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What kind of gamer are you?

  • Digital only

    Votes: 380 38.7%
  • Physical only

    Votes: 13 1.3%
  • 95% Digital 5% Physical

    Votes: 352 35.8%
  • 95% Physical 5% Digital

    Votes: 237 24.1%

  • Total voters
    982
Jan 11, 2018
9,653
Physical only, unless there is no physical release. I'm not against digital games entirely, but I prefer owning my games (being able to sell, trade, let friends/family borrow, etc).
 

civet

Member
Jul 6, 2019
460
France
As a PC gamer I was digital only, until I've recently bought a PS4 and it appears that, for some reasons, most of the time games are cheaper physically than digitally.
 

LightKiosk

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,479
All digital on PS4 (only physical game I have for PS4 is Battlefield 4 which was bought YEARS ago), and all digital on PC.
 

Karlinel

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Nov 10, 2017
7,826
Mallorca, Spain
My pc doesn't have optic drive so all digital there.
My ps4 has 4 physical games and 320 digital.
My mega sg is all about that sweet sweet physicality tho.
 

Tangyn

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,281
100% digital on PC because it's actually cheaper. Still buy discs for the few PS4 games I buy as digital in the UK is so expensive on ps4. Switch games there doesn't seem to be much of a difference so a mixture on that.

Don't buy games for the X just use gamepass so err yea digital.
 

Amauri14

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,696
Danbury, CT, USA
Yes, unless there is a really good deal with the physical one, although now I even avoid doing that by the end of the day I will just end up buying the digital version after that.
 

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
56,965
Weird poll options.

100% digital on PC.

Physical for PS4 unless some ridiculous sale. I usually sell/trade/gift games I'm done with.
 

Deleted member 25606

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
8,973
I have been all digital since it first became an option on PS3. Last physical game I owned was the COD that came with my PS4 that I traded in right away anyways.

I'm not a collector, I don't have much space, and at 42 I am aware any "collection" is never going to make me rich, and when I inevitably die it's just a bunch of junk the people around me have to offload since they don't give a shit.

As for price, if you only buy day one very occasionally ( I got RE2, Sekiro, and DS this year) and wait time and sales I get more games than using GameStop. You can game cheaper digitally you just have to plan it and realize you may be a year or two behind on some releases.
 

Deleted member 2254

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,467
Almost entirely digital, yeah. I only rarely cave in for physical due to prices, mostly thanks to Nintendo never doing proper sales. On Xbox I am 99% digital probably.
 
Oct 31, 2017
8,466
Basically, yes.
The last time I purchased a physical copy for a game it was Darksiders 1 and I ended up regretting it, while the shipment was late and I was left waiting for it.
And it still activated on Steam, anyway.
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,760
I only buy physical if it's something like RDR2 where it's reasonable to expect that a PC release will happen at some point. Planned on doing the same with Death Stranding, but Kojima was nice enough to spill the beans before release.
 

Alucardx23

Member
Nov 8, 2017
4,713
Keeping track of games and swapping out disc or cartridges is becoming such a first world problem issue that digital so much more viable for me. I am an old school gamer and love physical games but I have to say, switching games are so much easier when you go digital. I agree that you are at the will of the platform holder if something goes wrong.

Anyone feel the same or is there someone who hated the ideal of going full digital last year but changed their mind this year?

Yes, a 100% digital and loving it.
 

Pargon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,018
Digital as much as I can now.
On PC, it's been digital-only for years unless a physical edition includes a code in the box and ends up being cheaper.

With consoles there are a number of advantages to physical, but trade-in prices have dropped a lot, and it's less convenient for me to do that now. Reselling online is too much of a hassle.
It used to be that I'd get back 75% of what I paid if I bought a game, finished it in a week or two, and traded it in. I never bought and played so many games as when I was doing that.
Now, it feels like I lose too much money or waste too much time on the resale to be worth it - especially if I'm buying the games on sale to begin with. It's obviously a very good option for trying out games that you aren't 100% sure about though.
But I also find that I do tend to revisit older games quite a lot, and many of the games I've sold in the past, I have bought again - sometimes more than once, and sometimes I have had difficulty getting them again. So it doesn't necessarily save money for me long term.

I was PC-only for a long time, but recently got back into console gaming a bit, and it's been 100% digital on the Switch except for Ring Fit which only has a physical version - and that's fine. I wouldn't want a code for that. If I was to sell it, I'd want to sell the game with the ring.
I've also got back into Wii / Wii U recently and while you can get a lot of games digitally, it's usually much cheaper to buy physical.

I absolutely hate the stacks of hardware that I've been accumulating to play these games though, and the stacks of game discs too. But the alternative is not playing them at all.
I've already recycled all of the packaging and stored the games in a CD wallet to minimize it as much as possible.
I really wish that Nintendo would have included GameCube/Wii backwards compatibility with the Switch.
We know the Tegra X1 is capable of it, the Wii controllers are Bluetooth just like the Switch controllers, and they could use pre-compiled shaders to avoid the shader compilation stutter that is present with GCN/Wii emulation since it's a fixed hardware platform.
 

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
Coward
Jun 4, 2018
14,056
Work
Fuck no. Why would I buy something I don't actually own
 

BasilZero

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
36,343
Omni
90% digital and 10% physical

I only buy physical when it's cheaper

I don't care for collection purposes.

And regardless of whether you own it physical or digital it's the same to me because in this day and age you don't really have 100% of the content, gotta download something or another
 

Greywaren

Member
Jul 16, 2019
9,933
Spain
Mostly digital. I only purchase physical for PS4 and Switch games if I really like the boxart. Otherwise, digital all the way.
 

InspectorJones

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,621
It depends on the platform. Almost 100% digital on PC, but on Switch and PS4 it's like 90% Physical.
 

kiriku

Member
Oct 27, 2017
947
Digital 100 %. Feels freeing. I've come to realize I don't care about owning games, I just care about experiencing them and move on. That's why I like services like Gamepass.
 

Jameson

Member
Nov 23, 2017
430
I'm very close to being full digital, but these the nintendo games retained value so much that I still buy them physical. Xbox and Playstation I'm full digital.
 

Total Cereal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
599
I was all-digital last get (Wii U, 3DS, and PC) but I learned my lesson with Nintendo. I try not to get digital Switch games unless I have no other option. I don't think that Switch games aren't tied to your console, so in theory, going digital isn't as big of a risk, but I still prefer physical just for the peace of mind that I won't one day have to fight some kind of digital DRM to play my games.

I switched from PC to Xbox in the middle of this gen and I'm mostly digital on there due to gamepass. I don't buy digital Xbox games since having a disc to install games from is much better than having to download 60+ gigs of data. I think the last digital Xbox game I bought that was also available on disc was Halo 5. I know that physical games are going away, and one day they won't be an option, but I'll hold out while I can.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,717
Yeah, physical games no longer offer the one advantage they used to. The ability to just pop em in and play.
I only buy physical games for things I absolutely love.
 

Resiverence

Member
Jan 30, 2019
517
Yep, I basically only play on pc so not like I have a choice for physical anyway but I dont think I really care for it at this point
 

gcwy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,685
Houston, TX
The only physical game I own is Read Dead 2. I wanted to get rid of it cuz I already have the digital version and it's taking up space.
 

Sandcrawler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
545
I was a little worried about all digital when I got into PC gaming in 2010 with people claiming Steam would slow down your PC and other nonsense, but I'm all about it now (not like there's an alternative on PC anyway). It was a little dicey a few years ago when uPlay was kind of crap, Bethesda's launcher was just not functional, the Microsoft store wouldn't even let you specify what drive you wanted something installed on, and Origin was buggy but all of that is mostly rectified now. Having everything spread across a bunch of launchers can be a little cumbersome but it's not the end of the world.

On consoles, I'd be almost all digital but physical games are almost always cheaper day one and go on sale faster. I really don't like having physical media (aside from books) laying around the house since it's just more stuff to care for, but the cost savings is worth it. That said, being able to lend and borrow games from friends is nice.

I hope you can do a sharing thing on next gen consoles like Steam family sharing, but I'm not holding my breath for that. I think this was part of the original Xbox One plan that got lambasted, but I think that kind of system would be fine on PS5/Scarlett. Maybe this is still an issue elsewhere in the world and if it is then I don't want those people alienated, but for me and everyone else I know being able to share digital games with each other at the cost of not being able to buy used and having to connect to the internet is a non-issue.

I don't have a Switch yet, but Nintendo's implementation of the eShop on 3DS and Wii was really sketch and made me avoid those stores.
 

Vibbon

Member
Jan 22, 2018
129
DFW Area, TX
95% physical here until 2021 when my Best Buy membership runs out then I'm all digital.

It's all about saving that cheddar cheese for me.
 

shadowhaxor

EIC of Theouterhaven
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
1,730
Claymont, Delaware
Seeing how I game mostly on PC, Digital ;). Still, most if not all of my PS4, Xbox and Switch games are digital, due to convenience or game codes for reviews. No more "Where the hell is my disc/cart" as my children tend to "borrow" my games. The only time I go out my way for physical games is if they're on sale or a collectors edition.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,228
Mostly digital anymore, but not so much because of space reasons. Mainly just want to be able to make sure I have the game when it goes live and not have to be waiting in line at some random store at midnight (which doesn't seem as frequent anymore anyway). About the only time I buy physical is for an older game that I get really cheap.
 

dgrdsv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,885
Yeah. My last four physical purchases were the games I've bought with my OG PS4 back in 2014.
 

Kamala

Member
Sep 22, 2019
467
Yeah, digital only since about the PS4's launch(I may have got one physical game with it?)
I never want to swap a cartridge/CD again!
(Now swapping games on the HD for space is the issue now!)
 

Rogue Kiwi

Chicken Chaser
Banned
May 5, 2019
725
I've been full digital since they started offering 360 games for download and I haven't looked back. Resale doesn't matter to me and I prefer a more minimalist lifestyle, so no shelves full of plastic crap.
 

-PXG-

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,186
NJ
Nowadays I'm half and half. I was a staunch "physical only" guy a few years ago. But games that I know I'll play for years and years, and never get rid off, I buy digitally. For instance, I like the convenience of just booting up Destiny 2 whenever I want. I play it religiously, so it makes to always have it on deck, ready to go.

Most Switch games, I buy physically for some odd reason. Nintendo games have some abstract sense of value and rarity to me. I think others who have owned a lot of Nintendo games over the years know what I mean. Games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Maker 2 I own digitally, solely for convenience.