this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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Games

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Physical or Digital? (self.games)
submitted 3 months ago by Tekkip20 to c/games
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Title says it all lads.

Do you prefer your games bought digitally on a storefront I.e. Steam, PSN etc OR on a disc in your shelf?

Personally on PC I always get games from GOG and Steam because obviously most titles are digital and it is convenient for me. (Despite owning TF2 on disc since 2007! Yep!)

When it's consoles though, I always wanna get it on disc and I am glad I go the extra mile for it especially when new games like SF6 are on preowned sales. Look at the PSN fiasco with shows, this is why I prefer physical media on consoles because you can keep it.

PC = Convenience, laziness and most are digital only anyway

Console = Don't want scummy corpos taking stuff I bought away from me, disc it is.

Your thoughts lads?

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[–] bigmclargehuge 3 points 3 months ago

Here's my perspective as a PC player. Even back in the early 2000s, discs were mostly just a form of DRM. When you install the game from a disc, 99% of the time, the installer copies the contents of the disk to your hard drive, then the disk just acts as a key in order to "unlock" your installed copy. No-cd patches just make the game think the disc is inserted when it's not.

Today, the only difference is the delivery method, and it's where things can get a little hazy. Steam is where I own most of my games, and I do like Steam and Valve, and consider them pretty trustworthy in terms of large tech companies. But, even so, because the only way I'm really able to get games from Steam is through their servers, there are situations that are out of my control where a game that was once available to me, no longer is.

This is why I'm starting to prefer GOG. They have a zero DRM policy, and offer offline installers for most of their games. Meaning, if I purchase a game, I download that installer, load it onto a thumb drive, and I effectively have that game forever, no matter what happens to GOG, the developer, the publisher, etc. I have a couple of games that have been lost to time officially, that I can install as easy as the day they came out because I have that offline installer. It's as good as having any CD game.

So, bottom line is, CD, no CD, I really don't care. Give me the installer, and guarantee I don't be locked out of my game because of something I can't control, and I'm happy.