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[Eimran]

You don't own the game, you've just licensed it's use.

Wrong. The data is physical. I don't need a code like I said in a previous post. I don't need internet to play it. All I need is a working console.

How do I know? Never had "license"-issues for 99% of my +500 games I have since 1995.

 

[THE DUCK]

Wrong. The data is physical. I don't need a code like I said in a previous post. I don't need internet to play it. All I need is a working console.

How do I know? Never had "license"-issues for 99% of my +500 games I have since 1995.

Perception of ownership and actual ownership don't equal the same thing. I could go steal 500 cars and put them in a garage for 25 years, doesn't mean I legally own them.
Or I can borrow a 500 books from a library and never return them, doesn't mean I own them.
Or I could license all kinds of software and just never pay for it again, just download key generators. Does that mean I own it?
I suggest you actually read the license agreement that comes with "purchasing" a game. They are simply allowing you to play it. You own nothing. You can come off your high horse at any time.

You Don’t Own Your Games

I'm addressing the notion of game ownership and showing people why they actually don't own the video games they purchase.

venturebeat.com

And good luck when your cmos or console fails, I'll just fire them up in an emulator instead.

 

[Chastten]

My biggest 'concern' with digital is losing your account. Could be because of a hack, could be because of a ban, could be because a company goes bankrupt, in theory there are plenty of reasons you could end up losing 20 years of games in a single second. Is this fear grounded? So far not really, I don't know a single person who this has happened to and if it were an actual issue, I'd imagine we'd see plenty of topics about this on Neogaf. But it's something that will always be on the back of my mind when considering digital vs physical.

Also the reason why for the longest time, I'd only buy dirt cheap games on Steam. Even if I were to lose my account, I'd only lose a few hundred bucks worth of games. I let go of that principle a few years ago, but if I were to lose my Steam account now for whatever reason, I'd be pretty devastated.

 

[Eimran]

Perception of ownership and actual ownership don't equal the same thing. I could go steal 500 cars and put them in a garage for 25 years, doesn't mean I legally own them.
Or I can borrow a 500 books from a library and never return them, doesn't mean I own them.
Or I could license all kinds of software and just never pay for it again, just download key generators. Does that mean I own it?
I suggest you actually read the license agreement that comes with "purchasing" a game. They are simply allowing you to play it. You own nothing. You can come off your high horse at any time.

http://[URL][URL][URL]https://venturebeat.com/community/2013/06/23/you-dont-own-your-games/

[/URL][/URL][/URL]

And good luck when your cmos or console fails, I'll just fire them up in an emulator instead.

Your argument doesn't make any point.

First of all there's a big difference between buying something and stealing something.
If I buy a book I can read it whenever I want. No matter which limit the writer imposes on me on how many times I read it. If I bought it digitally the writer actually has to power to limit in how many times I can download it or totally prevent me from reading it at all.

In the phsyical story: he may own the book in a juridical sense, but in a practical sense that book is mine and he absolutely has no power or the means the control in how I use his book. Let alone the 10 milion others who bought the book.
In the digital story: the writer has complete control in what you do with it.
That's the difference in the definition of owning.

The same thing applies to games. Even tho Sega wrote in the agreement that I am not allowed to share my copy of Sonic the Hedgehog with others, in the end the power to play it how I want stays with me.
So your definition of them "allowing" me to play it is false. They may allow me, impose me, force me, the reality is that they have ZERO control if I bought the product phsyically

That's the whole point of the discussion here, what power remains with the costumer. And truth is in digital, the costumer is stripped of all his rights to play it whenever the developer wants it.
You just try to act witty with your license agreement. But it doesn't make any strong argument.

I think you should be getting off your high horse, you probably leased it as well.

Finally if a console breaks, the same happens to your digital games (which you don't own like your emulated games) You need to buy them as well. So you don't make any point there either.

 

[THE DUCK]

Your argument doesn't make any point.

First of all there's a big difference between buying something and stealing something.
If I buy a book I can read it whenever I want. No matter which limit the writer imposes on me on how many times I read it. If I bought it digitally the writer actually has to power to limit in how many times I can download it or totally prevent me from reading it at all.

In the phsyical story: he may own the book in a juridical sense, but in a practical sense that book is mine and he absolutely has no power or the means the control in how I use his book. Let alone the 10 milion others who bought the book.
In the digital story: the writer has complete control in what you do with it.
That's the difference in the definition of owning.

The same thing applies to games. Even tho Sega wrote in the agreement that I am not allowed to share my copy of Sonic the Hedgehog with others, in the end the power to play it how I want stays with me.
So your definition of them "allowing" me to play it is false. They may allow me, impose me, force me, the reality is that they have ZERO control if I bought the product phsyically

That's the whole point of the discussion here, what power remains with the costumer. And truth is in digital, the costumer is stripped of all his rights to play it whenever the developer wants it.
You just try to act witty with your license agreement. But it doesn't make any strong argument.

I think you should be getting off your high horse, you probably leased it as well.

Finally if a console breaks, the same happens to your digital games (which you don't own like your emulated games) You need to buy them as well. So you don't make any point there either.

I dont understand the whole power argument.
I have the power to play my games now, in an easier way than you do. If for some reason that's taken away, 10 or 20 years from now:

A) I likely won't care as I've moved on to newer better games

B) it was only worth playing once anyhow

C) if it's amazing (aaa game) it's likely still available in some form, sometimes improved (This is extremely common now)

D) on the off chance a,b or c don't apply, I can probably emulate it

E) on the off chance a to d dont apply, I'll go play one of the other hundreds of great games, or do something else. First world problem.

So leased, owned, rented, or carried in by flying monkey, I get my 99% of my games when I want, where I want. The other 1%? I can live without, it's just a hobby.

Lets not act like digital games bought are being removed from the e-stores like 6 months later. It's more like decades.

The only thing I do actually miss is the excitement of unwrapping the game, and the whole collectibility nature of having a physical copy, but that's a whole different reason. And I get that for some people is still worth it for that.

 

[kraspkibble]

PC is my main platform so yeah I'm obviously all digitalthere. Even if I did own a Playstation or Xbox I still wouldn't buy physical games! If I have the option of buying an all digital console then I will do that. I only own 9 physical games and they are all Nintendo exclusive titles like Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, etc. My copies of The Witcher, Nier, GTA, FIFA on Switch are all digital.

I would have gone all digital but I am not willing to sell my games and rebuy them digitally. I'm going to wait and see what the situation is with Switch 2 and try go all digital then. Even if it is backwards compatible with Switch I might just suck it up, sell my copies, and rebuy however many games I can with what I get from selling them. I don't really see any point in buying physical games anymore. The only reason I just bought TOTK physically is because it would annoy me having the rest of my games physically and then having a digital copy of TOTK. Now I think about it, TOTK might actually be the last physical game I ever buy as there doesn't seem to be any major Nintendo exclusives coming out that interest me.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Nothing about ownership, hacking, getting locked out of account or being able to revert to 1.0 version. But it’s more or less a good list

Ownership -> technically you don't "own" either, so its better to limit to the concept of how much freedom you have with your copy

Hacking/getting locked out of accounts -> more or less covered by DRM. Also feels too much like very specific case-scenario, kinda like losing a disk or something.

Version control -> majority of users dont care that much about this, but both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Physical you either get 1.0 or the latest, with the latest always requiring a one time online connection per machine. Digital you get the version you have downloaded, rollback is entirely dependant on what the online service allows and in your own backups if you have any.

 

[Warnen]

Digital for the convince. Having everything you own at your fingertips (movies music games) with none of the clutter.

I used to have an entire room filled with DVDs and games, looked like a fucking library. What an eye soar.

 

[rofif]

Ownership -> technically you don't "own" either, so its better to limit to the concept of how much freedom you have with your copy

Hacking/getting locked out of accounts -> covered by DRM

Version control -> majority of users dont care that much about this, but both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Physical you either get 1.0 or the latest, with the latest always requiring a one time online connection per machine. Digital you get the version you have downloaded, rollback is entirely dependant on what the online service allows and in your own backups if you have any.

We are not talking about owning, as in owning the rights to this copy.
We are talking about owning this copy. This physical disc with data on it. Nobody will come into my house and take it away. it is mine forever.
Now, sony can 100% update the console to make the game unplayable and I can't do anything about I can choose to not update console.... let's say.

The version control is mostly just for curiosity. had some minimal practical use with ps4 to ps5 transition. You could "not patch" some disc games and have 60fps or other benefits compared to people who have digital copy. but that's a very rare example.

What do you mean, covered by drm? There are examples of stolen steam accounts. There was a time, I had warnings about attempted stealing of my steam account daily few years back. It's quiet now.

 

[kraspkibble]

Digital for the convince. Having everything you own at your fingertips (movies music games) with none of the clutter.

I used to have an entire room filled with DVDs and games, looked like a fucking library. What an eye soar.

I've got rid of most my physical media and working on slimming it down further. I sold/donated all my cds/dvds, most of my blurays, and most of my books. I hated how much fucking space all that shit took up. Now I have 9 games, 29 books, 6 vinyls, and 20 blu rays.

I never listen to my vinyl records anymore so will probably get rid of them soon. I don't watch my blurays anymore and will likely ditch them too at some point as I've been building up a digital library of my favourite movies. When Switch 2 comes out I will sell my 9 Switch games. The only thing I plan on keeping are my books because there just is no way that I can let these ones go. I bought myself a Kindle so buy all my books on that now and only buy a physical book if I really like a book after having read it on my kindle.

 

[Midn1ght]

I like both. I love how you can organize and build yourself a great digital collection on Steam for a really decent price + the fact that people with 20 years old account still have access to their games is making me confident I won't lose my library overnight.

I also love physical for collecting purpose, I really do but there's a legit discussion to have about pricing and lifespan of retro physical games. A physical copy of Chrono Trigger on SNES will cost you as much as 300 bucks for a loose copy, let's not even talk about a boxed version and this is just one example, it has become ridiculous. Meanwhile, you can get a digital copy on Steam for 7 USD.

Disk rot and cartridges slowly dying are also a thing, even switch games are expected to die quicker than expected (See video here). I wonder if retro collections will keep their value 30-40 years from now when most retro games will be unplayable due to age. Maybe it will, but it'll only be a memorabilia collecting thing then and the only way to play these games will be through emulation. There's no ultimate way to own and preserve your games forever, both your digital and physical library will eventually die.

I still think that both can live together in harmony, especially when consoles makers aren't allowing price competition for digital keys on their platform. If Physical dies on console, you'll have no choice but pay what Sony and Nintendo ask for and you can be sure they'll keep raising the price.

 

[Tevious]

Not everyone lives where you do, OP. Digital being more expensive seems to be mostly a UK problem. Usually, I don't even have to pay any taxes for digital, so its slightly cheaper for a game at release. You don't have to go to the store or wait for delivery. Digital sales are a thing, too. And then there's the benefits of not needing to insert discs or needing a place to store disc cases.

 

[Holammer]

Collect if you want, just be careful you don't come across like some pathetic man-child defending it.
Personally I'm weaned off physical because of Steam and I always pirated on consoles, so I'm not invested in shiny plastic tat.

 

[Guilty_AI]

We are not talking about owning, as in owning the rights to this copy.
We are talking about owning this copy. This physical disc with data on it. Nobody will come into my house and take it away. it is mine forever.
Now, sony can 100% update the console to make the game unplayable and I can't do anything about I can choose to not update console.... let's say.

The version control is mostly just for curiosity. had some minimal practical use with ps4 to ps5 transition. You could "not patch" some disc games and have 60fps or other benefits compared to people who have digital copy. but that's a very rare example.

What do you mean, covered by drm? There are examples of stolen steam accounts. There was a time, I had warnings about attempted stealing of my steam account daily few years back. It's quiet now.

I mean, no one will enter my house and steal my hdd with the game either... hopefully.

I did an edit on the account thing, but i mean this kind of issue is mainly related to copy protection measures, less of an issue if you can download and keep your games. Also the case of being hacked or losing access to an account is a less common case scenario and related to carelessness on the user end most times, also why i didn't include stuff like "losing your disc".

 

[abstract alien]

For those that do favor physical, what do you do when with launch titles you actually want to play? Do you wait until a "finished" print goes out with the final patches, or just get the first print and buy another later down the line?

 

[Drizzlehell]

I understand the desire to buy something at a lower price but if that's your boggle then just wait for a sale like any level-headed person would. Physical media is a dying breed so you'll just have to deal with the fact that it will eventually fall into obscurity like the home movie market is today. I can barely find any Blu-ray movies in stores these days and if I want to buy any, I have to order them from specialized outlets online and it's where physical games are already heading too.

 

[BootsLoader]

You can get 4 Capcom digital games for $1. Good luck matching them physically.

On a more serious note, I still buy physical but for Playstation exclusives. So that I can sell them and rebuy on PC when they are ported over.

Good luck owning them.

 

[jm89]

I understand the desire to buy something at a lower price but if that's your boggle then just wait for a sale like any level-headed person would.

Digital prices don't even go down that quick for some games, could be waiting months possibly 1 year+, not everybody wants to be waiting that long. There are games that still do come out in a reasonable condition and physical prices pretty much always are cheaper then digital on release. Although it probably is dependent on the country.

 

[Spyxos]

Digital is way too expensive here.

 

[zcaa0g]

Right after I pop out that physical game, I then watch The Waltons or Grizzly Adams.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I'm happy to have the choice of both, but only a fool would think digital isn't the future.

 

[NahaNago]

I like physical but with the update to the future PS5 version i fear that physical may die by the end of this gen. Sony has 5 years to push their all digital future.

 

[buenoblue]

I bought Hogwarts Legacy for £52 on release day. Played it for 55 hours over 3 weeks. Traded it in for £46 towards last of us remastered for £60. Played that in a week then sold it for £54. Bought resident evil 4 remake for £55. Played it through 3 times in a month then sold it for £45. all on ps5.

So played all 3 new releases to completion for £25.

So physical all the way for me.

Just played Jedi fallen order, dead space remake and F1 22 on ea play pro on PC with a months sub I got for £11.

So yeah £36 to play all that lol.
This is the way.

 

[rofif]

For those that do favor physical, what do you do when with launch titles you actually want to play? Do you wait until a "finished" print goes out with the final patches, or just get the first print and buy another later down the line?

I just get the first print since it's usually about 20% cheaper than psn.
if it's worth it and if the goty disc actually got the dlc on it, I might buy the new disc when it's on sale.
I did that for Uncharted4 and Death Stranding for example. Got ps4 and ps5 discs

 

[abstract alien]

I just get the first print since it's usually about 20% cheaper than psn.
if it's worth it and if the goty disc actually got the dlc on it, I might buy the new disc when it's on sale.
I did that for Uncharted4 and Death Stranding for example. Got ps4 and ps5 discs

Hmmmm, I guess you really do have to pick and choose when it comes to making a purchase twice. I never even think about it since I buy digital, and I hardly ever replay anything at all outside of it's time frame. The only things I normally reply are fighters, which highly depend on the latest update. Death Stranding was amazing btw. Holy shit, what a game. I don't blame you at all on the extra purchase.

 

[ArtHands]

Good luck owning them.

I do. Will play them before I play all the retro games in my 512GB SD card on Steam Deck.

 

[feynoob]

These ownership talk is hilarious .

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Not everyone lives where you do, OP. Digital being more expensive seems to be mostly a UK problem. Usually, I don't even have to pay any taxes for digital, so its slightly cheaper for a game at release. You don't have to go to the store or wait for delivery. Digital sales are a thing, too. And then there's the benefits of not needing to insert discs or needing a place to store disc cases.

Definitely not just UK. I bet it’s a thing in the whole of Europe (at least here in The Netherlands).

Full price games are often way cheaper physically. But on the other hand physical sales can’t match digital.
So I benefit from both.

 

[Sorcerer]

Don't you have to install the entire game on to the hard drive anyway with Xbox and Playstation? The disk is just a form of drm. Haven't bought a psychical game in years so I am out of the loop.
It's a losing battle going physical, I guess unless you own a Switch perhaps?

 

[rofif]

Hmmmm, I guess you really do have to pick and choose when it comes to making a purchase twice. I never even think about it since I buy digital, and I hardly ever replay anything at all outside of it's time frame. The only things I normally reply are fighters, which highly depend on the latest update. Death Stranding was amazing btw. Holy shit, what a game. I don't blame you at all on the extra purchase.

haha Death Stranding is kinda an exception. I've bought every single release of this lol.
Base ps4, DC on ps5, ps4 to dc upgrade on ps5, steam release and steam DC

 

[adamsapple]

Don't you have to install the entire game on to the hard drive anyway with Xbox and Playstation? The disk is just a form of drm. Haven't bought a psychical game in years so I am out of the loop.
It's a losing battle going physical, I guess unless you own a Switch perhaps?

Yes, since PS4/XBO, all games are installed on the console HDD as the blu ray disc read speeds are too slow for adequate streaming.

The discs are basically just big-ass installers with the game data to be copied (or in some rare cases, just partial data like Jedi Survivor or just an online activation key like Halo: Infinite's campaign disc)

 

[Topher]

Perception of ownership and actual ownership don't equal the same thing. I could go steal 500 cars and put them in a garage for 25 years, doesn't mean I legally own them.
Or I can borrow a 500 books from a library and never return them, doesn't mean I own them.
Or I could license all kinds of software and just never pay for it again, just download key generators. Does that mean I own it?
I suggest you actually read the license agreement that comes with "purchasing" a game. They are simply allowing you to play it. You own nothing. You can come off your high horse at any time.

You Don’t Own Your Games

I'm addressing the notion of game ownership and showing people why they actually don't own the video games they purchase.

venturebeat.com

And good luck when your cmos or console fails, I'll just fire them up in an emulator instead.

The major difference in "actual ownership" is being able to sell what you own. I can sell my physical media and the license that accompanies it. I cannot sell any digital license at all. That is the crux of actually owning physical media vs the "perception of owning" digital.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Physical is always better than digital imo. You outright own it and can trade or sell it. Also, physical are cheaper to buy usually either thru preowned sales or price cuts. Lots of digital games remain higher in price on average and take much longer to drop in price. I will always choose physical over digital but that’s my preference.

 

[stn]

I prefer physical, I like to have a collection. Though I will admit that digital can be quite convenient with pre-loading and never having to swap discs.

 

[CitizenKratos]

I voted physical. But I am a big fan of both. I like digital for VR and games that you want to play for short bits of time.

 

[oji-san]

Money wise no doubt it better to go with physical but digital is so nice and i can't see myself going physical anymore.

 

[mdkirby]

I’ve not once put a disc in either the seriesX or ps5, nor do I ever intend to. I have enough clutter as it is, and when games were physical finding empty boxes or boxes with the wrong disc was a continual problem for me. I can swap between dozens of games at the flick of a button in literally 3 seconds, why on earth would I want to go rooting around for a disk, its 2023, disks are a bit of an anachronism.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Nothing about ownership, hacking, getting locked out of account or being able to revert to 1.0 version. But it’s more or less a good list

Yeah, I lost my xbox account, gamepass sub and entire library of games because I had my account on a friends xbox for gamesharing and he somehow got the entire console and all accounts banned.

I have a friend who also got his psn hacked and sony weren't helpful at all in the recovery process so an entire gen of games gone poof.

 

[Codes 208]

I prefer digital. No clutter, no hassle switching games, no broken disks

 

[BootsLoader]

I do. Will play them before I play all the retro games in my 512GB SD card on Steam Deck.

 

[THE DUCK]

The major difference in "actual ownership" is being able to sell what you own. I can sell my physical media and the license that accompanies it. I cannot sell any digital license at all. That is the crux of actually owning physical media vs the "perception of owning" digital.

Technically it's a violation since most licenses say they can't be transferred. Also that argument is moot since most people who collect don't end up selling, it's the very reason they buy physical to begin with, so that they can reach for it later no matter what.

 

[jm89]

 

[Topher]

Technically it's a violation since most licenses say they can't be transferred. Also that argument is moot since most people who collect don't end up selling, it's the very reason they buy physical to begin with, so that they can reach for it later no matter what.

Just not true. If it were then stores like GameStop would not be allowed. And collectors do not make selling/trading moot at all.

Example….

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/have-ps2-games-a-few-gamecube-switch-games-for-sale-or-trade-w-retroish-stuff-crypto-cash.1654820/

 

[Gamezone]

I would like to say physical all the way, but these days the disc might only contain a 1 MB shortcut for you to download the entire game. There's simply no way of knowing until the game is released, and this will only get worse because 100 GB UHD aren't big enough.

 

[CherryFalls]

The vast majority of games are on disk with no downloads required to play the game

This is not true. Maybe it's different on other platforms, I play mostly xbox one with the disc and it has to install every time.

''Whether you buy a game on disc or download it from the Microsoft Store or Xbox Game Pass, you need to install it on your console’s hard drive before you can play it.''

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/games-apps/game-setup-and-play/install-games#:~:text=Whether you buy a game,before you can play it.

 

[Ridaxan]

Nintendo : Physical
Everything else : Digital

Both the PS5's in the households don't have disk drives, by choice.

 

[Topher]

This is not true. Maybe it's different on other platforms, I play mostly xbox one with the disc and it has to install every time.

''Whether you buy a game on disc or download it from the Microsoft Store or Xbox Game Pass, you need to install it on your console’s hard drive before you can play it.''

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/games-apps/game-setup-and-play/install-games#:~:text=Whether you buy a game,before you can play it.

He isn’t talking about installing. Downloads.

 

[Gambit2483]

Not sure if anyone brought it up but one thing I never liked about digital is that it can be delisted, and gone forever.

With Physical you can always hope to find a physical copy and have access to it (if you don't already)

 

[EverydayBeast]

Ok I’m rocking with digital I like the convenience, we’ll see if digital can phase out physical.

 

[Knightime_X]

Any more, physical is just destroyable digital.
Once your physical version breaks you'll need to buy the game again.
Once you repurchase your physical copy, you'll... ...need to download the digital game.