I will NEVER buy Physical Games again! Here's why

[mikeys_legendary]

I used to be a physical copy hardliner. Now I just go with however I can get the best deal.

I still prefer physical, but if PSN has a game I want for $20 less than Gamestop/Best Buy/Wal-Mart/Amazon or my local game store, I'm going with PSN.

 

[MrWindUpBird]

Physical just be cheaper though. Sure, the console is more expensive up front, but you'll save money over the lifespan of the box for sure. I save soooooooo much money waiting for deals on games I want through Wario64. My collection is immense and I spend a fraction of the amount I'd be spending if I went all digital.

Ironically, pricing is the whole reason why I'm digital only on PC. Steam/key sites/bundles save me hella bucks

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How often do they even release PC games on physical media anymore though? The last time I saw a box for a PC game in store was for Bioshock Infinite almost 8 years ago. And it was literally just a steam key lol.

 

[catpurrcat]

My physical purchases recently.

- Demon's Souls, bought for £60, traded in for £54.
- Miles Morales, bought for £45, sold for £40.
- Cyberpunk PS4 Steelbook, bought for £50, sold for £60.
- Assassin's Creed Valhalla Xbox, bought for £45, sold for £45.

With game prices the way they are, and the volume of games I'm buying of late, there's no way I'm going digital only.

If I'd gone digital only, yes I'd still have my games, but I'd be £215 out right now, instead because I bought physical I'm out just £1 having resold or traded everything I bought.

That's pretty much half the cost of my Series X and PS5 saved in just one month. And if I ever want to replay those games I can just rebuy them for much cheaper later down the line.

Honestly, with resale out of the question to me digital purchases are so much worse value proposition, with the exception of the games I'd be consistently replaying or playing over a longer period of time.

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pretty cool how much money saved! This is the way. But wow how did you beat DeS, Cyberpunk, Miles, AND Valhalla in 6 weeks?

Took me over a month just for DeS and that was with an entire vacation week :)

 

[Absolute]

I live on a budget not mammy and daddy buying me games so digital or physical doesn't come into my mind. Whatever saves me the most money.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Bought an Xbox Series S and love the backwards compatibility... except the digital versions of those classic 360 games have some stupid pricing. I could go get the 360
Disc for $5 or pay like $20 digitally. It it's a Series S and I have no option aside from wait for a sale.

 

[Ashgarth]

I can't watch the video atm, can anyone bullet point their arguments please?

I personally can't give up physical on console for two primary reasons: lower cost and resell value.

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Physical can be broken, take space and you have to install them.

I'd say it's a very weak argument. Not sure why this video changed OP's view on the matter.

 

[freakybj]

I still buy physical on consoles and will continue to do so - especially with $70 being the new price standard. I like having options when bargain hunting for games.

I honestly don't think consoles could be successful without an optical disk drive. It's an advantage over the PC ecosystem that shouldn't be easily discarded. I couldn't get used to having to buy all games through the PS and MS stores. These games aren't getting cheaper.

 

[JuicyPlayer]

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I sold my entire physical PS4 collection (50+ games) and rebought EVERYTHING digitally.....and almost broke even. The idea that great digital sales don't exist (at least in NA) is complete nonsense. I'll never buy a physical game ever again.

That being said, I couldn't care less if you still buy physical.

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PlayStation does have great digital sales but unfortunately Nintendo's digital sales absolutely sucks. First party games never drop in price and 3rd party games are always $10 more compared to similar sales on other platforms.

 

[CadobaDelta]

I change accounts a lot, so it's nice to have a physical game that isn't locked to any one account. Space isn't really an issue for me, since I stuff all the discs into a binder and toss the cases, but I know that's not something most people are interested in doing.

 

[grosvenor92]

As long as I can get physical copies I will. Digital pricing and bandwidth caps are huge pain sometimes.

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

I am literally about to buy Fenyx Immortal for 20-30 bucks next month in the next sale physically. Physical prices are great.

The only time I personally get something digital is when PS plus offers it included in the "free" games. Like the Tomb Raider games or select titles like abzu, journey, etc.

 

[Dan Thunder]

Different for everyone but for me buying a PS5 with disc drive had already saved me £60 on just two games choosing physical over digital. Another couple of titles and I'll have cancelled out the saving I'd have made buying the digital only version.

 

[Dest]

How often do they even release PC games on physical media anymore though? The last time I saw a box for a PC game in store was for Bioshock Infinite almost 8 years ago. And it was literally just a steam key lol.

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For major releases, it's still a thing sometimes if you check Amazon. It's just a download key 99% of the time, though. But they do technically exist. They're more common in the EU afaik.

 

[Izzard]

I'm never watching that video so I guess I'll have to be content with not knowing the reasons.
I buy mostly discs. Just cheaper and easier.

 

[nib95]

pretty cool how much money saved! This is the way. But wow how did you beat DeS, Cyberpunk, Miles, AND Valhalla in 6 weeks?

Took me over a month just for DeS and that was with an entire vacation week :)

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Didn't beat Cyberpunk but sold it as I picked up the Series X version instead, which I'm still playing through lol. Same with Valhalla and picking up the PS5 version (for cheaper) instead. Bloody Digital Foundry comparisons got me switching versions lol.

 

[astro]

Physical can be broken, take space and you have to install them.

I'd say it's a very weak argument. Not sure why this video changed OP's view on the matter.

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Yeh, that's what I expected.

Don't get me wrong, I get the environmental aspects and I think that's valid...

Server space has a large carbon footprint, though.
Digital games can be removed due to licencing/servers can go down whereas physical can still have local multiplayer.
You need to download digital and you need to buy storage if you want them to hand easily.

Like... every single point here has an obvious counter to the point I can't see how they could be reasoned as defining wins against physical.

 

[New Donker]

Switch I went all digital from day 1. The last physical game I had bought on the PS4 was For Honor, and starting with Horizon, I went all digital on PS4 too.

I have 0 interest in going back to physical. Waiting for the package to come in (Or driving to a store to buy a game), getting up to put a disk in, and storing all those cases sucks. I also have no interest in trading in and selling back games to supplement other gaming purchases.

 

[pvin626]

I'm trying to go digital-only, but games are a bit more expensive and I'm scared that I will eventually lose access to my library, unlike physical they will always be there.

 

[Cogniferous]

Got physical copies of my PS5 games cheaper than the digital versions and I can trade them in for something else when I'm done. It's going to be a long time until that changes.

 

[Redcrayon]

There's been so many valid and personal arguments for either in the years we've been discussing it.

Personally, here in the UK anything on a disc/cart is going to be up to 20% cheaper, due to the competition between online retailers stores vs the digital stores sticking to the RRP. On top of that, I sell them on all the time, and with the Switch it's rare that I don't get almost all of what I paid back. Going digital only would fill up my memory cards quickly, leave me with software I don't want and can't sell on, and cost anything up to a grand more over a decade or so even without second hand sales. I do buy tons of digital stuff in the sales though, mostly my wishlist of indie games. As such, I've got a digital library of smaller titles (with the bigger titles I've picked up in sales all archived away), and a small physical library largely of the bigger RPGs that I enjoyed.

If I had a home console, I'd be more likely to have a hard drive plugged in and stacks more on it, but even then I'd likely still buy games physically. Like, Fenix Rising was slashed to half the price for physical copies here less than 3 weeks after launch. A digital-only future feels inevitable but people have been saying it's almost here for 15 years now.

 

[Sky87]

Seeing Sony's prices on digital console games i sure hope physical don't die out any time soon unless that paves the way for lower digital prices.

 

[Fukuzatsu]

Physical is important for a few reasons, which I think are never really "refuted" by most digital proponents, only ignored. For example:

• Physical is often cheaper than digital, and has more pressure points at which sales or discounts from MSRP are likely compared to controlled, single storefronts like the PSN, Microsoft Store, or Nintendo eShop.
  • The frequent rebuttal to this is that sales are common on digital storefronts.
  • However, this fails to recognise that digital sales are completely at the whim of a publisher (i.e. it has no material relationship with the demand for that game or any other factors beyond whether the publisher decides to put it on sale or not), and if the sales were solely contained within digital storefronts, there would be no direct competition on price, only indirect competition. The presence of physical games itself is also another competition point which encourages digital sales as well, so its presence is really only to the benefit of digital users. Conversely, does anyone imagine that digital sales would be more common if physical markets did not exist, all else being equal?
  • New games would have no incentive to sell at anything less than MSRP when still new-ish unless they were bombing financially. Comparatively, even "digital" physical storefronts like Amazon, Best Buy, or Walmart do have this incentive because in effect they are directly competing on price, and in some cases even within these platforms there is competition since there are 3rd-party sellers on their sites as well.
• Physical is important for the preservation of games.
  • The frequent rebuttal to this is that disc media will eventually rot anyway, and many new big-budget games receive essential feature updates in day 1 patches.
  • However, this fails to recognise that even if the original discs rot and games receive patches, most physical releases of games, even if they contain bugs, are a fully complete-able 1.0 version. This can then be archived via the disc media (which is not easily achievable via digital downloads) for posterity, impervious to later delisting. This is especially relevant in modern times when games, even big-budget first-party games, can be delisted within one generation (See: Driveclub, Forza Horizon 3, etc.), not to mention more impermanent media such as P.T. (imagine if that had come out on a demo disk or equivalent, for example).
• Physical allows for at least marginal circumvention of internet limitations to play.
  • This is not often addressed so I wouldn't say there's a frequent rebuttal to this, but essentially this is the point that physical media allows users to, for the most part, avoid destroying their data caps just to play games and/or re-install games, should they choose to do so. This is especially key in parts of the world where internet infrastructure is not good in terms of speed (too many places to count), and parts of the world where internet infrastructure is not consumer-friendly with regard to data caps (most prolifically the United States).

In essence, most of the points I tend to see/hear from all-digital proponents online amount to "here is why these benefits don't matter to me specifically" or "here is why I specifically value the convenience on not swapping discs over these positive points" without really addressing a hypothetical all-digital market's impact on the preservation of the medium.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

I'll never go full digital. Digital is only for the stuff I can't get physically. I can't resell digital games to collectors, or lend them to friends of mine. So physical all the way for books, movies and games.

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

I hate digital media and I can get way better deals on launch day physical so yeah I won't be changing anytime soon when I pay half the price of a day one release in most game launches

For those wondering, yes I buy digital some stuff, but mostly indies and stuff I can't find anywhere else with the same price, for example something like 70%off digitally

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This. Digital people obsession with trying to get others to do it is crazy.

 

[DarthBuzzard]

All Digital is fine for me, except for Nintendo games.

They hardly ever really go down in price, so it's important that I get them physical and can trade them in.

 

[AfropunkNyc]

Gave up on physical media 12 years ago, when i abandon console gaming for PC gaming. Physical media is a scourge. Nah! Its just clutter.

 

[werezompire]

I prefer digital for a number of reasons.

When I lived in the US, the closest game store was about 25 minutes away so running to get a new release wasted a lot of time & gas.
I live overseas now so digital is WAY easier than importing.
Buying games in stores is unpleasant. Gamestop, you get pestered by the employees trying to meet their sales quotas. In stores like Walmart & Target, you have to track down an employee to free the game from its display case. Digital lets me buy stuff without talking to anyone.
With digital, you're guaranteed to get the game when it comes out if you buy it. I've had numerous instances where I'm excited for a game but none of the local stores get it at launch and you have to wait until it comes. Or when I've tried to avoid that problem by ordering online and the shipment gets delayed.
I like portable gaming & it's much nicer to just have a bunch of games installed on your system rather than to have to carry carts with you.
I switch games frequently.
I've had far more physical games fail on me than I've had digital purchases lost.
Disc drives are noisy & one of the most likely part of a console to break.
Digital sales are frequent, steeply discounted, and convenient. Just stick games on your wishlist and check occasionally. No need to worry about stock.
Selling games when I'm done with them is more work than I can justify or you take it to GameStop and get a fraction of the money. Plus, there have been a few instances where I sold a game and regretted it later.

And of course, the biggest reason why I like digital - it made indie games widely viable as a way of making games, for me and others. :)

I prefer digital, but if you want to do physical, go for it. We try to make all our games have a physical release because some people prefer that and it's a good additional revenue stream.

 

[Zonic]

For full price games, I will always get physical, especially when I know it'll be a game I won't hang on to after beating it & will either give/sell to my friend or trade it in to help pay for my next game. Doesn't help that I used to have like 5mbps internet so downloading PS360 titles, let alone PS4, could take hours if not a day due to how big the sizes are. Not to mention my friend didn't have internet for years, so physical was his only means unless he came over to my place to get his updates on his PS4 & Switch done or used his mobile data.

For smaller/cheaper titles or re-releases of older games, I don't mind digital. I actually like the mix of the two. I feel much safer risking $60 on a physical game I can refund or just sell compared to digital & my money's pretty much gone (aside from Steam, which I don't use). But for $10-$20, I don't mind as much, especially when digital-only releases seem to be discounted more frequently & deeper than titles that also have a physical version. And it's not as though I absolutely need physical Limited Run Games copies that run $30 or more when the digital version goes on sale for half the price or less. Hell, on the off chance the digital version is cheaper than disc, I'll probably go with digital if the deal is good enough.

I'm perfectly happy with the mix of physical & digital going on at the moment, aside from when digital versions getting delisted & then there's no (legal) means of obtaining it, like what happened with Scott Pilgrim for the longest time.

 

[Deleted member 27938]

I'd love to go all digital. PS4 remote play sucks when I still need to go to the living room to change the disc. That said, if the physical version is on sale and is the best deal, that's the bottom line.

 

[Edge]

I don't even need to watch the video to know his points are either pointless or stupid.

No matter what he says you can't deny or nullify the facts that you can get them for fuck cheap everywhere, extremely fast and if not new then used and the fact that you can sell them or trade them or borrow them whenever you want. No matter which bullshit reasons or arguments you come up with, this will always be a thing and an extremely positive aspect of physical media, you can't talk this away.

And I will never, ever understand the logic of people who have no interest in collecting games to go digital. Never. It's the dumbest thing ever.

If you have no interest in collecting you can buy new games, play through them in the first week, you get easily 50 bucks for them. After 2 weeks mostly still 40 and after 4 weeks still around 30, you can legit financing this whole hobby with quickly selling them again. And people who have no interest in collecting and then buying digital automatically become collector, have all their games rotting away in their library, not being able to sell them. This irony, it's so stupid, it just makes no sense to me.

 

[Redcrayon]

I switch games frequently.

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I think this is always a point I forget- while I might switch between several digital indies in a row, when I'm popping a cart in it's usually for 60+ hours these days, although to be fair I've been just as likely to moan about bloat in RPGs too :D

 

[riotous]

My physical purchases recently.

- Demon's Souls, bought for £60, traded in for £54.
- Miles Morales, bought for £45, sold for £40.
- Cyberpunk PS4 Steelbook, bought for £50, sold for £60.
- Assassin's Creed Valhalla Xbox, bought for £45, sold for £45.

With game prices the way they are, and the volume of games I'm buying of late, there's no way I'm going digital only.

If I'd gone digital only, yes I'd still have my games, but I'd be £215 out right now, instead because I bought physical I'm out just £1 having resold or traded everything I bought.

That's pretty much half the cost of my Series X and PS5 saved in just one month. And if I ever want to replay those games I can just rebuy them for much cheaper later down the line.

Honestly, with resale out of the question to me digital purchases are so much worse value proposition, with the exception of the games I'd be consistently replaying or playing over a longer period of time.

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Definitely the way to do it if you are looking for the biggest savings.

I will say though that in a household with 2 gamers, digital copies do save us from having to buy 2 to be able to play at the same time at least.

But I mainly do it just because it's convenient.

 

[Splader]

Yep, all digital since 2013. I can collect and hoard all I want and it doesn't take up any space!

 

[BlueManifest]

The only benefit digital has over physical is convenience, physical wins in practically everything else

 

[Deleted member 84058]

I still rent a lot of games so I won't be going full digital any time soon. The moment I'm forced to is when I'll be cutting down on how much I play.

 

[Deleted member 896]

This is an argument that has baffled me since it started in that I don't know why it always seems so contentious. Depending on how you manage your library, I think both offer very clear pluses and minuses that it all just boils down to personal preference. Like videos or threads or opinion pieces pop up all the time about "why I'll never give up physical" or "why I made the switch to digital and will never go back" and there's just no "there" there. "I like physical because of these reasons: (insert reasons here)." Yep. Makes sense. Rock on. "I started going all digital for these other reasons." Totally. I hear where you're coming from.

The only point that I think is worth contending to me is that a move to diminishing options for physical does present some preservation challenges. But even there service multiplayer stuff renders the distinction mostly moot anyway for games that don't ship with a competent and complete version 1.0.

 

[Dphex]

My physical purchases recently.

- Demon's Souls, bought for £60, traded in for £54.
- Miles Morales, bought for £45, sold for £40.
- Cyberpunk PS4 Steelbook, bought for £50, sold for £60.
- Assassin's Creed Valhalla Xbox, bought for £45, sold for £45.

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Same here. Sold Demon´s Souls after playing through for 59€, paid 72,99€.
sold Miles Morales for 38€, paid 52€. bought CP 2077, had steelbook for free and sold it day one for 80€, paid 62€. essentially, the games cost as much as a movie in a cinema when reselling.

i don´t see the reason going digital at all when physical has such a resale value.

 

[psynergyadept]

This need to be either or is ridiculous and you cutting yourself out on some good deals.

 

[Zonic]

Yep, all digital since 2013. I can collect and hoard all I want and it doesn't take up any space!

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what're ya talking about

it takes up space on your hdd/ssd

*rimshot*

 

[seroun]

Personally with the times I've moved I can't bear buying physical stuff anymore, and I don't actually have the space for it. I don't buy many games either (5 a year, at most) and I don't like reselling stuff, so.. digital it is.

 

[Darknight]

The idea that great digital sales don't exist (at least in NA) is complete nonsense.

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But nobody says this. What they say is physical games go on sale quicker and often for less than what the digital sale has them for. We need not look any further than the current holiday says going on where a ton of physical games have been cheaper than what the digital sales are. The most recent example is Immortals Fenyx Rising which is $30 for a physical version and just above $40 for the digital one. Physical is cheaper than digital on average but that doesn't mean digital doesn't get any discounts.

Physical discs are not that much cheaper.

After a certain point you need to buy something to store all that media. I got rid of my CDs, DVDs and video games over a decade ago. Almost all my physical books are in storage. It's a huge weight off my back as I've moved three times since then.

I know people say they sell them ASAP upon completion but only a small percentage of us actually do that.

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With that argument, you might as well factor in the need for another $200+ for an SSD expansion when going digital because you'll need to buy expanded storage to store all those digital games.

Nintendo's digital sales absolutely sucks. First party games never drop in price

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This isn't true. Nintendo has sales on their first party games all the time both physical and digital. Several Nintendo first party games ranged from $30 to $40 just this holiday season.

 

[Zem]

The "Never Digital only" people starting to remind me of vegans that need to tell me they're vegan even though nobody ever asked.

 

[Deleted member 896]

With that argument, you might as well factor in the need for another $200+ for an SSD expansion when going digital because you'll need to buy expanded storage to store all those digital games.

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This is moot nowadays with install requirements for most physical games. I don't have a next gen system yet but I assume it's pretty much all at this point to take advantage of SSD tech, right?

 

[Deleted member 49438]

Physical for the big games that I actually care about owning long term. Digital for smaller stuff, re-releases, indies, and stuff that I want to try but I am not heavily invested in. If it's a game I care about I like having the box. Thankfully on console there aren't that many games I care about in that manner.

 

[OGM_Madness]

I'll never forget having problems with scratch discs back on the PS2/PS3 era. Also, having people come over and borrowing a game forever. The moment I could jump to digital media, I did.

Its also worth mentioning that Digital includes 2 licenses: one for your account and one for your console. My SO likes to play multiplayer games with me, so I buy them digital and download on both consoles and play together. So even if Digital costs $10 bucks more on certain games, I'd need to buy physical games twice to play them with my spouse.

I don't think I can ever go back to physical media. The pros outweigh the cons for me. Also, where I live, GameStop closed down many years ago, so I don't know where else you guys want to go selling your physical games. And used games on eBay are sometimes more expensive than new on Amazon. I do lots of trading on forums online and buy digital games when I can or find cheap cards and buy games on sale.

 

[Darknight]

This is moot nowadays with install requirements for most physical games. I don't have a next gen system yet but I assume it's pretty much all at this point to take advantage of SSD tech, right?

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They do, but it seems silly to factor in some additional storage cost by buying physical games to somehow negate the price advantage of physical games.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

hell no, I can't trade in my digital games after all

Digital only people starting to remind me of vegans that need to tell me they're vegan even though nobody ever asked.

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omg yeah XD

 

[werezompire]

I think this is always a point I forget- while I might switch between several digital indies in a row, when I'm popping a cart in it's usually for 60+ hours these days, although to be fair I've been just as likely to moan about bloat in RPGs too :D

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This month, I've played the following games at least an hour each:

Sekiro (my main game, loving this)
Civilization VI (got the last main expansion pack in the Steam sale & having fun with the additions)
Path of Exile (my GaaS game, haven't played as much lately since the new league is off)
Hades (Just got this and it's brilliant)
Dicey Dungeon (See Hades)
Lost Odyssey (replaying it since I never finished it, almost done with the 3rd disc now)
Smash Bros. (the kids like it & sometimes ask me to play with them)
TMS#FE (slowly doing NG+ on the unlocked hardest difficulty)
The Lost Child (grabbed it on a whim and seems fun as a janky cross between a D&D dungeon crawler & SMT)
SaGa Collection (loved these as a kid, started replaying them)

This is more than normal since birthday/Christmas money + free time because of the holidays, but still I jump around a bunch. Also, I have a bunch of kids & they like to play games too and the games they like generally aren't the games I like so there'd be a ton of disc swapping if we didn't go 99% digital. And each disc swap is a chance to damage the disc.

The whole hurry and finish the game quickly to resell the physical copy for most of what you paid strategy doesn't work for me since I jump around so much and would just be incredibly stressful. Persona 5 Royal & FF7R both took me about half a year to complete (you can probably guess which one I liked more from the rate I completed it).

 

[henhowc]

Will continue to buy aaa games physical so that I can sell them when I'm finished.

 

[Seneset]

I will never go all digital, because Sony STILL doesn't have a valid refund or trade-in system for digital games.

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This along with the fact you can get your account banned and lose access to everything.