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[Arthimura]

With the "recent" news of Nintendo closing the Wii U and 3DS eShop in 2023, the tentative from Sony to close PS3 and PS Vita digital stores early this year, added with the Wii store already being closed and not allowing redownload even from games already purchased, I believe the debate about digital games is more in evidence.

In the beginning of the seventh console generation, we didn't had enough real examples to know how companies would behave after their consoles became legacy. Even Steam was relatively new at the time. Now we were able to comprove that companies didn't acted so pro-consumer as some would expect.

Did some of these events made you reconsider your habits about digital and physical games?

 

[StateofMajora]

Yeah they've changed.

I hate digital more with each passing year

 

[laynelane]

I've always preferred physical and the things you describe just reinforce that.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I thought digital wasnt worth doing at the start of the 2013 systems, but my opinion changed when:

- You could do home sharing with a friend and split costs 50/50

- Disc based games needed big time storage to install, while for 360 almost no games needed that. Just run it straight off the disc. So that big advantage of running off a disc fast with no needed for an external USB HDD to store games disappeared

- Digital deals became good. At the tail end of 360/PS3 era and beginning of One/PS4 era, the digital stores prices were crap. Now, if you wait yo can get good digital sales. Not as good as Steam or bargain binning a disc at Walmart for $9.99, but the sales are close enough

- Game Pass

Zero interest going back to disc . I think the last disc game I bought was Witcher 3 that came with a small cartoon book. I'm not a collector, my console is always hooked up to the net, and I like my games patched. Combo digital sales with home sharing, and the price for a game is dirt cheap and you keep it (until its service ends at some point). The old way of two of us buying discs and trading them in to scrape back money costs more and you lose the game.

 

[HTK]

No. Digital is the way to go.

 

[Guilty_AI]

No, still prefer it. My only gripe remains being server-tied DRM, which can also be present on disk anyway.

 

[ArtHands]

No. shifted my main library to PC many years ago, because I knew this was going to happen to consoles. That's also why I want to get an Xbox for game pass to free myself from ownership on Xbox.

Internet isn't a problem for me at all.

 

[Deerock71]

They're ether that cannot be resold. They are term life insurance policies, and they are rental units. Has that changed?

 

[BigBooper]

No, I always distrusted digital.

 

[Captain Toad]

I have my consoles in a seperate media closet. A while back, I was walking in there to pop a disc out, put a new disc in and then take the first disc back to the shelf where I asked myself why I was doing this.

I decided then physical discs no longer made sense. I don't ever need to drive to the store to find the game. It almost seems silly that physical discs still exist at all. Nothing comes in the box besides the disc anymore, and the disc is pretty much only there to install the game. It's an unnecessary step.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I buy a lot of digital, but also a lot of discs. Whatever the best deal is is what gets my money. I dont really like reselling games anymore now that I don't need to.

God knows I wish I kept all the things my teen/early twenties broke ass student sold.

 

[poppabk]

No, have been pretty much all digital for a long time. Physical no longer has any real benefits and a ton of drawbacks. Steam still let's me download Outrun 2006 so the 'ownership' has seemed pretty solid so far.

 

[ranmafan]

While the closures of stores, especially Nintendo's has me a little concerned, to be honest in the past few years my opinion changed in the opposite direction as outside of most NIntendo games, I've gone full digital. The benefits of digital over physical just help me out more these days. Up until a year and a half ago I barely bought disk based games digital. Now I can't imagine going back. Heck of all the ps5 games I own, I only have one on disk, and that was to get the special edition items with the game (a nice book and cd soundtrack) and even then I bought a digital copy as well.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

When I first heard about access to digital goods being removed, my initial reaction was to get angry. But then someone told me that I'll own nothing and be happy. Now it fills me with great satisfaction!

 

[Beardsalt]

Nope, me, my brothers and close friends borrow games from one another. If we want to try a game out but don’t wanna take the hit on it, we just borrow it from one another. We all buy different games so most of the time, one of us are bound to get said game!

 

[Danjin44]

I never liked digital, if possible I always choose physical copy.

 

[Graciaus]

Pc all digital. If anything happens I could just pirate my entire library easily. Games are cheap enough day 1 and have more options with bundles.

Console I would never buy digital. Games are more expensive and aren't fully backwards compatible. Would buy and sell to back later.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Yes, I was very pro-physical before but now I basically wouldn’t buy a boxed game unless it was super cheap and I just wanted to play through it the one time. I don’t want game boxes lying around my house.

And yeah, I totally get the issue with “never owning your collection” but:

- I don’t want a “collection”, I want a box under my tv and a controller I can stick in a drawer
- The convenience of having everything right there in a menu just works for me
- I’m not all that into replaying games these days, my backlog is huge as it is
- If I haven’t played a particular game by the time it is erased from digital history then I was probably never going to play it

And if you think, in 2022, that you own a game just because you have a "touchable" thing, you're an idiot.

Yup.

The disc is just a means of delivery, not any real proof of ownership anymore.

And the carbon footprint of that delivery method is insane compared to sending some 1’s and 0’s down a cable.

 

[.Pennywise]

No. I've always thought digital is better in almost every way, and still do.

And if you think, in 2022, that you own a game just because you have a "touchable" thing, you're an idiot.

 

[Craig of War]

No i have embrace the digital future
My PC collection is 100% digital
My Xbox Collection is like 90% digital i own a few 360 games that are not backwards compatiable but it mainly a gamepass machine
My PS collection is like 40 percent digital
My Switch collection is still 100% Physical though cause Switch games hold the most value wise

 

[Shubh_C63]

No point in fighting what is inevitable.

 

[BigBooper]

Another big thing about physical games is reselling. Doesn't matter if you have to get day one patches to play the game for reselling. You can buy a new game for 50-60 and if you play it and sell it quickly, you can easily resell it for 30+.

 

[arvfab]

If possible, 100% physical.

 

[Hoppa]

My Switch is 100% digital and I prefer it honestly. I've got collections of games going back to PS1 that just sit in a dusty box wasting space in storage just tradition that I'm going all physical for PS5 again. If there were enough space on the SSD I'd probably go digital but I can barely keep 4 or 5 disk games without needing to delete something

 

[sachos]

No. I've always thought digital is better in almost every way, and still do.

And if you think, in 2022, that you own a game just because you have a "touchable" thing, you're an idiot.

If the game can be installed and finished from disc without the need to go online to finish the installation (like Halo Infinite for example) then yes, you 100% own your game. If the developer company goes down or the download servers somehow catch on fire you would still be able to install and finish your game, no game company or console rep will knock on your door to take your disc away.
Thankfully, most games still can be installed and finished from disc without the need for updates or patches. DoesItPlay group on Twitter tests this stuff out, you can check their findings here

Does It Play Testing

Intro & Legend Who we are and what we do DoesItPlay is a community dedicated to the preservation of video games and their respective systems. We test physical releases of games and hardware on whether or not they can be played without any additional tools, patches, accounts & log-ins and checks ...

docs.google.com

Answering the OP, i never thought about physical games before since i mostly play on PC but in the last couple of years i've come to understand the importance of keeping the physical market alive, thankfully it seems to be doing pretty good for Sony and Nintendo platforms at least.

 

[kiphalfton]

If Nintendo/etc. are actually making it so you can’t even re-download games you paid for, how can you not blame people for piracy. Reminds me of my PS1 Classics I paid for on PSN being stuck on PS3. It’s just stupid and if they really wanted to, they would make it work.

All in all I hate digital, besides on PC. And even then it’s not perfect.

Game Pass is alright, but I don’t own the games.

 

[Esca]

I'm digital in my pc and ps5. I won't buy anything digital from Nintendo, I don't trust them with online at all

 

[SecretAgentHam]

I'm digital in my pc and ps5. I won't buy anything digital from Nintendo, I don't trust them with online at all

Amen to that. My buddies wonder why I have so many Switch physical copies of games, but it wasn't until the Wii U news that they started to ask what would happen to their games if the same happened to the Switch. I lost a lot of confidence in PlayStation digital purchases too. Surprisingly, the Xbox is the champion for backwards compatibility and gaming preservation.

 

[Rykan]

My opinion has remained the same in the sense that I still think there's pros and cons to both, but that digital is simply the better option.

Losing access to your digital games is only an issue on crappy platform holders. Even then, in most cases you can download your games to physical media like a hard drive or SD card, depending on the platform.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Yes. I went back to physical after being digital only.

 

[Xeaker]

If games become digital only I will not buy them anymore and I need to keep playing older games for the rest of my life.

 

[Kamina]

I always disliked digital, however considering the fact thst so many games are delivered unfinished these days and require multiple patches or are heavily expanded upon, disk based copies become less and less relevant for preservation.

If physical copies die out one day, i will surely not stop buying games, but i will continue to buy the digital versions at heavily reduced prices during sales only.

 

[checkcola]

Ehhh... I no longer care about physical. Digital is a space saver. I've been going Xbox Series X/Switch and I keep getting free games on Amazon Prime and Epic that I never play. I got so many games, more than I could ever possibly play to 100 % completion. Also, with Microsoft rewards, get plenty of great games for free basically (when on sell for 10 bucks or less). Comes down to if the platform itself will survive.

 

[nush]

Discs are digital anyway once you realize you have to install them, and then need to go through the extra step of putting the disc in the drive to play that game only because they haven't worked out a way to verify that installed disc is one you own. An extra step digital buyers don't have.

If you really care about owning a game, buy it after buying a digital version as a backup in the sales or preowned.

 

[Wohc]

Used to hate them, but since i discovered VPN shopping in other countries i love them. Even cheaper than buying and reselling discs.

 

[MScarpa]

Even more reason to use subscription services. IMO. Don't even need to change discs. Buying a physical game is just a license anyways.

 

[vito_don_corleone_]

Not really.
I hate digital the same way I hated it before.

 

[arvfab]

require multiple patches or are heavily expanded upon, disk based copies become less and less relevant for preservation.

That's why gamer should start demanding updates downloads from external sources, similarly to how you can download system updates and install them via USB.

 

[Rest]

And if you think, in 2022, that you own a game just because you have a "touchable" thing, you're an idiot.

A disc is a mechanically encoded object that you do own. That is not debatable at all.

 

[Rest]

Even more reason to use subscription services. IMO. Don't even need to change discs. Buying a physical game is just a license anyways.

A physical game is mechanically encoded object that you are entitled to use, alter, retain and transfer as you please. It is both a license and a physically stored copy of the game that the licensor can't restrict your access to and has no right to confiscate from you. The same is not true of digital rentals.

 

[reksveks]

Was on Steam on the early days so have been used to it for a while but honestly playanywhere and my limited flat space means that I can't buy too many physical stuff.

 

[rofif]

I have a huge steam library but I get everything physical on console.
I hate how digital games require internet, get thing patched out like music or other stuff and you have absolutely no control over your library, account and game version.

 

[Fart Knight]

Fuck physical, that shit feels ancient

 

[Portugeezer]

Nah I still buy physical games at launch.

I have to be responsible with my money so I only use digital for old games on sale.

Digital is great for convenience and that's it.

Fuck physical, that shit feels ancient

Streaming is the future, I hope you enjoy it.

 

[Fart Knight]

Nah I still buy physical games at launch.

I have to be responsible with my money so I only use digital for old games on sale.

Digital is great for convenience and that's it.


Streaming is the future, I hope you enjoy it.

I don't stream games

 

[John Bilbo]

The day Steam servers shut down...

 

[SLB1904]

can I own them? Welp

 

[SLB1904]

If you are not corporate slave, you're an idiot.

Fixed

 

[Alandring]

With the "recent" news of Nintendo closing the Wii U and 3DS eShop in 2023, the tentative from Sony to close PS3 and PS Vita digital stores early this year, added with the Wii store already being closed and not allowing redownload even from games already purchased, I believe the debate about digital games is more in evidence.

In the beginning of the seventh console generation, we didn't had enough real examples to know how companies would behave after their consoles became legacy. Even Steam was relatively new at the time. Now we were able to comprove that companies didn't acted so pro-consumer as some would expect.

Did some of these events made you reconsider your habits about digital and physical games?

I think I have chosen the bad answer . I said yes, because my habits has indeed changed: now, I will only buy digital games (at least on PlayStation, maybe on Switch too).

I shifted from physical games to digital games during the last generation, but PlayStation 5 was a game changer for me: I couldn't have bought the Digital Edition, because I wouldn't been able to play my PlayStation 4 physical games on it. So I bought the model with a disc-drive and it was fine, but it proves me that I couldn't trust console owners for the future. Will PlayStation 6 have a disc-drive? Will Switch 2 be able to read Switch games?

On PC, all my games are on digital and I can use it on every computer; I don't have a disc-drive on my PC since many, many years. Digital games just feel more safe in every way: you don't need a disc-drive, you don't risk to loose it... I still have a few physical games (on Switch, Nintendo games are by far more expensive on digital that on physical), but I think that I will try to shift to 100% digital in the future.

 

[kraspkibble]

nah, been all digital for 9 years on console now and i'm not going back.