Do you prefer physical or digital versions of your games?

[Goldwell]

I'm about to buy a pledge on Kingdom Come Deliverance and i've hit a bit of a crossroads in my decision as there is a $10 difference between the physical and digital versions which isn't that much money but it's really left me stuck because I want the physical but at the same time I want the digital (first world problems right?).

 

I wonder what the general opinion here is on physical vs digital media. For me I usually go the physical route when buying my games because I like to get something physically in hand which I find gives a certain sense of ownership that I really have bought the game. However most of the time I will quickly look through the artbook/manual, watch the dvd making of and then put it in the draw never to be seen again.

 

On the flipside when buying my games digitally I feel like there is less "soul" in the whole thing if that makes sense. To me it feels just like "yaaarlternatively obtaining" the game but just with a pay wall in-between me and my download. I know pledging is a bit different when it comes to supporting developers and it's great to give directly to the developer, not some shitty publisher (which makes digital a bit more of an attractive thing) but it still feels like I don't really "own" the game.

 

So whats your take on the issue?

[SteveL]

Personally I always go for digital nowadays. It's often cheaper and you get the game without waiting for post or having to go to a shop, and it's easy to find any and all games again after you switch machine. If you were to reinstall a game after a couple years from a DVD, chances are you'd need a big patch anyway.

I just make sure I keep a copy of all license keys backed up separately.

[lost_soul]

Physical, as long as there's no malware requiring a disk in the drive to play. I just assembled this machine I'm typing on last night and it has no DVD drive.

[Briareos H]

Digital only, for the same reason that I don't buy CDs when there's a vinyl+download option available: CDs and modern game boxes are utterly devoid of soul and aesthetics, take lots of useless space and most of the time have no collecting value. I only get that sense of ownership with LPs or older game boxes, I suppose the feel of paper is important to me. And because 1. an optical media backup is less reliable than a properly conceived hard drive solution 2. most games require online authentification anyway, I made the jump to full digital a long while ago.

[Professor Paul1290]

If practical, both, but that's rare. Otherwise usually digital, preferably in DRM-Free form that I can store myself later and even more bonus points if it registers with multiple stores. (Humble Store gets preference on both counts)

That said, those are just soft preferences and the lack of them won't stop me from buying a game I want.

[lost_soul]

How many of you (who prefer digital games) live in a nation which is interested in harvesting absolutely everything about you and what you do just in case they need the information to use against you one day?

 

Why is it somebody's business how many times I replay a game, or how far I get in it, or how many times I reinstall it, or how many times I frag a certain character?

 

These are problems we don't (yet) have with games on disk. They're going to implement smart meters soon though, so they can spy on you more effectively based on your power consumption.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45946984/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/smart-electricity-meters-can-be-used-spy-private-homes/

 

Consider this: The amount of power your TV consumes is related to what is on the screen. Given that a movie consists of frame after frame of varying brightnesses on the screen, if they can monitor the readings on the meter over a couple of hours, they can figure out what movie you're watching based on the dips and surges in power consumption of the screen.

[Sotha]

Digital only. I buy games from steam when they are 5 euros or so. That's a good price for a game.

Download it, get it right away, no need to hassle with some silly DVDs.

 

Think about it. Buying a game for 5e gets you entertainment for 10-100 hours. Buying a beer for 5e gets you entertainment for 10 mins.

 

You don't keep the beer glass in the bar. You only enjoy the contents.

[Loa4ever]

Personally I prefer physical games, it's so different to touch our own game on our hands. Not to mention if the internet egos down, there is not that problem, unless of course... the game have a stem account. But if I like a game that isn't physical, I don't mind either to have digital .

[Diego]

I used to prefer physical. The usual arguments about safety of having an actual disc that is yours etc, against the cloud based copy that is in god knows what pc, and this company could die at any moment and you would lose your games!

 

When I realized that pretty much every game I ever purchased in physical copy was damaged or lost those arguments fell off. The chances of losing or damaging a physical copy, at least for me, is much higher than whatever risk bundled with digital copies.

[Professor Paul1290]

How many of you (who prefer digital games) live in a nation which is interested in harvesting absolutely everything about you and what you do just in case they need the information to use against you one day?

 

I do, and they do it, all the time.

Do I like it? Of course not.

Am I going to forgo the benefits and enjoyment the technology can bring to avoid it? That depends. In this case no.

 

Like a lot of things in life it's a cost/benefit thing. I'm not going to go out of my way to try to protect information I don't think is worth protecting. If it was something like my personal thoughts and beliefs or my credit card information then it would be different (Or perhaps not? Again, it depends.).

People I don't trust are watching me, but that's old news. I deal with and manage relationships with people I don't trust all the time. In fact, I believe being able to weigh and manage the potential risks involved in interacting with people you don't trust is sort of a requirement to get what you want in life.

 

Do I value my privacy? Of course I do. On the other hand it's a means to an end and not an end in itself.

I like my privacy because it's one of the things that lets me enjoy life, so to some extent I'm going to want to preserve it. At the same time I'm not going to try to protect something if doing so is more a pain in the ass than its worth as to me that defeats the purpose.

 

There are some things about me that I do want to protect and I do make an effort to protect those things. Unfortunately for this text, I prefer that people not know what those things might be in the first place.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Professor Paul1290

[PranQster]

I'm with SteveL (and others, just read his first) on digital downloads. A few years ago, I would have insisted on having physical media. Now...not so much. It's sometimes hard to let go of what we were once used to.

Do we still buy floppy disks, cassette tapes, zip disks, and other such storage medium? Generally no. Most of that media has not been manufactured in years (cassettes, like vinyl records, are on the rise again in the music world). CD and DVD disks, along with other optical medium, are almost extinct (time-wise). I mean, maybe apart from Blu-Ray videos, how many people buy CD or DVDs nowadays? More people every day are getting their music online and their movies streamed either via web, cable, or satellite.

 

On a related note. As a Linux user, I have often had to made a few sacrifices (games) throughout the years. A few years back I bought "Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures", or something like that.. cost 30 or 40 bucks at the time. I tried to install it a few different times a few years ago, using wine...without much luck. A couple months ago I tried again, to great success (not knowing the game had already been released free on Steam with a new name). I had to endure many hours of downloads, updates, downloads, updates, etc., until I finally had "Age of Conan: Unchained!", which I could have installed directly through Steam via wine.

That game had gone through so many changes throughout the years, with $0 being one of them, my old DVD set was useless. I wasted far too much time and bandwidth updating an old game, when I could have installed it fresh, for free. I had previously thought "Unchained" was either an add-on or a sequel to Hyborian Adventures.

Edited June 5, 2014 by PranQster

[PranQster]

Digital only. I buy games from steam when they are 5 euros or so. That's a good price for a game.

Download it, get it right away, no need to hassle with some silly DVDs.

 

Think about it. Buying a game for 5e gets you entertainment for 10-100 hours. Buying a beer for 5e gets you entertainment for 10 mins.

 

You don't keep the beer glass in the bar. You only enjoy the contents.

Just to clarify... you said that the beer gets you entertainment for 10 minutes. Are you referring to 10 minutes of drinking/tasting/savoring time for 1 (unit of beer volume in a vessel of some sort) beer? Or are you referring to 10 minutes being the time of the overall enjoyment of the beer, including the effects after drinking? If that's the case, you need to buy better beer

[Xarg]

99% of the time I'll buy digital, as many around the world know regular Steam sales are the scourge of wallets everywhere, sure you end up with a huge backlog of stuff you might never get around to playing, but when most of it is five dollars or less, is that such a big deal? Also, living in a five eyes country, no doubt they know what I'm playing, but if the spooks journey into WoW to find turrists (and only finding each other) is anything to go by, I don't think you'll have too many issues unless you're an aficionado of games you "aren't supposed to have". Even then, probably not. You might get approached for a drone program if you love flight sims, though.

[OrbWeaver]

If I have to track down the installation CD for a game in order to play it each time I buy a new computer, the chances are I won't bother and the game simply won't get played. While Steam games carry the risk that a network problem will prevent me from playing occasionally, the convenience makes it worth the risk for me. I couldn't give a toss if the government knows what games I play.