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I hate digital stores. Can we go back to PC games on discs?
- Thread starter tekomandor
- Start date
I don't know about that one, chief. No Blu-ray drive in most PCs means AAA games would take more than 10 DVDs. And even then, a lot of PCs come with no optical drive at all.
RDR2 in PS4 takes more than 30m to install :) from the 2 discs
It's not that clear cut. Internet infrastructure is not carbon neutral and can make large downloads have a worse carbon footprint than a disc. Some data centers have been promised to be carbon neutral by certain dates or are now but that still isn't in 100% of locations and there is still infrastructure in between you and the carbon neutral locations as well.
Long story short a study was done in the UK several years ago that found it can be worse to download a 50GB game even after considering shipping, disposal, plastic waste etc. Here's some choice quotes
Keep in mind the exact metrics only exclusively apply to the UK and it has been 5 years since it was published so the infrastructure has improved especially with big players like Microsoft and Google but digital is not green.
that doesnt change the fact that the progress isnt working for OP. they even acknowledged they dont have great internet
If you are serious about fighting climate change, there is nothing to celebrate about the huge growth of data centers due to demand replacing the distribution of discs and packaging. This is just a lazy way of making people feel better about a hobby that is a drain on the environment for mere pleasure. It's a narrative people want to believe because who doesn't want to believe that our wasteful hobby of digital dudes killing each other is being progressive and on the right track? But it isn't really, we're just redistributing the harm in a way that feels like it might be better on a superficial level, but in fact the ones who benefit most from digital distribution isn't the environment - it's the capitalist publishers who can spend less and charge more.
Wherever possible, buy games from GoG, itch.io, or the Humble Store when a DRM Free download is offered.
You can then back up your downloads to a hard drive, or—in theory—burn them to optical media.
You can then back up your downloads to a hard drive, or—in theory—burn them to optical media.
I like to think I'm pretty serious about the environment (I don't drive a car, nor do I fly) and I always thought that digital downloads (I have green energy at home) was far less of a strain on the environment than shipping discs in plastic, but apparently it's not as clear-cut. But sure, not gaming at all would be better for the environment.
I don't care about discs, but I'd rather just buy each game directly from the publisher and download an executable. That way, people can pick and choose their launchers like GOG Galaxy 2.0 that act like unified platforms. I don't need social features in my launcher (Discord handles that) nor do I need streaming or achievements or anything else.
Gotta love when you can't play your old PC game anymore because you don't know where the manual is so you can't answer the question "What's the 7th word in the 4th paragraph on page 43?"
It's been a while since I read that article, but even the article itself had a lot of caveats like large countries like the US are drastically less efficient than the UK with physical distribution (in large part due to the size difference) and that the efficiency of digital distribution is increasing at an exponential rate so the values would be completely irrelevant in a year or two (on a 5 year article). Plus, they admitted that they were estimating a lot of the values. Not to mention that the vast majority of games are nowhere near 50GBs (and with SSDs becoming standardized on the next gen of consoles, there'll be a lot less duplication of game assets as an attempt to reduce load times).
All correct statements but digital is still not green as many think it is.
When I was a kid my dog got ahold of my Smash Melee disk.
That was a sad day.
Now days I don't even have a disk drive on my PC.
Everything I play is downloaded, even on Switch. I'm 22 now I've spent a lot of my life using Steam as a store front and buying digitally. I guess I just got used to it when I was in my early teens.
That was a sad day.
Now days I don't even have a disk drive on my PC.
Everything I play is downloaded, even on Switch. I'm 22 now I've spent a lot of my life using Steam as a store front and buying digitally. I guess I just got used to it when I was in my early teens.
PC games on discs? that's so ancient.
What we need is PC games onREAD ONLY SSD's, where the license of the game copy is on the SSD with some sort of protection.
What we need is PC games on
No offense OP, but you might as well be saying
"I hate USB drives, can we go back to Floppy Disks?"
"I hate USB drives, can we go back to Floppy Disks?"
Jesus fucking christ god no.
Digital stores have their issues but those days were no fun.
Having to keep switching disks for different games.
Having to visit weird ass sites to download patches...
Not having an actual community within the PC store ecosystem like the Steam community.
Digital stores have their issues but those days were no fun.
Having to keep switching disks for different games.
Having to visit weird ass sites to download patches...
Not having an actual community within the PC store ecosystem like the Steam community.
I prefer physical for consoles, but with PC I could never go back. I still have an optical dive in my PC, but I'm all in on digital now. Steam helped revitalize my interest in PC gaming tbh. The option for physical is great, but it doesn't really make sense for PC anymore. Like others pointed out, you're talking about 10+ dvds for installation in some cases...at that point I really don't see any benefit aside from internet data caps.
Physical games on PC were cool when you owned something between 5 and 20 games.
Now many people own 1000+ games and having that as physical editions would be a nightmare.
Going back to physical would also mean going back to the old patch system:
Hey, has anyone seen the patch to go from v1.0.1.2. to v1.0.1.6? I can't use the latest one because thats from 1.0.1.5 to 1.0.1.6 and 1.0.1.0 to 1.0.1.6 doesn't work
Now many people own 1000+ games and having that as physical editions would be a nightmare.
Going back to physical would also mean going back to the old patch system:
Hey, has anyone seen the patch to go from v1.0.1.2. to v1.0.1.6? I can't use the latest one because thats from 1.0.1.5 to 1.0.1.6 and 1.0.1.0 to 1.0.1.6 doesn't work
Man, I hate this sort of misleading, disingenuous crap.
It's like when people tell you that "even manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels pollutes". Sure, it's true, but it's an entirely different order of magnitude than coal over lifetime.
What's worse, these sort of articles always skew the numbers in the most dishonest possible way.
The environmental impact of a download is literally its energetic cost. How much it "pollutes" is strictly related to how the energy sustaining a server farm is produced, how long the PC/console will be turned on, etc.
You have to juggle shit in the most creative way to make it figure as more wasteful than the industrial process of printing, writing and distributing physical supports that also DO NOT satisfy on their own the necessity to STILL have servers and online infrastructures for plenty of other uses.
It's not a random article trying to make some political point it's a neutral scientific study the entire paper is available for anyone to look over if you want the exact numbers used for every metric of the analysis including the carbon footprint of printing, shipping, and plastic waste.
I even went out my way to point out the potential pitfalls of the study, it's geographic limitations, and point out that things have improved since it was published.
Edit: And for the record I'm heavily for wind turbines and solar and have been just as upset when I see the stupid, combative, fake information used to try to fight its adoption.
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Coming from latin america, no digital storefronts means no games less than $80, that have to be "imported" throught some sketchy ppl, also making them much less popular due to the extra hassle. So thank god for digital and the irrelevance of phisical media.
Nah, "the internet" is a way bigger polluter than most people imagine. There's no need to juggle those stats to make them sound bad.
I remember the good old days of multiple discs for one game and only having limited number of activations per key. Then having all those games cluttering my living space. Fuck the good old days.
Infrastructure is to blame and hopefully things get better for people in the near future. Going back to physical media definitely isn't going to happen.
Companies that put arbitrary caps on their services should at the very least have their greedy executives removed from their positions and replaced with people who want to help progress
Infrastructure is to blame and hopefully things get better for people in the near future. Going back to physical media definitely isn't going to happen.
Companies that put arbitrary caps on their services should at the very least have their greedy executives removed from their positions and replaced with people who want to help progress
