 DLC and Shovel Knight cross-buy on PSN.

 

[Aaron D.]

I've been strictly digital for around 5 years by this point.

I consider the medium more valuable than physical because as a PC gamer all of my stuff carries forward.

So titles considered "last gen" will always be "current gen". I'll have instant access to my entire library no matter where I am or what hardware I'm using.

 

[BuckRobotron]

No. Strongly prefer physical, have something on the shelf, option to trade/sell, etc. I do buy a lot of digital but with rare exceptions they are all cheaper or legacy titles, usually on Steam.

 

[Like the hat?]

I don't consider digital-only titles to be of lesser value than games with a retail release

If a game releases in both formats, I consider the digital version to be less valuable than the retail version because of no re-sale value (even though I never sell)

Same here pretty much

 

[Nydius]

With Digital Distribution so matured at this point, do you consider digital only games to be of equal value to those that get a retail release in a console's library?

I'm not sure I'd agree that it's quite so matured. It is on PC but it certainly isn't on consoles. Which leads me to take a bit of a nuanced stance.

On PC, I'd say it's "equal" value to physical since physical doesn't really exist anymore. Also because on PC, unless a game is forcibly removed from a system (which is extremely rare), it stays with me forever AND I rarely have to mess with concepts like license verification beyond simply logging into the various distribution systems. Likewise, as a result of years of digital distribution on PC and increased competition, there are always sales/deals to be found.

On console, it still feels like digital distribution is in its infancy. Prices almost never come down. As an example, Sony is just now catching up to Steam of 5 years ago by adding occasional PSN Flash Sales, but as soon as they're over prices end up going right back up to full retail, even for a years old title. The license system on console is a pain in the ass, especially if you have a console that breaks and you need to revoke the licenses from one system and move them to another. Consoles are also a walled garden so there's little to no competition - yes, you can buy codes from other retailers like Amazon but they're generally pushed into charging the same MSRP as the walled garden store version - and a game bought digitally on, say, a PS3 is stuck on PS3 as the world moves on to the PS4.

I can't embrace a digital-only future for consoles, not with the way things currently are. Plus we already have too few consumer rights as it is, full-digital erodes them further.

 

[Man God]

Personally? Yes.

Not having all that junk cluttering the house is worth it.

I only buy physical when the price difference is astronomical or I think I can make money reselling it.

 

[three_muffins]

Not having to store a lot of games in my shelves ist the grreatest value of digital games. Im not a game collector either, so digital games offer more value for me personally.

 

[inner-G]

No


Hell no.

 

[Rncewind]

not like even close, retail is much more value for me, doesnt matter if digital tends to be cheaper or not

 

[Avari]

Me personally - yes. I never trade or sell games.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

So is it me or is the OP asking about how the digital games add value to the system's library. But all the responses are talking about monetary value?

 

[gigantor21]

I used to be adamant in my belief that digital was not, and would never be, as valuable to me as physical copy.

Fast forward to now, and the only reason I buy discs is GCU. If I actually had to pay full price I would probably be digital only by now.

 

[The Greek Freak]

Of course not, I can't sell or loan or give them away when I'm done.

Digital copies of games are disposable in my eyes and should be priced as such.

 

[Version 3.0]

For me, it depends on the DRM. I don't care about re-selling. What I'm concerned about it whether I actually own the game, or if I can lose access to it later due to it being de-listed, a service or company going under, etc, with no ability on my end to back it up.

So, if it's DRM-free, yes, it's just as valuable to me as a physical game. If not, no.

 

[Stallion Dan]

Digital to me is throwaway, as I expect Sony, MS etc to just shutdown ability to redownload past systems at some point.

 

[Jubenhimer]

So is it me or is the OP asking about how the digital games add value to the system's library. But all the responses are talking about monetary value?

Well, the question was mainly about the former, but I think the latter can apply here as well since there are still people who feel a physical collection holds more value to them.

 

[Fudo Myo]

When it comes to producing games, yes -- games cost the same to make whether you release them digitally or physically; i.e. expensive.

For me, the value of physical games has declined dramatically because most of the time they don't come with anything. You get a disk, a case, and maybe a health warning insert, and that's it.

I come from the age when games came with a thick manual, a map, and number of other cool inserts, if you were lucky. Those days are gone. So for me, there is little difference between physical and digital in this day and age. Physical feels "no effort" -- it might as well be digital.

 

[Fisty]

Digital is way more valuable for me since I don't have to deal with a spouse bitching about spending so much money on games. Out of sight, out of mind.

"No sweetheart, this game was free on PS Plus!"