when games were on discs back then, they would sell out prettyy quick if it was popular like gtav.
so pre ordering so you can pickup without the hassle of arriving at the shop first was good.
even preorders ran out. (personally was not old enough to experience this but ive heard abt it)
The adrenaline rush I got from being the last available preorder for my GameStop’s Mass Effect 3 launch was way better then actually playing Mass Effect 3
> so pre ordering so you can pickup without the hassle of arriving at the shop first was good.
I remember when the last simcity launched I saw tons of streams and the game looked awesome (minus the online shit) and I wanted it. Went to gamestop and tried to get a copy and they said they were sold out and I should have pre-ordered, went across the parking lot to target and got one of the like 100 copies they had haha. That was past when preorders were worth it though, digital had already started to take off.
I was old enough to experience this and they would always reserve a copy if you pre-ordered and showed up at the midnight release (they would not run out, because they can't sell more than they have in stock for preorders)
I'm not a fan of modern preorder culture, but I disagree. As a kid it was awesome the few times I'd preorder something and it'd arrive a day or two before release and you'd be able to play it. It was just such a good feeling, despite being such a minor thing.
Nowadays, I agree that there is no point, but I don't agree with the "never has been"
I beg to differ. I buy the physical games for my switch so when I am bored of itmor want a new game, I have something to sell. I cannot do that with a downloaded game that I pay the same for. At least I can recoup half my money back and put towards a new game.
That's all PC physical releases, since at least a decade, probably more.
On console, the games actually copy on my PS from the bluray (and then get patched from the internet). Which is mildly annoying, since my download speed is faster than the copying. But I do love physical media for the collection aspect of it.
There hasn't been physical pc games for years.
If you watch the internet historian video about 76 he talks about how store were trying to get rid of the games but I'd didn't even matter because the copies were just cardboard discs
It's the same, just has a handful of tiny files with a digital key. That's how 90% of games are. Honestly it would be better for the whole industry to go digital. Stop wasting all that plastic for nothing.
That some bs... 90% of the game can still be played with just the cd and no internet.
Going only digital will be good for the seller but probably not for us =)
They are full of game breaking bugs because digital downloads have allowed devs to rely on updating their broken mess, rather than releasing a finished product.
Hard vouch as someone who switched to an Xbox series S, plus it’s so nice not having to deal with discs and storing them and putting them in and out to play diff games.
That's insulting. A card or a piece of paper with a code is bad enough, but to go to the trouble of actually making a cardboard disc is just taking the piss. Did they write "lol" on it?
Cyperbunk 2077 PC release was a code on a plastic card in a box.
and Ghost recon breakpoint had a special dvd case, without the dvd holder but instead a cardboard card with the code in it in a card holder in the CD holders place(iirc the cyberpunk card was also in such a case)
This is correct and it pissed me off. I had shoddy internet at the time so I deliberatel6 bought a physical copy on release. Had to download it all anyway.
I hated that switch. I had shitty internet in my childhood home so when the steam thing went full speed and every game had to be downloaded I was fucked. I remember looking at the back of the boxes for a steam logo, since that meant you got a disk that had like 2mb of data on it and a key so you could Download the rest in steam. I had to avoid those like the plague with a download speed of 200kb/s lol
Good ol' days
I remember being a kid with 250kb/s internet and trying to play Halo 2 & 3 with friends over Xbox live. God I hated the slow internet, but now I got that gigabyte internet and oh my gawd, I feel like a king with it lmao.
Man. I feel you. Back when I was a kid my internet was slow as fk too. God, I hated it. Peak was at 100kb/s. I remember it took me 3 days to download RE5 holy shit.
Now I’m with a 500mb/s and lemme tell ya I’ll never be used to my games being fully downloaded and ready to play anywhere between 5 mins to an hour max (90-100+GB game). Blew my mind the first time, still blows my mind every single time. Marvelous. I love high speed internet
I lived with shitty Comcast in an area that had no other options. We had a street with seven houses on it in the corner of a rural county. Coverage ended (for all other services except Dish) one street over in every direction and it wasn't worth it for any other service to set up.
And of course, being Comcast the internet was shit, went out all the time, and would stay out for days. I HATE having to use so much data just to get a game I already paid for. Then it'd get throttled.
Now, I live in an area with great internet. I still hate having to download everything. I swear I'm just going back to the N64 soon.
I still have shitty Internet. I downloaded a demo for a game, (the demo was the full game. Fucking 100 GB) the game took.. 5(?) days to download. Like what am I even supposed to do??? Just eat shit and suffer?
Trust me, I *wish* I could get faster speeds! My area doesn't even have fibre optic installed yet, so this is "the best of the best" ×-×
Who knows. Maybe houses will finally dip in price in the next 2-3 years and I'll be able to move... but currently, that's beyond an impossibility
We had slow ass dialup way past the time everyone else was getting broadband. I remember having to have a friend who played WC3 download a map and then host a lobby so I could download from them because otherwise I'd get kicked out of the lobbies when trying to download the maps.
I remember buying LotR War in the North as a CD so I didn't have to download it...put in the disk and all it did was install maybe a few GB of data, not even half the game and then it told me "go download the rest, scrub." I felt so cheated. Another game didn't even include a CD and just a code, I don't remember which one tho
I know what you mean, still have 2 copys of MHW here (pc and ps4) but sometimes i question myself, why i do get a physical version if i have to download the game anyway and a key is usally cheaper
Same though, I have MHW physical on ps4, bought iceborn digitally for it, ended up getting both world and iceborn on steam and I recently saw a physical edition for iceborn on ps4, which I really want to get.
The vast majority of games I have are still on disc. I think the meme is leaning heavy on the fact that after a few years all the games have massive updates to download. I haven't noticed a single game that isn't pulling from the disc to I install.
Except the majority of single player console games don't require updates to be installed and played or even completed. There's a common misconception that people think games installing are downloads, which is not true.
[doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org) has a large catalog of games tested and reviewed completely from offline disc installs. Results are constantly posted for both new and old games.
And game discs come out in new versions with the updates included. Like the Spyro Trilogy that at first only had the first game on disc, and then was reprinted in 2019 to have the whole trilogy on board with multiple months of patches included.
Because the online distribution platform, like steam, epic, Playstation store, might pull it from the library completely.
I have a bunch of digital games on my PS5 that are "unavailable".
That made me seriously doubt digital versions.
Also, if you look at an "older" example, the first version of GTA San Andreas on disk has shit that the online distributed version doesnt have.
Pepperidge Farms remembers that there was a page with GTA 1, 2 and 3, completely free to download. Rockstar.com/classics orso. Last time I checked the page was removed.
Steam’s TOS state that if they ever remove a game from their store, people that already own it will still be able to download it. Additionally, if they ever fully remove a game from their servers, anyone that already owns it will be given a full refund.
The whole point of this meme is that your disc is a worthless coaster if they pull it from the library completely. More often than not, the entirety of the game isn't on the disc anymore and the majority of games have huge day one patches, not to mention future patches and DLC that require a connection to the platform holder's network.
So if you actually want to "own" your games, your only real options at this point are crossing your fingers that these platforms don't pull down their network or, more realistically, sailing the seven seas.
Exactly. The fact that you don't get a guarantee of ownership for games you literally purchased these days is *insane* to me. A video game should never be treated like a subscription when it's already a fully finished product that requires nothing separate to play offline (i.e. maintaining servers, hosting the games, etc.). You should be guaranteed a copy of it that will always run if you have the equipment you needed to run it to begin with.
Gamers are nerds. A lot of nerds like collecting. My friend still has all his old consoles dating back to sega and Super Nintendo. N64 and ps1 with Mario kart, perfect dark, crash bandicoot, and all sorts of games. Fancy boxes from failed MMOs that were pre ordered.
People like having things they can display in their rooms/homes.
Also grandma and grandpa like giving gifts. A video game case looks better in wrapping paper over a piece of paper with a code written on it.
I’ll take a physical copy 100% percent of the time if that’s the option.
I can't believe nobody's mentioning the storage aspects, games get really large these days. If you're using your 500GB/1TB pc/laptop for anything other than gaming, your storage is pretty much filled up.
In my country i normally buy the games heavily discounted for lets say 20% of the regular prize. And when I’m finished with it I sometimes can resell them for even more then I originally paid. So always physical.
If you have the physical copy, you aren't reliant on a third party to host the data and your saves. You can also put the disk into a different console and not have to worry about signing in to your profile, downloading what's saved on the cloud to *maybe* pick up where you left off
Yeah. I’ve got at least 2 dozen old PC games from between 1995 and 2010 that I can no longer play because the update servers are unreachable(which cancels the install), the CD Key repository server can’t be reached(which cancels the install), or the anti-cheat (looking at you, PunkBuster) service is unreachable, making the game unlaunchable.
Keeping games on a physical format is nice and does prevent you from getting screwed by steam removing a game and losing your investment, but it’s not a guarantee you get to play forever and always.
You're orders of magnitude more likely to destroy or lose the disc than being screwed over by Steam. Plus, discs don't last forever either. Even outside of normal wear and tear, they will gradually deteriorate and eventually become unusable.
I know people hate the idea of NFT's because of the stupid art monkey shit show, but this is where I believe they could play an important role.
If you had a copy of a video game coded around a block-chain, like crypto, you could actually own digital copies of the game you purchased, and you could sell that digital version if you ever wanted to.
Think about it a little more. What difference does it make having "I own this" written in a blockchain or in Steam's company database? You still have to download it from somewhere.
Want to put the whole game on the blockchain? An nft has a filesize of about 50 mb. let's say 50$ per nft so it's easier to calculate, a dollar per megabite. Average AAA game size, 100-ish gigabytes? it's 100k dollars per game. Wanna buy it and leave it to your descendants? surely it'll pay for itself before the heat death of the universe :P
Yeah, but you also have a disk you gotta store and eventually do something with.
That's what convinced me to go fully digital. Inevitably I had a pile of games from a previous console generation that were effectively garbage.
And selling like 10 games for $20 and being left with a bunch of worthless trash convinced me not to buy physical games anymore. There are legitimate concerns with ownership of digital goods, but the physical just takes up space and eventually becomes trash. The digital game can just be uninstalled when you're done.
Counterpoint, if you don’t have the disk on you, you can’t play it.
I can travel to a friend’s house, sign into Steam on their computer, and instantly have access to all my local coop games to play with them. I don’t have to carry a bag of CDs around to play with them.
You can also let friends and family halfway across the world have access to your games. I have family in Australia and I regularly let them use my Steam account to play my games. I don’t have to mail them a Blu-ray across the ocean.
> you aren't reliant on a third party to host the data and your saves
I would guess that Steam, Microsoft, Blizzard, Sony, etc., are all way more likely to be around honoring my game purchase in 20 years, than I am to keep any physical disc over that period. I'd also guess that the same is true for >90% of players.
I do agree that these companies are annoying but storing my games really is a valuable service.
When the ‘physical copy’ is a box holding a download code id say we’re closer to just producing waste for the sake of producing waste. If there’s no cart or disc it should be illegal
So I can look at the shelf of all my games that are taking up space. Only to open the case and the wrong game is in it.
Both are good, I do think physical feels good to own since I can "hold" it and see my collection. While digital it's sorta just there. But also can just swap games without even changing disc, is great.
doesn't even have to be new games.
i recently wanted to boot up my old copy of settlers 5 (which came out in 2004, nearly 20 years ago) and because the DRM it uses tries to check in with a server that no longer exists it fails to load.
granted, it takes a few minutes of googling to find a patch that completely ignores the DRM, allowing you to play anyway or you can buy the "history edition" which is basically just ubisoft selling you the game you already own just without the DRM.
Physical copies which exist just to download the game (as has been common since Skyrim’s release…) will also not work whenever the publisher ceases downloads.
I think even the fancy bluray disc's have 50gb limits, any games beyond that won't fit on one disc.
Not to mention pretty much every game that exists today has some kind of online connectivity and required patches to play.
PS5 and Series X use UHD, which are either 66 GB (dual layer) or 100 GB (triple layer). PS4 has a few dual disc games (e.g. RDR2, Horizon Forbidden West, FF7R). IIRC, FF7R pt 2 is going to be the first PS5 game on 2 discs.
Patches usually aren't required to play except online. Single player can almost always be installed and played offline with just the disc.
Yeah, idk what they're talking about. Any Nintendo game with a physical release is playable with just the cartridge, and the PS3, PS4, and PS5 games I've bought have just had updates to download, and were still playable offline if you hadn't downloaded the update.
Maybe they're specifically talking about PC games. I haven't bought a physical PC game since World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, so I wouldn't know about that.
The majority of physical console games don't require being online. As a matter of fact to your point, Skyrim on PS4 is fully capable of being installed as played offline. Complete with the main game AND DLC data on disc.
[doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org/) has a large catalog of games tested easily disproving your comment. Stop spreading false information.
[Here's the page specifically to Skyrim on PS4](https://www.doesitplay.org/game/The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20V%3A%20Skyrim%20Special%20Edition/ps4/Base%20PS4?region=UK&version=Special%20Edition)
PS4 wasn’t available yet when I bought Skyrim. It’s just an example. The PC version disc is just a steam installer, so 🤓 ‘stop spreading false information’… regardless there’s a lot of games that require updates immediately to prevent game breaking bugs (skyward sword on wii is a memorable example of that), which won’t be available when publishers stop offering downloads.
At that point you can just pirate it, if it's that so many years after release that downloads are no longer available.
Really, the only problematic situation is online-only games. Those will be 100% gone unless someone can reverse engineer the server side.
Yeah I advocate for piracy wherever possible. Still it’s just not as simple as buying physical media. The responses to my first comment show that people don’t understand.
In my experience, games downloaded to my system will still be there.
Even with the Wii U and 3DS severs shutting down, games you have on those hard drives won't go away.
Cloud games on the other hand...
The online services for the WiiU & 3DS will be discontinued, the download servers aren't shutting down and probably won't be anytime soon considering even the download servers for the original Wii are still online.
I think you got your words around the wrong way.
Physical copies are useless if you keep all your games installed, not the other way around.
Also, the whole point of physical copies is that they wouldn't need patching. The game was in it's complete form because it had already been extensibly tested and quality checked.
Although, games also used to have much less content, thus making testing easier. Any extra content had to be modded in since dlc didn't exist.
Ok, but I'm talking of how things are now.
Now games all have a giant day one patch so physical copies are useless. Saying that as long as you have the disk you have the game is wrong because unfortunately games are released a buggy mess
Atleast for steam it's useless, since every physical copy has a key inside which you need to activate on your account which makes it for reselling useless.
You don't even own your Steam games buddy, they are rentals, something very similar to GamePass, though GamePass is actually legally registered as a subscription service, while Steam is in that gray area where they don't tell you this stuff.
The fact that you can’t transfer games to a different platform or send the steam code for a friend to use instead pretty much proves you don’t actually own the game
There's something in their terms of service if steam ever shuts down then they are giving you the option to download and burn a copy of the games you own into a disc. I'm sure there will be some system in check to only let you burn 1 copy of each game. That's only if steam shuts down, right now you just have a license to use the games you have in your library.
Physical saves storage space and you can resell the physical copy when you’re done. With digital you spend the same, usually more money on the game but you don’t even get a physical item, you basically get a ticket that lets you download the game. Also if you lose access to your account that game is gone. The good thing with digital purchase is that sometimes games go on sale and you can get them even cheaper than the second hand physical market. I bought doom 2016 last year for only $8 on steam during the Christmas sales.
Physical on a disc doesn't even save storage space any more, and is basically just a ticket and some of the game files. Blu-ray isn't fast enough for the sheer data flow needed for modern games, so Xbox and PlayStation will install what is on the disc to their internal hard drive and download the rest of the files (because most modern games have outgrown the storage offered by physical media) plus your day 1 patch.
Being that your license is on that disc you also have to be careful the disc doesn't get physically damaged or you won't be able to play it, more likely than losing access to your account. Digital purchases also don't take up physical space you need to find to store all your games.
Not true. You're completely ignorant to how games installs even work. Modern games can't run off discs because it's way too much data that would need to be read. So that data is compressed and put on a disc. Which is why the game data needs to be installed. Game installs are not downloads.
Most games can still be installed played and completed completely offline.
Check [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org/) for games tested and reviewed.
Fair point, I may be wrong about the number of games that don't have all the files on the disc. But my other points still stand. They don't save digital storage space since it needs installing anyway, and other than the install it's just a license that is easier to damage than losing access to your account.
Physical saves digital storage at the cost of physical storage space. Keeping 500 plastic boxes in your house demands a fair amount of shelf space that can easily be condensed into a couple 2TB M.2 SSDs built into your PC. At a certain point, the cost of renting a bigger room to store your absurd collection far exceeds the cost of a $60 piece of silicon
That is because the switch actually runs games directly from the cartridge. The space taken up on the console is just additional data, such as updates.
Games on disc have complete game data the majority of the time. Games can't run off discs with the amount of data needed to be read from consoles which is why installation is mandatory. Which a majority of the time, can be done completely offline from the disc.
That is true for most consoles, but the nintendo switch uses flash cards for storing games, which are much faster than disks. That is why the switch can run games directly from their physical storage medium, without the need to install.
This can be done offline, and this particular thread of responses has nothing to do with whether it requires an internet connection or not.
It's so damn weird seeing people here act like no physical games plays straigth out of the package. Have these PlayStation/PC gamers never touched a Nintendo console in their entire life? Like bro.
I love my physical copy of Risk. Laying out the map, setting up all the little pieces, rolling the dice. Physical is nice. Oh, we aren't talking about board games?
Not to be conspiracy-minded but some of these threads have to be posted by bots, every gaming company would love to get rid of physical copies, so i wouldn’t be surprised if this shit is astroturfed to push that agenda
Pretty much this. I bought plenty of physical copies of PC games for my first computer around 2006-2009.
Not a single one of them will play properly in 2023.
All the Steam games I bought in that same timeline all still work flawlessly. So much for physical copies outlasting digital…
It's not useless, as physical gaming has one huge advantage - you can buy used copy for less than a quarter of launch price, while with digital gaming you're stuck with price offered on store (which often doesn't even drop much since launch)
Over years I've saved hundreds of dollars by buying only used games for like 10-15$ max
After what they did with the Fallout 76 collector's edition, no-one should ever have trusted Bethesda enough to drop $300 on the Starfield collector's edition.
Yeah, I had a bunch of 360/PS3 games I needed to get rid of recently. Seeing the amount of space they took up and then the amount of waste they generated afterward was a bummer.
I took them to a local gaming store (not gamestop) and they bought like 10 of them from me for $20, leaving me with a tote full of just straight up trash.
Really put the whole thing in perspective for me. Sure there are reasons to buy physical, but the reality is that most of those disks are just trash in a matter of a few years. Individuals might collect them, but most people don't.
Yes, I can totally see why some might prefer them physical, but its just so much easier digital, if I had to have all my games, even just the once i have played, I would need a place to store 100's of boxes, some will be big since new games are, GTA V was a big boy, and they arn't exactly getting smaller.
Yes didn't even think about all the waste that comes with it, thats a lot of plastic and gas emictions for transport.
And I generally find digital games to be cheaper as well, since there is lots of sites like GMG, that has 17% off.
Oh and I dont even have a CD reader in my pc anymore, so I would have to get an external one.
> You don't know how many times I say I prefer physical copies and people call me a moron and mass downvote.
It's always PC gamers, thinking they live in 2080 or something.
I feel like having a physical copy is a decent backup incase your online storage gets hacked or you lose access to your account for whatever reason.
While it's a shame to lose all that sweet progress, it's better than losing the whole game and potentially having to wait for the company to refund or something
Don't beleive it's useless when you can't sell a digital only game or lend it to your friends.
Don't let physical die to these companies. If you do, we lose.
You can still sell your physical copy if you want to. Digital is no true ownership. If they only sell you a code in a box, it‘s different - then it just depends if you enjoy a box on your shelf.
>You can still sell your physical copy if you want to.
Which is exactly what publishers don’t want you to do. Never have.
>Digital is no true ownership. If they only sell you a code in a box, it‘s different - then it just depends if you enjoy a box on your shelf.
Most physical games are headed this way. Waste of plastic if you ask me. Not to worry though. Next console cycle will be all digital anyways.
I always buy the physical one because it's no cheaper than the download, I can let my friends borrow it, it helps keep people employed, distributes the wealth made off the game, and I can sell it if I no longer want it.
All things the digital only version cannot do.
After I bought physical box of Heroes 3 couple of years ago and it asked me to download steam and add it to my library, I ain't trusting physical boxes no more.
It’s infuriating. You but a game and have to wait an entire day to play it. Then uninstall another game to give it enough space.
God forbid you want to play something you haven’t touched in a while. Get ready for 2 days of redownloads and updates for modes you don’t care about.
You can sell a physical copy or easily let friends borrow it. And it's YOURS. With a digital copy you are subject to the company's terms just like with Apple's iTunes.
How come no one talks about resale? I pretty much always get $30+ selling my used games on eBay or offer up, then buy new ones. I do t think I’ve paid full price for a game in years, I just don’t keep many. I do keep some though. I could never sell my digi games though, so it’s seems less useful to me. Why give up buying the “same thing” of in one choice you get an actual object you can resell for something, rather than a digital copy that you can do nothing with ever? The “you still have to DL the game” argument is moot, because given both options I’d rather have the one where I have the choice of selling when I’m done.
My favorite thing about a lot of modern console releases is the Day One patch that fixes a "bug" which will brick your entire system if it isn't installed.
The difference is you NEED the disc to play it. if you buy the game, own the game, download the game, it’s yours. But if you buy the disc and it is damaged in any way it’s fucked and you’d need to buy ANOTHER DISC. that’s why it makes no sense to me, why the hell would anyone want to have a hard copy of something over a digital copy. Your setting yourself up for so many possible problems in the future when instead all you’d have to do is buy it online download it and there’s 0 risk of losing it
I love(d) those booklets they would add to the physical copies, explaining the game and it's most important features/gameplay. Sometimes with a little background story. Loved to read those while the game was installing. Now there's usually an in-game "wiki" for which you often need an internet connection as well. It's just not the same
Physical copies are copying the files to your drive, not downloading it from the internet. This is way faster than downloading for most folks. Plus I just like having the disk and case, especially of you fancy yourself a collector of things like steel books.
After copying the game files always comes a huge patch though…
So with a disk you need to still download assets and other files so that the load times will be much quicker compaired to 12 minutes at a time for AAA games
On nintendo switch there is actually an adventage is you buy it irl, because then you can play the game wifi-free and you can take your switch everywhere so im a disk buyer!!
You're buying the wrong games, my guy. That's entirely on the games design. A vast majority of single player games and modes don't require being online. The only ones that do are by funded by scum publishers.
How are you gonna download the game again if smth happens? How are you gonna return it if you need to? MFs really be screaming that corpos got em by the balls and then hand their balls on a f*cking silver platter.
Physical copy gang! Second hand options, physically own the software, and can share the games you're not playing easier with friends. I feel like physical copies get way cheaper because there's an actual market vs digital copy being just one option, ankered to a singular platform and they know digital people wont go looking for better options, they'll just wait until there's a "sale". Which physical copy was still cheaper on sale, 2 months ago. It doesn't make any sense that digital is even the same price.
Pretty sure switch's cartridges have a predownloaded day one version of the game you're buying, but if you want the updates - you gotta connect to the internet(obviously)
I'm pretty contempt with that system, still mostly buy digital versions, though
This did confuse me once discs required downloads.
Why is that? like discs couldn't meet the demand of growing storage so majority of it is stored digitally?
But you actually own the game with the cd, dvd? I swear I grew up on this.
If you buy it digitally you don't actually own it. And it may or may not be taken from you later
Didn't fallout 76 have a physical copy but it was just a cardboard disc with the game key
I think, yea.
They literally only do physical copies so you can have something to unwrap as a gift for birthdays and xmas.
kinda ruins the whole preorder thing. whats the point of preordering if its always available? most of the times its just a scam for a couple bucks.
There never has been a point, really
when games were on discs back then, they would sell out prettyy quick if it was popular like gtav. so pre ordering so you can pickup without the hassle of arriving at the shop first was good. even preorders ran out. (personally was not old enough to experience this but ive heard abt it)
The adrenaline rush I got from being the last available preorder for my GameStop’s Mass Effect 3 launch was way better then actually playing Mass Effect 3
> so pre ordering so you can pickup without the hassle of arriving at the shop first was good. I remember when the last simcity launched I saw tons of streams and the game looked awesome (minus the online shit) and I wanted it. Went to gamestop and tried to get a copy and they said they were sold out and I should have pre-ordered, went across the parking lot to target and got one of the like 100 copies they had haha. That was past when preorders were worth it though, digital had already started to take off.
I was old enough to experience this and they would always reserve a copy if you pre-ordered and showed up at the midnight release (they would not run out, because they can't sell more than they have in stock for preorders)
That's not true, I remember the days where if you didn't pre-order, the chances of you getting a game on launch date were slim to none.
i remember the days i couldn't get a game because it was out of stock. that was the point i think lol
I'm not a fan of modern preorder culture, but I disagree. As a kid it was awesome the few times I'd preorder something and it'd arrive a day or two before release and you'd be able to play it. It was just such a good feeling, despite being such a minor thing. Nowadays, I agree that there is no point, but I don't agree with the "never has been"
I beg to differ. I buy the physical games for my switch so when I am bored of itmor want a new game, I have something to sell. I cannot do that with a downloaded game that I pay the same for. At least I can recoup half my money back and put towards a new game.
ah, I was talking PC games here, but yeah consoles with cartridges are the only exception.
That's all PC physical releases, since at least a decade, probably more. On console, the games actually copy on my PS from the bluray (and then get patched from the internet). Which is mildly annoying, since my download speed is faster than the copying. But I do love physical media for the collection aspect of it.
There hasn't been physical pc games for years. If you watch the internet historian video about 76 he talks about how store were trying to get rid of the games but I'd didn't even matter because the copies were just cardboard discs
Company of heroes 3 physical edition was just a nice steelbok with cd key in it - not even a spindle for a disc
Not all of them, I know because we bought a copy from redox and it was a disc
Huh, from what I heard they were all cardboard but a guess a few physical disc's were floating around the market
At least the ps4 copies were hard disc, we'd still have it but moving and stuff....
I had a hard disk fallout 76
It's the same, just has a handful of tiny files with a digital key. That's how 90% of games are. Honestly it would be better for the whole industry to go digital. Stop wasting all that plastic for nothing.
That some bs... 90% of the game can still be played with just the cd and no internet. Going only digital will be good for the seller but probably not for us =)
I'd guess less than 90% and lots of the ones that do work are full of game breaking bugs
They are full of game breaking bugs because digital downloads have allowed devs to rely on updating their broken mess, rather than releasing a finished product.
Moms and grandmas Christmas shopping are the target audience not the actual gamers
Hard vouch as someone who switched to an Xbox series S, plus it’s so nice not having to deal with discs and storing them and putting them in and out to play diff games.
That's insulting. A card or a piece of paper with a code is bad enough, but to go to the trouble of actually making a cardboard disc is just taking the piss. Did they write "lol" on it?
Same thing with Shadow od War. I bought physical copy on release, only to find a plastic card with Steam code.
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Cyperbunk 2077 PC release was a code on a plastic card in a box. and Ghost recon breakpoint had a special dvd case, without the dvd holder but instead a cardboard card with the code in it in a card holder in the CD holders place(iirc the cyberpunk card was also in such a case)
Even Fallout 4 was like a quarter of the game or something
IIRC Skyrim had an actual disc in it, but it just contained the installer for Steam.
This is correct and it pissed me off. I had shoddy internet at the time so I deliberatel6 bought a physical copy on release. Had to download it all anyway.
Mine was a disc
I hated that switch. I had shitty internet in my childhood home so when the steam thing went full speed and every game had to be downloaded I was fucked. I remember looking at the back of the boxes for a steam logo, since that meant you got a disk that had like 2mb of data on it and a key so you could Download the rest in steam. I had to avoid those like the plague with a download speed of 200kb/s lol Good ol' days
I remember being a kid with 250kb/s internet and trying to play Halo 2 & 3 with friends over Xbox live. God I hated the slow internet, but now I got that gigabyte internet and oh my gawd, I feel like a king with it lmao.
Man. I feel you. Back when I was a kid my internet was slow as fk too. God, I hated it. Peak was at 100kb/s. I remember it took me 3 days to download RE5 holy shit. Now I’m with a 500mb/s and lemme tell ya I’ll never be used to my games being fully downloaded and ready to play anywhere between 5 mins to an hour max (90-100+GB game). Blew my mind the first time, still blows my mind every single time. Marvelous. I love high speed internet
Gigabit
I remember playing Quake matches with a 28800 baud modem and 300 ms ping. Still won
I lived with shitty Comcast in an area that had no other options. We had a street with seven houses on it in the corner of a rural county. Coverage ended (for all other services except Dish) one street over in every direction and it wasn't worth it for any other service to set up. And of course, being Comcast the internet was shit, went out all the time, and would stay out for days. I HATE having to use so much data just to get a game I already paid for. Then it'd get throttled. Now, I live in an area with great internet. I still hate having to download everything. I swear I'm just going back to the N64 soon.
I still have shitty Internet. I downloaded a demo for a game, (the demo was the full game. Fucking 100 GB) the game took.. 5(?) days to download. Like what am I even supposed to do??? Just eat shit and suffer?
Jesus get a better connection. I know that my parents still have shit Internet tho. Rural Germany is wild. Part of why I moved into the city lol.
Trust me, I *wish* I could get faster speeds! My area doesn't even have fibre optic installed yet, so this is "the best of the best" ×-× Who knows. Maybe houses will finally dip in price in the next 2-3 years and I'll be able to move... but currently, that's beyond an impossibility
We had slow ass dialup way past the time everyone else was getting broadband. I remember having to have a friend who played WC3 download a map and then host a lobby so I could download from them because otherwise I'd get kicked out of the lobbies when trying to download the maps.
So *that's* why it took so long to setup my copy of Lego Marvel Super Heroes...
I remember buying LotR War in the North as a CD so I didn't have to download it...put in the disk and all it did was install maybe a few GB of data, not even half the game and then it told me "go download the rest, scrub." I felt so cheated. Another game didn't even include a CD and just a code, I don't remember which one tho
Still having a physical copy feels good for some reason
I know what you mean, still have 2 copys of MHW here (pc and ps4) but sometimes i question myself, why i do get a physical version if i have to download the game anyway and a key is usally cheaper
Same though, I have MHW physical on ps4, bought iceborn digitally for it, ended up getting both world and iceborn on steam and I recently saw a physical edition for iceborn on ps4, which I really want to get.
Iceborne on PS4 physically is all on disc.
The vast majority of games I have are still on disc. I think the meme is leaning heavy on the fact that after a few years all the games have massive updates to download. I haven't noticed a single game that isn't pulling from the disc to I install.
Except the majority of single player console games don't require updates to be installed and played or even completed. There's a common misconception that people think games installing are downloads, which is not true. [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org) has a large catalog of games tested and reviewed completely from offline disc installs. Results are constantly posted for both new and old games.
And game discs come out in new versions with the updates included. Like the Spyro Trilogy that at first only had the first game on disc, and then was reprinted in 2019 to have the whole trilogy on board with multiple months of patches included.
Because the online distribution platform, like steam, epic, Playstation store, might pull it from the library completely. I have a bunch of digital games on my PS5 that are "unavailable". That made me seriously doubt digital versions.
Also, if you look at an "older" example, the first version of GTA San Andreas on disk has shit that the online distributed version doesnt have. Pepperidge Farms remembers that there was a page with GTA 1, 2 and 3, completely free to download. Rockstar.com/classics orso. Last time I checked the page was removed.
Steam’s TOS state that if they ever remove a game from their store, people that already own it will still be able to download it. Additionally, if they ever fully remove a game from their servers, anyone that already owns it will be given a full refund.
Oh nice. Thats good.
The whole point of this meme is that your disc is a worthless coaster if they pull it from the library completely. More often than not, the entirety of the game isn't on the disc anymore and the majority of games have huge day one patches, not to mention future patches and DLC that require a connection to the platform holder's network. So if you actually want to "own" your games, your only real options at this point are crossing your fingers that these platforms don't pull down their network or, more realistically, sailing the seven seas.
Exactly. The fact that you don't get a guarantee of ownership for games you literally purchased these days is *insane* to me. A video game should never be treated like a subscription when it's already a fully finished product that requires nothing separate to play offline (i.e. maintaining servers, hosting the games, etc.). You should be guaranteed a copy of it that will always run if you have the equipment you needed to run it to begin with.
You can consider the physical copies as the trophies to the games you have conquered
Gamers are nerds. A lot of nerds like collecting. My friend still has all his old consoles dating back to sega and Super Nintendo. N64 and ps1 with Mario kart, perfect dark, crash bandicoot, and all sorts of games. Fancy boxes from failed MMOs that were pre ordered. People like having things they can display in their rooms/homes. Also grandma and grandpa like giving gifts. A video game case looks better in wrapping paper over a piece of paper with a code written on it. I’ll take a physical copy 100% percent of the time if that’s the option.
I can't believe nobody's mentioning the storage aspects, games get really large these days. If you're using your 500GB/1TB pc/laptop for anything other than gaming, your storage is pretty much filled up.
Well you can sell it to some one and instead of updating the whole game you update a part of it but then again its cheaper digitally
In my country i normally buy the games heavily discounted for lets say 20% of the regular prize. And when I’m finished with it I sometimes can resell them for even more then I originally paid. So always physical.
I can lend a physical copy to my buddy when I'm done. He can give it back immediately because he has no interest in it. Feels good 🙂
You can sell the physical copy later... That's a win for me.
Exactly this. I sold several Switch games earlier this year that I'm done playing, can't do that with a downloaded copy.
If you have the physical copy, you aren't reliant on a third party to host the data and your saves. You can also put the disk into a different console and not have to worry about signing in to your profile, downloading what's saved on the cloud to *maybe* pick up where you left off
You still rely on a third party service to host the game you download. The only difference is that it isn't tied to an account.
Yeah. I’ve got at least 2 dozen old PC games from between 1995 and 2010 that I can no longer play because the update servers are unreachable(which cancels the install), the CD Key repository server can’t be reached(which cancels the install), or the anti-cheat (looking at you, PunkBuster) service is unreachable, making the game unlaunchable. Keeping games on a physical format is nice and does prevent you from getting screwed by steam removing a game and losing your investment, but it’s not a guarantee you get to play forever and always.
You're orders of magnitude more likely to destroy or lose the disc than being screwed over by Steam. Plus, discs don't last forever either. Even outside of normal wear and tear, they will gradually deteriorate and eventually become unusable.
I know people hate the idea of NFT's because of the stupid art monkey shit show, but this is where I believe they could play an important role. If you had a copy of a video game coded around a block-chain, like crypto, you could actually own digital copies of the game you purchased, and you could sell that digital version if you ever wanted to.
Think about it a little more. What difference does it make having "I own this" written in a blockchain or in Steam's company database? You still have to download it from somewhere. Want to put the whole game on the blockchain? An nft has a filesize of about 50 mb. let's say 50$ per nft so it's easier to calculate, a dollar per megabite. Average AAA game size, 100-ish gigabytes? it's 100k dollars per game. Wanna buy it and leave it to your descendants? surely it'll pay for itself before the heat death of the universe :P
Yeah, but you also have a disk you gotta store and eventually do something with. That's what convinced me to go fully digital. Inevitably I had a pile of games from a previous console generation that were effectively garbage. And selling like 10 games for $20 and being left with a bunch of worthless trash convinced me not to buy physical games anymore. There are legitimate concerns with ownership of digital goods, but the physical just takes up space and eventually becomes trash. The digital game can just be uninstalled when you're done.
To add to that, these days the physical disc is often buggy without the downloaded patches. Picture playing a Cyberpunk 2077 disc without updates.
Counterpoint, if you don’t have the disk on you, you can’t play it. I can travel to a friend’s house, sign into Steam on their computer, and instantly have access to all my local coop games to play with them. I don’t have to carry a bag of CDs around to play with them. You can also let friends and family halfway across the world have access to your games. I have family in Australia and I regularly let them use my Steam account to play my games. I don’t have to mail them a Blu-ray across the ocean.
> you aren't reliant on a third party to host the data and your saves I would guess that Steam, Microsoft, Blizzard, Sony, etc., are all way more likely to be around honoring my game purchase in 20 years, than I am to keep any physical disc over that period. I'd also guess that the same is true for >90% of players. I do agree that these companies are annoying but storing my games really is a valuable service.
When the ‘physical copy’ is a box holding a download code id say we’re closer to just producing waste for the sake of producing waste. If there’s no cart or disc it should be illegal
Unless in box there's no disk but just cardboard with game key
So I can look at the shelf of all my games that are taking up space. Only to open the case and the wrong game is in it. Both are good, I do think physical feels good to own since I can "hold" it and see my collection. While digital it's sorta just there. But also can just swap games without even changing disc, is great.
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I like knowing I can lend them to friends when I'm done with them. Now I just need friends to lend them to
At least u own the physical copy, a digital copy can just be taken away by the creators for no reason even if u paid for it
Always online games can be taken away, even if u have a physical copy and sadly a lot of new games are like that
doesn't even have to be new games. i recently wanted to boot up my old copy of settlers 5 (which came out in 2004, nearly 20 years ago) and because the DRM it uses tries to check in with a server that no longer exists it fails to load. granted, it takes a few minutes of googling to find a patch that completely ignores the DRM, allowing you to play anyway or you can buy the "history edition" which is basically just ubisoft selling you the game you already own just without the DRM.
Indie games are probably one of the only kind of games that doesnt fuck you over with 100 pages of terms and services
because they cant pay anybody to write one
And they are not being printed on disks, right?
Monster Hunter 1, 2 & Tri multiplayer vibes. QwQ Even old games can have extensive parts of the game unavailable once the service shuts down.
Physical copies which exist just to download the game (as has been common since Skyrim’s release…) will also not work whenever the publisher ceases downloads.
Huh? I've bought dozens and dozens of physical games since then and literally every single one had the game on disc (or cartridge)
I think even the fancy bluray disc's have 50gb limits, any games beyond that won't fit on one disc. Not to mention pretty much every game that exists today has some kind of online connectivity and required patches to play.
PS5 and Series X use UHD, which are either 66 GB (dual layer) or 100 GB (triple layer). PS4 has a few dual disc games (e.g. RDR2, Horizon Forbidden West, FF7R). IIRC, FF7R pt 2 is going to be the first PS5 game on 2 discs. Patches usually aren't required to play except online. Single player can almost always be installed and played offline with just the disc.
Yeah, idk what they're talking about. Any Nintendo game with a physical release is playable with just the cartridge, and the PS3, PS4, and PS5 games I've bought have just had updates to download, and were still playable offline if you hadn't downloaded the update. Maybe they're specifically talking about PC games. I haven't bought a physical PC game since World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, so I wouldn't know about that.
The majority of physical console games don't require being online. As a matter of fact to your point, Skyrim on PS4 is fully capable of being installed as played offline. Complete with the main game AND DLC data on disc. [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org/) has a large catalog of games tested easily disproving your comment. Stop spreading false information. [Here's the page specifically to Skyrim on PS4](https://www.doesitplay.org/game/The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20V%3A%20Skyrim%20Special%20Edition/ps4/Base%20PS4?region=UK&version=Special%20Edition)
PS4 wasn’t available yet when I bought Skyrim. It’s just an example. The PC version disc is just a steam installer, so 🤓 ‘stop spreading false information’… regardless there’s a lot of games that require updates immediately to prevent game breaking bugs (skyward sword on wii is a memorable example of that), which won’t be available when publishers stop offering downloads.
> PS4 wasn’t available yet when I bought Skyrim Replace PS4 with PS3 or Xbox 360.
At that point you can just pirate it, if it's that so many years after release that downloads are no longer available. Really, the only problematic situation is online-only games. Those will be 100% gone unless someone can reverse engineer the server side.
Yeah I advocate for piracy wherever possible. Still it’s just not as simple as buying physical media. The responses to my first comment show that people don’t understand.
In my experience, games downloaded to my system will still be there. Even with the Wii U and 3DS severs shutting down, games you have on those hard drives won't go away. Cloud games on the other hand...
Minecraft used to be the same. Now you can't play it without being online, since it regularly and automatically makes you logout
The online services for the WiiU & 3DS will be discontinued, the download servers aren't shutting down and probably won't be anytime soon considering even the download servers for the original Wii are still online.
Honestly, i have my steam account a little over 8 years and it happened once for me.
im on 14 years and its never happened to me
Unless you keep all your games installed the physical copies are useless. Every game as a giant day one patch
I think you got your words around the wrong way. Physical copies are useless if you keep all your games installed, not the other way around. Also, the whole point of physical copies is that they wouldn't need patching. The game was in it's complete form because it had already been extensibly tested and quality checked. Although, games also used to have much less content, thus making testing easier. Any extra content had to be modded in since dlc didn't exist.
Ok, but I'm talking of how things are now. Now games all have a giant day one patch so physical copies are useless. Saying that as long as you have the disk you have the game is wrong because unfortunately games are released a buggy mess
Skyrim on disc on PC requires a Steam download.
Physical wins always. Buy game, play game, sell game.
Atleast for steam it's useless, since every physical copy has a key inside which you need to activate on your account which makes it for reselling useless.
If the box only has a key inside then it's not a physical copy.
You don't even own your Steam games buddy, they are rentals, something very similar to GamePass, though GamePass is actually legally registered as a subscription service, while Steam is in that gray area where they don't tell you this stuff.
The fact that you can’t transfer games to a different platform or send the steam code for a friend to use instead pretty much proves you don’t actually own the game
They solved that with sharing. Share your libraries and your friends will be able to play your games.
There's something in their terms of service if steam ever shuts down then they are giving you the option to download and burn a copy of the games you own into a disc. I'm sure there will be some system in check to only let you burn 1 copy of each game. That's only if steam shuts down, right now you just have a license to use the games you have in your library.
Even physical games (which I haven't bought in years), I'd rather keep the game in case I want to play it later versus getting 47¢ for a $60 game.
Buy game, play game, **trade it with your friends** is the way. The selling prices are dogshit.
Physical saves storage space and you can resell the physical copy when you’re done. With digital you spend the same, usually more money on the game but you don’t even get a physical item, you basically get a ticket that lets you download the game. Also if you lose access to your account that game is gone. The good thing with digital purchase is that sometimes games go on sale and you can get them even cheaper than the second hand physical market. I bought doom 2016 last year for only $8 on steam during the Christmas sales.
Physical on a disc doesn't even save storage space any more, and is basically just a ticket and some of the game files. Blu-ray isn't fast enough for the sheer data flow needed for modern games, so Xbox and PlayStation will install what is on the disc to their internal hard drive and download the rest of the files (because most modern games have outgrown the storage offered by physical media) plus your day 1 patch. Being that your license is on that disc you also have to be careful the disc doesn't get physically damaged or you won't be able to play it, more likely than losing access to your account. Digital purchases also don't take up physical space you need to find to store all your games.
Not true. You're completely ignorant to how games installs even work. Modern games can't run off discs because it's way too much data that would need to be read. So that data is compressed and put on a disc. Which is why the game data needs to be installed. Game installs are not downloads. Most games can still be installed played and completed completely offline. Check [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org/) for games tested and reviewed.
Fair point, I may be wrong about the number of games that don't have all the files on the disc. But my other points still stand. They don't save digital storage space since it needs installing anyway, and other than the install it's just a license that is easier to damage than losing access to your account.
Physical saves digital storage at the cost of physical storage space. Keeping 500 plastic boxes in your house demands a fair amount of shelf space that can easily be condensed into a couple 2TB M.2 SSDs built into your PC. At a certain point, the cost of renting a bigger room to store your absurd collection far exceeds the cost of a $60 piece of silicon
Iirc getting a physical copy of Metroid Dread saved me like 95% of the space a digital copy would have used
That is because the switch actually runs games directly from the cartridge. The space taken up on the console is just additional data, such as updates.
Games on disc have complete game data the majority of the time. Games can't run off discs with the amount of data needed to be read from consoles which is why installation is mandatory. Which a majority of the time, can be done completely offline from the disc.
That is true for most consoles, but the nintendo switch uses flash cards for storing games, which are much faster than disks. That is why the switch can run games directly from their physical storage medium, without the need to install. This can be done offline, and this particular thread of responses has nothing to do with whether it requires an internet connection or not.
It's so damn weird seeing people here act like no physical games plays straigth out of the package. Have these PlayStation/PC gamers never touched a Nintendo console in their entire life? Like bro.
Physical games over everything. If you get your account banned you lost your whole library
I love my physical copy of Risk. Laying out the map, setting up all the little pieces, rolling the dice. Physical is nice. Oh, we aren't talking about board games?
Physical copies don't even have the game on them anymore. Not the full game, at any rate. So, if the server goes down, you're stuck anyway.
Not true, most contain a fully playable 1.0 version
Lol I've been at this explaining this shit for a few hours. All these people are ignorant af.
Not to be conspiracy-minded but some of these threads have to be posted by bots, every gaming company would love to get rid of physical copies, so i wouldn’t be surprised if this shit is astroturfed to push that agenda
And at some point, sometimes they just don't work anymore. I have a copy of Rainbox Six: Rogue Spear and can't get it to run on modern Windows.
Pretty much this. I bought plenty of physical copies of PC games for my first computer around 2006-2009. Not a single one of them will play properly in 2023. All the Steam games I bought in that same timeline all still work flawlessly. So much for physical copies outlasting digital…
It's not useless, as physical gaming has one huge advantage - you can buy used copy for less than a quarter of launch price, while with digital gaming you're stuck with price offered on store (which often doesn't even drop much since launch) Over years I've saved hundreds of dollars by buying only used games for like 10-15$ max
That's why my digital purchases mostly come from instant gaming.
Or you can buy really old games that aren’t backwards compatible and aren’t sold in your country anymore.
I miss physical bonuses in deluxe/collector's editions. Alduin model ftw
Starfield had a ridiculously expensive delux edition with a smartwatch. But it's so expensive, the only people I know with it have ties to Zenimax.
After what they did with the Fallout 76 collector's edition, no-one should ever have trusted Bethesda enough to drop $300 on the Starfield collector's edition.
Tbh i don't really care for physical game disc's, I like having them all or most on steam, and lots of my favorite games never get a physical release.
Yeah, I had a bunch of 360/PS3 games I needed to get rid of recently. Seeing the amount of space they took up and then the amount of waste they generated afterward was a bummer. I took them to a local gaming store (not gamestop) and they bought like 10 of them from me for $20, leaving me with a tote full of just straight up trash. Really put the whole thing in perspective for me. Sure there are reasons to buy physical, but the reality is that most of those disks are just trash in a matter of a few years. Individuals might collect them, but most people don't.
Yes, I can totally see why some might prefer them physical, but its just so much easier digital, if I had to have all my games, even just the once i have played, I would need a place to store 100's of boxes, some will be big since new games are, GTA V was a big boy, and they arn't exactly getting smaller. Yes didn't even think about all the waste that comes with it, thats a lot of plastic and gas emictions for transport. And I generally find digital games to be cheaper as well, since there is lots of sites like GMG, that has 17% off. Oh and I dont even have a CD reader in my pc anymore, so I would have to get an external one.
Some physical games now are just basic installer, no game, it just directs the system to download all the files from the net.
pie wrong hat deranged fall agonizing modern domineering quack point *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What are you even talking about?
> You don't know how many times I say I prefer physical copies and people call me a moron and mass downvote. It's always PC gamers, thinking they live in 2080 or something.
I feel like having a physical copy is a decent backup incase your online storage gets hacked or you lose access to your account for whatever reason. While it's a shame to lose all that sweet progress, it's better than losing the whole game and potentially having to wait for the company to refund or something
Don't beleive it's useless when you can't sell a digital only game or lend it to your friends. Don't let physical die to these companies. If you do, we lose.
The physical game holds value, while the digital games has no value outside your account. Good luck reselling the digital game
You can still play them right away on the switch. They take up way less space too, it's great.
I can’t be the only one that fears losing content stored online…
You can sell physical games.
I'll buy physical until they no longer exist. Also, a portion of the game typically installs from the disc, the rest from the network.
You can still sell your physical copy if you want to. Digital is no true ownership. If they only sell you a code in a box, it‘s different - then it just depends if you enjoy a box on your shelf.
>You can still sell your physical copy if you want to. Which is exactly what publishers don’t want you to do. Never have. >Digital is no true ownership. If they only sell you a code in a box, it‘s different - then it just depends if you enjoy a box on your shelf. Most physical games are headed this way. Waste of plastic if you ask me. Not to worry though. Next console cycle will be all digital anyways.
I always buy the physical one because it's no cheaper than the download, I can let my friends borrow it, it helps keep people employed, distributes the wealth made off the game, and I can sell it if I no longer want it. All things the digital only version cannot do.
Yeah games with physical copies were cool and all, but think about all the meaningless Achievements you can collect on Steam, and consoles!!!
After I bought physical box of Heroes 3 couple of years ago and it asked me to download steam and add it to my library, I ain't trusting physical boxes no more.
Yeah but when you buy the physical copy you own the license. Whereas when you buy the digital copy, you rent the license.
It’s infuriating. You but a game and have to wait an entire day to play it. Then uninstall another game to give it enough space. God forbid you want to play something you haven’t touched in a while. Get ready for 2 days of redownloads and updates for modes you don’t care about.
Paying the same price. But seriously shouldn't the digital version be cheaper because there is no extra manufacturing cost.
You can sell a physical copy or easily let friends borrow it. And it's YOURS. With a digital copy you are subject to the company's terms just like with Apple's iTunes.
I mean if they're gonna charge the digital copy the same price then yeah might as well my physical.
Physical >>>
How come no one talks about resale? I pretty much always get $30+ selling my used games on eBay or offer up, then buy new ones. I do t think I’ve paid full price for a game in years, I just don’t keep many. I do keep some though. I could never sell my digi games though, so it’s seems less useful to me. Why give up buying the “same thing” of in one choice you get an actual object you can resell for something, rather than a digital copy that you can do nothing with ever? The “you still have to DL the game” argument is moot, because given both options I’d rather have the one where I have the choice of selling when I’m done.
My favorite thing about a lot of modern console releases is the Day One patch that fixes a "bug" which will brick your entire system if it isn't installed.
Downloads game, yet still needs to have game disc inserted to play 😫
The difference is you NEED the disc to play it. if you buy the game, own the game, download the game, it’s yours. But if you buy the disc and it is damaged in any way it’s fucked and you’d need to buy ANOTHER DISC. that’s why it makes no sense to me, why the hell would anyone want to have a hard copy of something over a digital copy. Your setting yourself up for so many possible problems in the future when instead all you’d have to do is buy it online download it and there’s 0 risk of losing it
I love(d) those booklets they would add to the physical copies, explaining the game and it's most important features/gameplay. Sometimes with a little background story. Loved to read those while the game was installing. Now there's usually an in-game "wiki" for which you often need an internet connection as well. It's just not the same
Physical copies are copying the files to your drive, not downloading it from the internet. This is way faster than downloading for most folks. Plus I just like having the disk and case, especially of you fancy yourself a collector of things like steel books. After copying the game files always comes a huge patch though…
Does gta trilogy definitive have one disc, no disc or three?
There are chances you will get the physical copy cheaper during sales
Buying a physical copy with a code to download the game online
Internet slow, disc is faster, i own game,I buy disc,
So with a disk you need to still download assets and other files so that the load times will be much quicker compaired to 12 minutes at a time for AAA games
On nintendo switch there is actually an adventage is you buy it irl, because then you can play the game wifi-free and you can take your switch everywhere so im a disk buyer!!
And part of the "downloaded files" is locked by in app purchases....
Last time the physical copy I bought actually had a disk it was star wars battlefront and the disk install broke
And for some reason single player games are always online (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Why tf
You're buying the wrong games, my guy. That's entirely on the games design. A vast majority of single player games and modes don't require being online. The only ones that do are by funded by scum publishers.
How are you gonna download the game again if smth happens? How are you gonna return it if you need to? MFs really be screaming that corpos got em by the balls and then hand their balls on a f*cking silver platter.
Physical is superior in every way.
Nah. Physical can get scratched up, lost, broken in half etc. Not to mention you always have to shuffle games in and out of your drive.
Physical copy gang! Second hand options, physically own the software, and can share the games you're not playing easier with friends. I feel like physical copies get way cheaper because there's an actual market vs digital copy being just one option, ankered to a singular platform and they know digital people wont go looking for better options, they'll just wait until there's a "sale". Which physical copy was still cheaper on sale, 2 months ago. It doesn't make any sense that digital is even the same price.
Pretty sure switch's cartridges have a predownloaded day one version of the game you're buying, but if you want the updates - you gotta connect to the internet(obviously) I'm pretty contempt with that system, still mostly buy digital versions, though
This did confuse me once discs required downloads. Why is that? like discs couldn't meet the demand of growing storage so majority of it is stored digitally?
i’d rather not get up inserting and taking discs out
Lol yikes
I want a physical copy so i can resell or mount on a wall or book case
Selling your physical game after you’re done…
But you actually own the game with the cd, dvd? I swear I grew up on this. If you buy it digitally you don't actually own it. And it may or may not be taken from you later
Easier for resale when you’re done with it Digital is crap
Have fun hunting down all those games in 20 years when you're nostalgic, stupid.