New school gaming. Is Anyone going all digital or still buying physical games?

All those Transformers toys and what catches my eyes is the Tanooki Mario toy and the Donkey Kong Doll. I'm handing in my Transformers fanboy card.

SudoShinji said:

2. I am guaranteed in contract by steam to own these games for life even if they dissapear and this has been said by Lord Gaben multiple times so no it's nothing like renting and that point was retarded.

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Yeah but then there is the issue where Steam is involved and physical media. Where you can have a sealed game, open it, and the key activates against steam and it tells you the key is not valid. I've had this happen to me before, it is easier to just buy it on steam then you don't have to worry about things like that.

ki_atsushi said:

LOL Tanooki, there are not 400 games in your giant ass bookshelf. I'm guessing under 250 there.

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50 Gameboy, 25 GBC, and 37 Gameboy in the card catalog drawers, plus a few more stuck in systems and Wario Land on my desk here not shown. That link in my signature is my entire inventory with totals at the top of each page. I'm think I'm somewhere around 370-380. Doesn't include a few boxed/cd case PC disc games too, nor does it other LCD/LED handhelds and tabletop games. Like I said, have too much, been selling it off. Dreamcast aside I pitched my entire Sega collection in the last month or so outside of the 10 Genesis games in that shot since I have a Retron5 they can play on.


RAZO: Very lucky. I just have this space. If I cared to collect I could easily make more room, but then my pinball machine or the neo geo would need a new home which isn't happening. In the next couple years intend to get that last big home hopefully for life, hope to get a nice basement setup or large spare room to keep everything in with a more orderly clean setup. That shelf admittedly looks busy, but it's mostly toy clutter as the games are organized at least.

Dr Shroom and Bakaboy: Thanks. Oh and that DK you see to the left, I've got the large model off camera to the left around 18" tall or so sitting in a mid-60s pedal car fire truck I restored. There are 71 Transformers there along with the one small shelf with the few Shogun Warriors/Voltron stuff. I've got a nice small collection of old antique toys and things in here going back to the 1930s I've picked off at flea markets around here the last 4 years mostly.

Digital only. There's no advantage to owning things. Not even to lend them to friends. I'm not 12 and it's not important if my friend plays and enjoys Rocket League, and it's not important if I get $10 out of it 20 years later. Having all of my games on a hdd ready to play will always be better than dealing with physical copies.

RAZO said:

I don't know about you guys but now in days I find it much more convenient to just start up my console and select a game without needing to insert a disc which pretty much does almost nothing now since the game is installed to the HD.

I actually just got rid of about 50 Ps3 and Xbox 360 games that I could either play through ps plus, xbox live gold or steam and it feels good not having all that extra clutter on the shelf. I think for now on with the PS4 and XB1 I'm going digital on whatever I could as long as the price is right. No way am I paying $60 for a digital game.

Has anyone else bought into New School Digital Only gaming yet or do you still like having those physical games sitting on the shelf just in case?

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With digital there is always the risk you will get shafted down the line on the DRM front.
I had a couple of PS3 titles bought together with a few friends from the UK a long time ago, using separate accounts for each title to take advantage of Sony's 'activate the games on a total of 5 PS3 machines' policy. Recently I had to change the HDD in the PS3 and now these titles require activation. Fair enough, but for some reason it is not accepting my login / password details for the respective accounts. In this particular situation it is also not possible to generate a new password since the underlying email accounts have long been deleted due to inactivity and whats more the hotmail.co.uk domain for these accounts no longer exists.
There are also odd games such as PS3 Final Fight - Double Impact, where the game will not launch if you are not connected to PSN.

MtothaJ said:

With digital there is always the risk you will get shafted down the line on the DRM front.
I had a couple of PS3 titles bought together with a few friends from the UK a long time ago, using separate accounts for each title to take advantage of Sony's 'activate the games on a total of 5 PS3 machines' policy. Recently I had to change the HDD in the PS3 and now these titles require activation. Fair enough, but for some reason it is not accepting my login / password details for the respective accounts. In this particular situation it is also not possible to generate a new password since the underlying email accounts have long been deleted due to inactivity and whats more the hotmail.co.uk domain for these accounts no longer exists.
There are also odd games such as PS3 Final Fight - Double Impact, where the game will not launch if you are not connected to PSN.

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Yes buying digital has a few draw backs for sure but for me it makes more sense. I just purchased Tomb Raider Definitive on PSN for $4.70 . If that game 5 years down the road becomes unavailable for download than I rented the game for 5 years for $5. No big loss. If I feel the urge to play it again than I will hunt down a physical copy of the game on the cheap. I'm not paying top dollar for my digital downloads.

If older games get a Remastered version or they release a trilogy or anthology physical release than I might budge for those but I'm not going to do it for every new game.

The biggest drawback to digital is the price for most of them. When a new game comes out and they want full fucking retail price for an intangible item vs the same price for a physical copy then there's a problem.

Yes the price difference is huge. Comparing the fact that you can get a used copy of a game for $1-2 but buy it online in digital form for $20-50 or whatever full retail is. But I think the difference here is that people are paying these online prices or else they wouldn't be priced so high.

since MOTW is on PS4..............will we see people dumping this game as digital is the way to go?????

BonusKun said:

The biggest drawback to digital is the price for most of them. When a new game comes out and they want full fucking retail price for an intangible item vs the same price for a physical copy then there's a problem.

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Not to mention that generally the physical games get hefty discounts while the digital stays full price for a long time. I can get 20% off any new game from Amazon or Best Buy when a game is new, and in a few months that $47 price goes down to $35, $30, maybe even a good sale of $20 at Christmas. The digital one has to be out a long time to get equivalent pricing.

It is cheaper to add space to your server than to add space to your warehouse.

I've noticed that even though the game is stored on the HD and the disc is supposed to just act as an unlock key or whatever, my XB1S tends to heat up much more over the course of a play session than when playing a downloadable game with no disc for a similar duration.

I've got a PS4, and all the PS4 games I own are physical discs from a bargain bin.

It's not worth it to depend on an online service, and it's not worth it to buy games at release.

GohanX said:

Not to mention that generally the physical games get hefty discounts while the digital stays full price for a long time. I can get 20% off any new game from Amazon or Best Buy when a game is new, and in a few months that $47 price goes down to $35, $30, maybe even a good sale of $20 at Christmas. The digital one has to be out a long time to get equivalent pricing.

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Here's the thing, I took a look at the Nintendo eshop and some games are still $59.99. I know for a fucking fact I can go out and find physical new copies of said games for a 3rd of the price without too much effort. This is why digital is a fucking ripoff. Some people say that's it's a shelf space waster but that's only true if you don't sell your games and hoard them away.

Flip that shit after you're done with it and re-coup some of the money you spent or be a dumb ass & buy digital shit with zero chance of making any money back once you're done with the game.

Like I said the only time I ever buy digital is when there is no other option and it's for a game I want to play but if there's a physical option then you bet your ass I'm getting it.

Here's a personal story to consider.

At the beginning of last year, my apartment was broken into. The burglars stole my Xbox 360, Wii U, PC, and all the associated games, controllers, amiibos, etc.

After the initial case was suspended (it happened over the holidays, so aside from having the serial numbers for the consoles, there wasn't a lot to go on) I went ahead and bought some refurbished consoles, and eventually a computer. I was able to get back my digital purchases instantly, and with no additional cost. There were some DRM transfers that took a little time, but otherwise, it was easy.

Does this mean I've "seen the light" and have gone to full digital only? Heck no. At the end of the day, it comes down to price, and as some have said, paying full price online doesn't beat a gently used physical copy at a fraction of the price. Still, it is something I consider. In some cases, I've bought some of my physical purchases in digital form because I didn't feel like having to buy them again. (It was the 3rd time in one case, long story.)

BonusKun said:

Here's the thing, I took a look at the Nintendo eshop and some games are still $59.99.

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Nintendo's pricing is insane. I understand that they're trying to maintain a perception of value, but it's ridiculous when your 3-or-4-year-old games are still priced like they're new. I've been on the verge of getting a Wii U for about 2 years now - but every time I look, the system is still like $300 and the games I want are $60.

Although, I went to check on that for this post, and it looks like Nintendo refurb WiiU consoles are now $215 including two games. That's pretty good.

I prefer buying games on physical media (cartridges, CDs, DVDs), because it feels more like you own the game. With online games, the company selling you the game (like Steam, for example) can theoretically decide to stop giving you access to the game, by saying your key is invalid or out of date. Maybe in 10 years time, when the game is obsolete, and no-one is playing it, they won't bother to give out new keys for it anymore.
But I realize that you never really own a game (or any other other software), when you own the CD. It's like when you buy Windows, you're not actually buying the software (as far as copyright goes), you're just buying a license to use it. So in that sense, there is not much difference between physical media and digital/online media.

True, but you do control it because it's put onto a piece of plastic or chips you do in fact own. It's about control of the license being in your hands not theirs.