Digital or Physical?

[Terminus]

One upside to digital: You won't accidentally eject the cartridge while having the game in your pocket.

 

[Isaac]

I prefer physical, that way I can display the box on my shelf for nobody but me to see. That said, I'm okay with digital download, and prefer it in many cases, such as handhelds. The carrying around of many games is tedious. Final answer, digital if I'm going to be taking them out of the house, physical otherwise.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Physical when I can, though many of the games I play these days wouldn't exist if digital distribution weren't a thing. I keep all the installers both on my HDD and back them up with the rest of my files. Ironically, those files are safer than the digital media my oldest PC games used to be stored (I made backups of my 3.5" floppy games long ago for this reason)

 

[octorok74]

Well, I have Steam, so digital is nice and really a great way to do things. I don't even play the PC games I have on disc. The one exception to that is Roller Coaster Tycoon Deluxe, because that game is still crazy awesome. But with console I have to stick with Physical copies. I just find it more reliable and I don't want to have to deal with cloud saves not syncing and then loosing save data for games. Sure the same could possibly happen with discs plus there is the whole scratch problem, but I'd rather risk a scratch and be able to fix it, then to lose data from a game that is stored in the cloud. Plus, I'd rather not have more data take up my game hard drive then they need to. The bare minimum is what I want on there. So for me it's a tie, I don't care either way.

 

[NESpowerhouse]

I'd rather have a physical copy of what I own. Owning a physical copy insures that you'll own it forever (or at least until the copy gets all scratched up) whereas your digital copy pretty much only lasts as long as your hard drive. Also, physical copies look nice on a shelf.

 

[Reaca]

Although I do see benefits of going digital, I definitely prefer physical copies of my games. I like having something that I can display, plus then I don't have to worry about running out of space on an SD card or hard drive.

 

[CynicalSquid]

I like physical copies overall, but digital copies are much more convenient on handhelds.

 

[Garo Master]

I usually don't care since Steam makes digital super easy on PC and SD cards are cheap for 3DS (though I stick to physical when I can). Where I DO care is on the PS Vita. I got one of these little annoyance machines a few months ago because I like Final Fantasy games and I through X-2 are on it as well as Tactics and Dissidia. I had never owned a Sony game console, so I didn't know what to expect. I got it for $180 used to save $20, but guess what: you need to buy a memory card because no internal memory. So I bought an 8GB card. 8GB SD: $5-$10... 8GB Vita card: $20... 20 FREAKING DOLLARS!!! And you know what? It's not even a full 8GB. But anyway, I downloaded Dissidia and a couple little apps and things and it's pretty nice for Skype and such. But then I got a physical copy of Dragon's Crown. The game is super fun, but after about 15 hours of gameplay... THE FILE ON THE MEMORY CARD'S CORRUPT!!! So really it's just a pain. But that's not the worst part. I bought that over a PSP for a stupid reason: X and X-2 HD. It was a choice of those or Crisis Core and I chose those plus more money. So I have barely enough memory card space for the games, right? Well Square goes and says, "Guess what, suckers? X-2 is download ONLY now! NO physical copy!" So here's to wasting more money on another memory card for that game.

For Christ's sake, I can't get rid of that stupid emoticon! It should read 8GB SD : $5-$10. So if someone running these forums can add a feature where you disable emoticons, that'd be great.

 

[JackHM]

I was a huge fan of physical until I downloaded LoZ:ALBW. Having it there right away is a great thing to have. I'll definitely consider more digital downloads in the future.

 

[The Jade Fist]

Physical most of the times.

1. like on the eshop, they think they can charge me full price for a digital copy?! no thank you. There is no value.
I know it, they know it. They don't have to go thru printing, shiping, and splitting the price with the retailers. I'm aware of the money they aren't loosing by using a digital distribution, and I feel like they are trying to cheat customers charging full price on new games.

2. Steam is different because they are a retailer, they take a cut of the price, so there is overhead, and they always drop prices. I'm fine with steam, because they simply provide a service with value compared to physical copies.

 

[Justac00lguy]

Well physical copies are hard proof that you own the game. You can showcase it in your collection, take it over to a friends house, lend it, and even sell it.

Digital copies are more convenient as they are directly installed on the system. You can't lose them, you can easily select and play them, and you can get a hold of them without taking the trouble of a trip to your local gaming store (stop being lazy!).


---

As you can see both have good points and they also have bad points. Me personally? Well I prefer physical as I tend to buy a game, and then sell it when I have no use for it. However, we are moving more and more to a digital focused era of gaming. Physical copies will always have that sentimental value, but they will eventually fall into obscurity and be seen as nothing more than a collectible.

 

[Fraxinus]

Physical. I like being able to hold and stack and pet my games... I'm kind of the same way with books, honestly. My mom keeps on advertising to me that she has books on her Kindle that I should read and I'm like "...no." I like what I'm used to for the most part, and I really enjoy having the cartridges and/or discs in their entirety. I got the WWHD bundle for Christmas, which really surprised me, because I really didn't expect to get a WiiU. But I was a little disappointed that the game was a full digital download. Like, that just kind of sucked. My sister, Molybdenum didn't hepl much by saying that this was the way of the future and they'd probably scratch the concept physical copies eventually. Which they possibly will, I guess. The other thing with digital copies, though, is that they have to be saved to the system or other means of data storage like an SD card. I'd rather clutter my system's memory storage with other things like the save data and pictures than entire games. Those things are huge.

This is nothing too important, but a little perk I find in physical copies, sometimes, I guess... but when I get them with their pretty boxart and stuffs... aside from A Link Between Worlds, which didn't have one for some dumb reason, I do like looking at the formatting of the instruction books when I'm bored... kind of comes with having a strong interest in type, that I'd naturally be into formatting in itself and the artistic side of such. x)

 

[Mercedes]

Just to add to the discussion, I don't think digital is going to replace physical anytime soon until internet catches up. I have so many friends, especially in places like Canada and Australia, my Canadian friend complains about ridiculous ISP charges all the time, who love Steam but can't download many games because of bandwidth limitations and Internet speed. I remember Gabe saying digital was being held back by ISPs and he's right, I could never use Steam like I do now on my old internet package, especially when games like Max Payne and Dragon Age top 30GB each.

I think digital will surpass physical the day that it becomes like downloading an app on your phone, or at least when average bandwidth and internet speeds are much bigger/faster. No one minds downloading an app because its quick and easy, I'll download one just to try it out then uninstall if it sucks, whereas when you demand someone download a game like I listed above they tend to cringe a bit.

 

[The Jade Fist]

Just to add to the discussion, I don't think digital is going to replace physical anytime soon until internet catches up. I have so many friends, especially in places like Canada and Australia, my Canadian friend complains about ridiculous ISP charges all the time, who love Steam but can't download many games because of bandwidth limitations and Internet speed. I remember Gabe saying digital was being held back by ISPs and he's right, I could never use Steam like I do now on my old internet package, especially when games like Max Payne and Dragon Age top 30GB each.

I think digital will surpass physical the day that it becomes like downloading an app on your phone, or at least when average bandwidth and internet speeds are much bigger/faster. No one minds downloading an app because its quick and easy, I'll download one just to try it out then uninstall if it sucks, whereas when you demand someone download a game like I listed above they tend to cringe a bit.

The US might be that way soon too. Alot of ISP's are trying to move towards capped bandwidth limits. Its done mostly to compete with the likes of netflix, but downloading a 50 gig game for a ps4 or xbox 1? That'll eat your internet up very quickly combined if you want to still watch streaming media or play online, or well do much of anything really.

I'm still one of the lucky few who isn't capped, but I know cox does have caps in other regions. And its just so damned petty, instead of competing with streaming services they try to punish the customers for using it. As well as failed legal lobbying to try to allow them to deny/ charge extra rates for customers for accessing certain websites.

 

[Justac00lguy]

Just to add to the discussion, I don't think digital is going to replace physical anytime soon until internet catches up. I have so many friends, especially in places like Canada and Australia, my Canadian friend complains about ridiculous ISP charges all the time, who love Steam but can't download many games because of bandwidth limitations and Internet speed. I remember Gabe saying digital was being held back by ISPs and he's right, I could never use Steam like I do now on my old internet package, especially when games like Max Payne and Dragon Age top 30GB each.

I think digital will surpass physical the day that it becomes like downloading an app on your phone, or at least when average bandwidth and internet speeds are much bigger/faster. No one minds downloading an app because its quick and easy, I'll download one just to try it out then uninstall if it sucks, whereas when you demand someone download a game like I listed above they tend to cringe a bit.

With the way technology is rapidly developing it will only be a matter of time.