Support NeoGAF

[Drizzlehell]

No, but why would I want to when there are newer games I want to play, + some games I own that I don't want to sell any time soon, + I'm not interested in losing trophies/friends?

Also, just a quick google search:

Yeah, because people who resell their accounts are really concerned with the EULA, lol.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

If they are collecting dust, you simply sell them off.

I lost hundreds of dollars in resale value of Pokémon games alone because my family bought digital on 3DS.

For my 3ds, I installed a 64 gb card on it, downloaded all games on it, and it's kept safe in it's original packaging.

I would want to keep the games.

 

[Urban]

The only reason why im still physical on consoles is, that my nephews and cousins often lend games from me.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I was sooo against digital games before i went PC only towards the end of the 360/PS3 gen. But once you go digital, you quickly realize why its way better, and i actually chuckle now when i see staunch physical media people on here because i remember i used to be them, and i also realize how many of them will also realize just how much better digital games are, when they decide to go digital only (which will probably be next gen as i highly doubt either Xbox or Playstation will have disk drives).

You don't have to be all one or the other. Both formats work for you in different ways. Personally I own a lot of both. Went all-digital with Series X and S, but recently I felt burned by paying $85 for Hogwarts. Good game, and I enjoyed my playthrough, but when I was done I thought to myself "was it really worth what I paid?" and the answer is a resounding "no" for me personally.

On the other hand I'm mostly physical on PlayStation and Switch, because both Nintendo and Sony have been unbending in regards to refunds, while MS has been outstanding and they have better bc. Both Sony and Nintendo want to re-sell you the same game every generation.

 

[daffyduck]

Yeah, because people who resell their accounts are really concerned with the EULA, lol.

Maybe not, but who wants to buy them if the account could be banned?

 

[Gambit2483]

As much as I hate them sometimes, Limited Run actually does physical releases well. Even with standard releases you will usually get an instruction manual...but yea outside of LR, it's pretty barebones

 

[Darkmakaimura]

The discs and cartridges are mostly just glass holders at this point. Since most games require a day one patch nowadays, physical media almost means nothing.

It really sucks. I wish we could get some physical discs and cartridges that have all the patches on them so you get a complete game. Sort of like what Limited Run Games does.

 

[lh032]

That has never happened, of that happened once the backsplash would have made other companies not follow. In fact it has happened the other way around, Nintendo had to ditch their console bound purchases in order to be considered a viable digital market and it paid off in spades for them.

It happens last year.

Indonesia bans access to Steam, Epic Games, PayPal, and more

Users in Indonesia can’t access any games through Steam or Epic.

www.theverge.com

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Here we go again with this, like every week ? Month ? Like if people going full digital always need to shout it to the world to be conforted in their choice, that's hilarious every single time.

And that false assumption "hey, nowadays physical is always a code in a box anyways". No it isn't AT ALL (for consoles obviously), stop spreading bullshit infos, they are EXCEPTIONS, but believe what you want and if your prefer to give your ownership rights to some random corporates that doesn't give a shit about you but only care about your money, enjoy !
Also, a physical 1.0 game is perfectly playable, that's why the GOLD status is for, and without any patches (the ones that aren't are truely exceptions but digital folks loves to spread disinformation, like if they gave up on the truth when going digital and to spread bullshit hyperbolic lies or at least, uninformed facts) and it's always better than NOTHING once servers will shutdown inevitably.

The more the people are going full digital, the less you will have choices in every aspects (platform, prices, games, preservation..) and just forget everything about ownership, as long it's not regulated by some laws, you'll own NOTHING.

But, hey, It's your right to own nothing and be happy, so be happy !

Since most games require a day one patch nowadays, physical media almost means nothing.

That's bulllshit, nothing is REQUIRED, you can play without any patches, that's spreading disinformation.

 

[Laieon]

The only physical games I buy anymore are Switch games. Everything else is digital.

4k Blu Rays? Now that's another story.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

⁷Here we go again with this, like every week ? Month ? Like if people going full digital always need to shout it to the world to be conforted in their choice, that's hilarious every single time.

And that false assumption "hey, nowadays physical is always a code in a box anyways". No it isn't AT ALL (for consoles obviously), stop spreading bullshit infos, they are EXCEPTIONS, but believe what you want and if your prefer to give your ownership rights to some random corporates that doesn't give a shit about you but only care about your money, enjoy !
Also, a physical 1.0 game is perfectly playable without any patches (the ones that aren't are truely exceptions but digital guys loves false disinformation and to spread bullshit hyperboles) and it's always better than NOTHING once servers will shutdown inevitably.

The more the people are going full digital, the less you will have choices in every aspect (platform, prices, games, preservation..) and just forget everything about ownership, as long it's not regulated by some laws, you'll own NOTHING.

But, hey, It's your right to own nothing and be happy, so be happy !

That's bulllshit, nothing is REQUIRED, you can play without any patches, that's spreading disinformation.

Calm yourself down. There's quite a few games that pretty much require patches before you can play them today. Now sometimes they're not necessary, but from what I've seen most games pretty much need to be patched to be playable to an extent.

That's not how it used to be but that seems how it is nowadays.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

As much as I hate them sometimes, Limited Run actually does physical releases well. Even with standard releases you will usually get an instruction manual...but yea outside of LR, it's pretty barebones

Problem with this is you best be aware of the game and get it when it's published, otherwise prices seem to go high. Several games I found out about and wanted physical but prices had ballooned due to limited runs. I miss the days of mass release for just about every title. Sadly going to get worse of course.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Good old days

 

[Kataploom]

It happens last year.

Indonesia bans access to Steam, Epic Games, PayPal, and more

Users in Indonesia can’t access any games through Steam or Epic.

www.theverge.com

In a normal capitalist country that won't happen

 

[Gambit2483]

Problem with this is you best be aware of the game and get it when it's published, otherwise prices seem to go high. Several games I found out about and wanted physical but prices had ballooned due to limited runs. I miss the days of mass release for just about every title. Sadly going to get worse of course.

Very true...unfortunately

 

[StereoVsn]

You can often get physical on discount or used. You can also sell the disks. Depending on the game, it can grow significantly in value.

I don't mind digital and have bunch of these games, but mainly buying later in a big sale if I don't want a physical for it (or want to keep physical sealed).

Now, that's obviously not the case for PC.

Edit: Forgot to add that the reason PC digital works so well is due to keyshops, legal ones. If you wanted to buy a game on release, you can often get it for 20-25% less. Not that I would recommend getting games on PC Day 1 lately.

 

[KiteGr]

These days physical games are getting more and more pointless.
I don't care about "collector's editions" and all the Swag that comes with them.
All I want is the game in a physical form to stay long after it's store/service is gone. I want a product, not a service.

Yet all these diskss come increasingly incomplete, with patches that are mandatory to be playable and DLC galore, that often even in the supposed "complete editions" come just as a voucher.

If the industry forces me to go Digital, I'll also abandon console gaming and jump fully to PC with Steam. If I am to tie my self on a service, it might as well be the cheapest, most advanced, most modable and least likely to die on me.

 

[RCU005]

I like physical simply because I have a tangible item of value. I can play it, keep it, lend it to friends, and/or sell it without restriction.

I disagree. These days a physical game doesn’t mean a tangible item. You insert the disc, and there’s a day one update that if you don’t have it, the game doesn’t work.

So while you can still value it and lend it to friends, it’s nothing but a useless piece of plastic; and of course there no such thing as “without restriction” today.

 

[JayK47]

I prefer physical for console games still. For PC, I think digital is all that is available now. I am trying to remember the last time I had a physical disc for a PC game. Probably a collectors edition of Dragon Age or Fallout 3. Back when a collectors edition did not cost over $100 and had a cool bobble head.

 

[BlackTron]

I like physical simply because I have a tangible item of value. I can play it, keep it, lend it to friends, and/or sell it without restriction.

This is why I like physical too, except for when it isn't with all the digital crap it gets more and more dependent on.

 

[Calverz]

I remember having a few big box pc games. I wish I had the foresight to have kept them. Tiberium sun, all the classic rainbow six games. Unreal collection. Diablo 2. Annoying. I don’t buy physical at all now apart from the odd collectors editions. But that’s pretty rare now.

More recently I did manage to get physical copies of street fighter 30th anniversary edition and red faction guerilla on pc.
Red faction came with 3 discs. I decided to play my apple SuperDrive into pc and install red faction. It was taking an absolute age so I cancelled it and ended up using the included steam code to download it instead.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

These days physical games are getting more and more pointless.
I don't care about "collector's editions" and all the Swag that comes with them.
All I want is the game in a physical form to stay long after it's store/service is gone. I want a product, not a service.

Yet all these diskss come increasingly incomplete, with patches that are mandatory to be playable and DLC galore, that often even in the supposed "complete editions" come just as a voucher.

If the industry forces me to go Digital, I'll also abandon console gaming and jump fully to PC with Steam. If I am to tie my self on a service, it might as well be the cheapest, most advanced, most modable and least likely to die on me.

I really wouldn't mind if it went all digital if the games were DRM free like GOG. That way you can back them up onto a disc and keep them for as long as you want. And the good thing is if a game need patches, that means you can back up the game and all it's updates on physical media.

This is why I'm an unashamed GOG shill and use it almost exclusively unless there's something I really, really want on Steam.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Here we go again with this, like every week ? Month ? Like if people going full digital always need to shout it to the world to be conforted in their choice, that's hilarious every single time.

Well then maybe you should read the fucking OP first before squealing about it because that's not where I was going with this.

 

[rofif]

Another problem that I noticed is that somewhere in the past decade or so, local distributors of physical video game sort of vanished from the market. At least here in Poland. The reason why those big, lavish releases used to be so affordable was thanks to those local distributors such as CD PROJEKT (not the developer), that were practically built upon the business of distributing western video games to a Polish market in really nice-looking and often localized versions.

But then they sort of stopped doing that, and most of the smaller distributors sort of threw their towels too and that was the end of it. From then on it was nothing but straight up imports from abroad that cost almost as much as digital editions.

Yep I noticed it too. Media markt and expert barely have any games locally.
I buy from game infinity and perfect blue

 

[rofif]

The discs and cartridges are mostly just glass holders at this point. Since most games require a day one patch nowadays, physical media almost means nothing.

It really sucks. I wish we could get some physical discs and cartridges that have all the patches on them so you get a complete game. Sort of like what Limited Run Games does.

It doesn’t matter. The fact is you can choose to play 1.0 version for 95% if gauges and it will work. You can’t play 1.0 with digital games. So if the patch does something you don’t like, you are out of luck

 

[YeulEmeralda]

StarCraft manual. Yes I'm old.

 

[Fabieter]

Physical is cheaper than digital for you to buy, but it is not cheaper to produce and distribute for publishers. Gamers expecting deep discounts on games shortly after release when game prices have severely lagged behind inflation is a reason why publishers are pushing to move to digital and are skimping on discounts.

In regard to the premise in the OP, I also feel the loss of elaborate boxed games and all of the cool stuff inside. Opening a new game, especially some PC games, used to be an amazing experience. In addition to manuals there were posters, maps, codexes, special glasses to decipher the codex and all kinds of other cool things. But the cost to create, package and ship those extra things became too expensive and gamers weren't willing to accept those costs being passed on to them, so they disappeared.

Maybe if gamers were willing to pay $100 for games, which is roughly the 2023 equivalent cost of a $40 boxed game from 1988 or a $50 boxed game from the early 90's that included all of those goodies, perhaps things would be different. But with game prices largely resisting inflation as production costs exceeding inflation publishers had to cut what they could. Now we're at the point where all that's really left to cut is the existence of physical media.

Can you compare the average income 30 years ago inflation adjusted in addition to all the extra income publishers have nowadays with record profits left and right. This will only benefit very few when it happens.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Those midnight launches were great tho, particularly during the late PS2/Xbox and 360/PS3 era. The atmosphere was fun with my fellow dweebs.

 

[ReBurn]

Can you compare the average income 30 years ago inflation adjusted in addition to all the extra income publishers have nowadays with record profits left and right. This will only benefit very few when it happens.

I already did factor in income. I've consistently said that game prices have been largely resistant to inflation. One of the reasons for that is that income has not risen in line with inflation so games can only sell for what people will pay for them. There's also scale. As gaming has become more mainstream games generally sell more copies than they used to, helping to offset price increases through volume.

The record profits thing is just appeal to emotion for the most part. Not every game produces record profits and the most profitable games these days are profitable because of in-game transactions, not because of the number of copies sold. GAAS is driving record profits more than traditional sales

 

[EverydayBeast]

Physical games hasn't gone well, years ago they switched cases to be more "recyclable" meaning cheaper.

Than they were focused on not including instruction game booklets.

Let me welcome you to what instruction manuals you use to be like

 

[sachos]

you may not be able to access your digital games but a physical copy will.

Like Driveclub, if it was only digital and did not buy it before getting delisted you would be fucked, an awesome game lost forever. Since it was also released in physical you can always get that used.

 

[mrcroket]

In many cases it just isn't, though. So many games these days are always-online that it doesn't matter if you have it on disc or digitally, not to mention that even the single player games on a console are very fickle things and will ofter refuse to work if your console will happen to be offline. It happened to me so many times whenever I took a PS4 with me when visiting my parent's home only to find out that the games I downloaded prior to the trip are not working and I have no internet connection to fix that.

Physical media is incredibly redundant at this point and it's only gonna get worse.


Tbh I see value in the release itself. It's kinda like when you buy a Warhammer or LEGO sets that have all that other stuff that comes with it. Sure the main attraction is the game but there's also all that other stuff in the box that you can enjoy and that's forever.

Sometimes I will even seek out an old physical release without the game disc itself just for the box with all the goodies, because I have the game digitally anyway so I don't need it on the disc.

This is the biggest lie repeated over and over again. The vast majority of ps4/ps5 games in physical format come complete on disc and are installable and playable without internet.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Here we go again with this, like every week ? Month ? Like if people going full digital always need to shout it to the world to be conforted in their choice, that's hilarious every single time.

And that false assumption "hey, nowadays physical is always a code in a box anyways". No it isn't AT ALL (for consoles obviously), stop spreading bullshit infos, they are EXCEPTIONS, but believe what you want and if your prefer to give your ownership rights to some random corporates that doesn't give a shit about you but only care about your money, enjoy !
Also, a physical 1.0 game is perfectly playable, that's why the GOLD status is for, and without any patches (the ones that aren't are truely exceptions but digital folks loves to spread disinformation, like if they gave up on the truth when going digital and to spread bullshit hyperbolic lies or at least, uninformed facts) and it's always better than NOTHING once servers will shutdown inevitably.

The more the people are going full digital, the less you will have choices in every aspects (platform, prices, games, preservation..) and just forget everything about ownership, as long it's not regulated by some laws, you'll own NOTHING.

But, hey, It's your right to own nothing and be happy, so be happy !

That's bulllshit, nothing is REQUIRED, you can play without any patches, that's spreading disinformation.

LMAO have you seen some of the patch notes of these games?

Yeah you can play a broken game congratulations.
#technicallycorrect

 

[keraj37]

you can sell the disc.

If companies remove the digital license in the future, you may not be able to access your digital games but a physical copy will.

Drive Club for instance.