(mini rant) "Hardcore" gamers are too concerned about physical copies

[gregory-samba]

Digital only sucks.

 

[linkinworm]

i only really buy physical still when i plan on reselling the game, doom eternal for instance i knew it would drop in price almost instantly but i still paid £50 for it, and got £35 back a week later after 100% it. other physical copies i buy will only really be from work because i can get them for about half the price they sell anywhere else (mainly cex) and abuot 1/3 the prices of ebay, other than that i like to own nintnedo physical carts because ill end up playing that one game for longer if i have to put some effort into playing it in the 1st place

 

[Deleted User]

i only really buy physical still when i plan on reselling the game, doom eternal for instance i knew it would drop in price almost instantly but i still paid £50 for it, and got £35 back a week later after 100% it. other physical copies i buy will only really be from work because i can get them for about half the price they sell anywhere else (mainly cex) and abuot 1/3 the prices of ebay, other than that i like to own nintnedo physical carts because ill end up playing that one game for longer if i have to put some effort into playing it in the 1st place

yeah, but you could always wait for a pricedrop, if you bought it for 50 gbp and got 35 gbp back, it means you paid 15 in escence, but take for example what i did for doom 2016, i had it in my wishlist for a while, and then on 2020/06/25 i bought it for 143 uyu (about 3 usd)

 

[Jayro]

I like having something to show for my money. I also like physical media. The fact that some games for Switch only come out on cartridge thanks to third-parties like Limited Run Games is a bit upsetting. This transition to digital and god-forbid, "cloud streaming" is absolute trash in my eyes. Flash storage is cheap now, I just wish disc-based games would fuck off onto a USB C game card or similar for future consoles. Give us like 3 USB C ports on the console, so we don't have to change games out too often, and we'd be set. I'm just not a fan of digital games because eventually you won't be able to download what you purchased. The Nintendo Wii is a great example of this. Fuck anyone that spent money in the eShop I guess, right? I've been a physical collector since my very first Gameboy in 1991, and I'll be damned if I ever buy a "digital-only" console. Not on my life. PC went all-digital already, but that was for the best honestly. Steam isn't going anywhere, so I have confidence that my games are staying put. But I low-key do miss having these small game boxes above my desk to hold the installation and play discs.

 

[linkinworm]

yeah, but you could always wait for a pricedrop, if you bought it for 50 gbp and got 35 gbp back, it means you paid 15 in escence, but take for example what i did for doom 2016, i had it in my wishlist for a while, and then on 2020/06/25 i bought it for 143 uyu (about 3 usd)

yeah i could have waited but its still about £25 or wait till we got a copy come in at work which could take too long, and i just really wanted to play the game, i only do this with a select few games a year.

but then theres also the fact that with digital if i know ill never replay it again, i dont play online much, dooms online mode isnt enough to keep me going back so ill see that as a bit of a waste when i could get some cash back still, or trade in for a film or something if im bored one weekend, im hoping with the series x consoles ms bring in some more 360 titles as i dont have all my digital library available yet, i had to get a 360 from work for £20 to play some older disc games like ridge racers 6 and N3

 

[Jayro]

I always see Switch carts go on sale. I never see eShop games get the same sales for the games I like, especially first-party games. Walmart sells all the cart games for $10 cheaper than anywhere else, eShop included.

And if they REALLY wanted to push digital sales, then they need top provide more internal storage than a pathetic 32GB and an SD card slot. SD cards are slow, even the fastest ones. It's about tome we replace SD cards with SSD cards. A new formfactor around the same size and price would be sweet.

 

[Deleted User]

I always see Switch carts go on sale. I never see eShop games get the same sales for the games I like, especially first-party games. Walmart sells all the cart games for $10 cheaper than anywhere else, eShop included.

And if they REALLY wanted to push digital sales, then they need top provide more internal storage than a pathetic 32GB and an SD card slot. SD cards are slow, even the fastest ones. It's about tome we replace SD cards with SSD cards. A new formfactor around the same size and price would be sweet.

nintendo pretty much has a monopoly on handhelds so i dont really see them improving any time soon, so i'd say best we could hope for is an ssd dock (and if they are really nice, it could also have DP and Ethernet) to remain somewhat competitive to home consoles

 

[Jayro]

nintendo pretty much has a monopoly on handhelds so i dont really see them improving any time soon, so i'd say best we could hope for is an ssd dock (and if they are really nice, it could also have DP and Ethernet) to remain somewhat competitive to home consoles

DP is worthless for home TVs though, still needs an DP to HDMI cable to the TV.

 

[atoxique]

I like to actually own my games, and by "own" I don't mean something like GoG where it's a digital copy of the game with no DRM. I mean own a physical disc that I can keep, sell or give away. You can't give a copy of a digital game to someone else (well, technically you can just copy the files for them, but that's not legal...; also this really only applies to console games since PC discs require product keys that are still locked to your Steam / Uplay / Origin / whatever account anyway)

Another thing I like about physical games is that you don't have to download anything. Some of us don't have fantastic internet connections and don't want to wait hours for a game to download, especially now more than ever since games are sometimes 90+ GBs (e.g. Final Fantasy VII Remake, that's 97GB - I'd be waiting a while to download that, but since I bought it on disc I just put it in my PS4 and wait a few minutes for it to install to the hard drive!). One thing that really disappoints me is that some PC physical copies don't even include the full game on the disc, or don't even include discs at all, just a product key in a box!!

 

[Deleted User]

DP is worthless for home TVs though, still needs an DP to HDMI cable to the TV.

Would be a nice option though, tvs are in this odd situation where they lack DP because no device intended for them supports it, and no device intended for tvs supports DP because they lack it.

 

[Jayro]

Would be a nice option though, tvs are in this odd situation where they lack DP because no device intended for them supports it, and no device intended for tvs supports DP because they lack it.

Yeah, I hate it. DP is amazing. I love that they have locking mechanisms too, and the whole overall build feels way more durable. I got my first taste of DP this last month when I built my girl a new gaming PC and she wanted a new monitor too. I knew DP was the only way to go!

 

[Deleted User]

Yeah, I hate it. DP is amazing. I love that they have locking mechanisms too, and the whole overall build feels way more durable. I got my first taste of DP this last month when I built my girl a new gaming PC and she wanted a new monitor too. I knew DP was the only way to go!

agreed, for pc, i pretty much jumped from VGA to DP, i only used HDMI temporarily for a few months and i didnt really like it

 

[godreborn]

I was buying retail with the switch, but after being overly medicated, I developed a tendency to drop things quite often. I was afraid of dropping the switch to replace carts, as it was too dark to do it while docked. anyway, I don't have that issue anymore, but I decided to continue buying digitally for convenience. plus, that fear is still stuck in the back of my mind. I sold all 15 or so retail games for several hundred dollars recently on ebay. I actually got more for hyrule warriors and ys viii than I bought them for new. I guess they're out of production. I did rebuy all games digitally. I don't have any interest in exploiting my system, because I never played any games on past exploited systems. those systems were always for testing and research. plus, considering I'm on disability, I can't have more than $2,000 in my accounts at one time, so it felt like a good, healthy way to spend money and enjoy it in the process. I do often help my mom with groceries and things, but this is for me personally.

 

[Deleted User]

That's cool you want to go digital.

Just don't cry when the games you want to play aren't available anymore.

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There are pro's and cons to both. Personally, I prefer physical for a multitude of reasons, but I'm not averse to buying digitally if it's the only option (or cheap enough to not care).

What I am against is the idea that games become a digital only medium... essentially lost (or at least 'profile locked' to a specific bit of hardware) when the servers are down/title's delisted/etc. Anyone that wants 'this' future is essentially shitting on game preservation and paving the way for gaming to become 'disposable'.
We should all be rallying for the choice to have either digital or physical - regardless of our own preference.

Ah, yes. There is profile locked and license.

"Profile locked" can apply to Nintendo Switch where the main user plays them, and the secondary Switch console can't.

"License" just requires to login to an account, download the game and works on all consoles (e.g. Xbox 360).

And yet there are people who make multiple accounts on PlayStation to buy from several countries just to get a game cheaper digitally. At that point it's just a rental without even having any sense of the word "owning" it anymore.

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There are two types of physical: cartridges/SSD or a CD/DVD. The latter just annoying in terms of making sounds (i.e. the disc drive).

Cartridges? The last time they were used were for the Nintendo 64.

(Not my picture, I wish it was)

What you meant to say were SD Cards or the likes.

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People should just bloody play games no matter what format the game is and anyone not wanting one or the other is just a fool - shit I'd play the game even if the box came out a horses arse though I'd keep the disc and bin the box lol

Okay. I want to play The Simpsons Arcade, how do I go about it if I hadn't purchased before it was removed from the Xbox Store? Only by piracy then.

 

[City]

I love physical releases! You get so much out of a physical game! You get a big box with a great artwork, a fully colored instructions manual full of cool things inside...

This is why I don't buy physical releases.

 

[Deleted User]

To be fair, it depends on the type of physical media in question; I've owned and burned too many CD | DVD | Blu-ray to believe they last more than a few years, especially in hot and humid locales.

I do, however, trust storage devices that are stationary, so just like I trust my MicroSD card to last a good while, I also trust Nintendo's cartridges to.

I view digital releases much like I view Netflix; it depends on whether you trust the company will be there for a while. With the same logic, I would rather trust a Subscription service to play as many games for a fix sum than to pay for just one digital game.

The exception those digital copies you don't pay for; with nothing to lose it's easy to like them as they are.

 

[SG854]

I love physical releases! You get so much out of a physical game! You get a big box with a great artwork, a fully colored instructions manual full of cool things inside...

This is why I don't buy physical releases.

You love em but you don't buy em. Ain't we all been there.

 

[Deleted User]

I love physical releases! You get so much out of a physical game! You get a big box with a great artwork, a fully colored instructions manual full of cool things inside...

This is why I don't buy physical releases.

Big boxes? That's history.

Now it's standard Blu-ray cases and smaller (Switch).

The big boxes were mainly for PC games.

 

[Chary]

Being able to grab a game at midnight release, without having to leave the house or stand in a line for an hour at GameStop or something is fantastic.

Had Amazon/BestBuy kept its 15% off pre-orders, I'd probably be buying more physical copies, but it's just so much easier to download a game and play it without any fuss. The only time I really buy physical anymore is if it's cheaper or there's a really cool limited edition.

 

[Jayro]

Just puts more money into Limited Run games' pockets.