You still need the digital patches and dlc for modern games and for online game the servers. So fake yourself as much as you want but I accepted I can lose my games but never have to store physical games in my house or change a disk. Just like buying a movie or concert ticket
I had my entire video game collection stolen from me years ago. So after that, I just stopped caring. I got into system emulation, but had all my computers, hard drives, hard drive mounts/enclosures, networking equipment stolen from me. After that, I stopped caring about system emulation even. Not worth your time as an adult trying to recover his life after having it stolen from him.😢
I’m in my 40’s, I personally think this “so called” digital era is crap. Whenever I buy something I wanna own it. Same goes for music gear. They pull the same crap. We need to keep physical media alive and well. If I wanted to pay for the experience, I’d get a hooker!
An update to a digital game I bought a few years ago basically replaced the original with the mobile game, how is this acceptable?! Manipulation of Digital media blows and what good is game preservation if it was only ever digital and you can’t access to play?!
Kids today grew up in a digital world and will never experience what it was like, buying physical media. How ever, my 4 year old daughter loves physical media because I've got all of my stuff. She loves cassette tapes! 😊
Do you mean to say “babies today”? Because kids today are still able to buy new/used physical media. A good amount of new releases are still on physical media. Specially if you want special, limited, and collectors editions with extras. Plus, not everyone(kids) can afford to keep adding digital media storage space as more games come out
I’m a fan of playing roms through jailbreaking means and console ODEs. I only collect for PS4/PS5, and 4k blu-rays of games/movies I actually really like. So my collection is very specific now.
Opening a game case, looking through the manual, popping the disc/cart in is all part of the gaming experience to me. The music industry is seeing a bounce back with vinyl and gaming will likely follow the same path.
I must own physical media! I'm an 80s kid and I love retro games cassette tapes and CDs! How ever due to space my VHS collection had to come to an end.
Fantastic video and I feel exactly the same way where I do enjoy digital, but I will always support physical media being a collector just like you. Absolutely absolutely loved this. Keep pumping out the long videos dude I think they’re fantastic.
Near the end I thought of "The medium is the message" a phrase coined by media theorist Marshall McLuhan and how I had never quite fully applied that to the idea of video games
I prefer physical copies of my games it can be a problem if you like to display your games,... or if you get a large arcade cabinets. If you have the proper storage knowledge you can store a large gaming collection within a small footprint.
When you purchase any game, physical or digital, its a license. The difference is when you purchase digital, your rights as a consumer are compromised, and its all in plain sight within each platform's EULA. They can take that license away from you, for any reason, at any time. They can never take the physical disc/cartridge away. Purchasing digital licenses are compromising your rights for convenience. Subscription services are also a whole other ballgame.
Thanks for discussing this. It's been on my mind with Switch 2 coming up. What soured me on digital was buying a 2nd switch for my wife and realizing I couldn't easily share games I had already bought.
Man, I am about your age and I remember how exited I was to "buy" a game on Onlive. It was LA Noire. I no longer "own" that game I paid for, nor can I play what I purchased. This is the corporate future of gaming. Once they figure out a subscription model, we are all in trouble.
This is just my opinion I think that if you treat digital media as an experience it should be known ahead of time. When you buy physical you can play the games as long as they last and are in your physical possession. With media like games you are paying 70 dollars with the idea and you can go back and play them again and again. If I experience a movie it’s 20ish dollars for a ticket for a one time show. You need to know what you are buying ahead of time. They are selling it as a reusuable item and that is factored into the price. Thanks for the thoughtful video! Great content
It’s absolutely you telling yourself something to feel better. Because the great thing about the experience of physical media is that it happens pretty much whenever you want as many times as you want. And trying to compare digital as similar experiences is cope. Especially when you account for near identical costs in most cases (at least at release).
As my kids are getting old enough to enjoy games and are playing Minecraft and Roblox, I am concerned about the digital side and am introducing them to “retro games” and they are shocked they don’t need to buy upgrades or pay to unlock features.
Physical media 100% if your game dies like my Nintendo did years ago I kept all the games now I’m back into it if all that stuff was saved on a hard drive and I threw it away. It all be gone.
I love the analogy about digital media being like an experience at a theme park, however, for me I would say that's only relevant to online only games. I'm a massive Dead by Daylight fan and I own that game both digitally and have the disc, but whenever those servers finally shut down and I can no longer play the game, I'll look back at the game with fond memories like I would a theme park. And with no way to go back and replay the game even with the disc, I'd accept that.
20:56 Nah, that's more analogous to the subscription model. There I'm paying for a service, like going to an amusement park, I can try out all the different rides. Then when my time is up I can't try out all the rides anymore. But I still have that experience to take with me. When I buy a game though, I'm purchasing a product that I keep, not a service, not a rental.
Like you I end up riding the fence on this topic. I love my physical collection; but I play a lot of digital games too. I think I keep nostalgic items around as small tokens to bring back memories tied to the games. A lot of the games remind me of old friends, family and a variety of life experiences that somehow got tied to the physical games. My collection helps me share experiences and beliefs with my kids. For me, the experiences are most important. Physical games and collectables serve as guide posts that outline my experience in gaming and life.
The fact that digital only relies soly on the fact that you HAVE TO HAVE internet access to download and play your digitally downloaded games, and in most cases, an active subscription, is a huge turn-off for me. Most physical games, excluding most modern games from the past 5 years or so, do not require an internet connection to play your physical copies. You can just plug in and play. You can also trade and re-sell physical media, something you can not do with digital downloads, unless you sell your whole system with them. Physical media is also collectible, unlike digital only media. Not to mention the growing need for hard drive space to contain all your digital games. The fact that digital only is what companies are pushing for in the future is what is getting me back into retro gaming and physical media in general.
I understand media changes overtime and that digital is the future. However, what I dislike is physical games that ship with huge day one patches, games that require a download as large as the disc itself to play, and games that constantly release DLC only to later release a definitive version with all the DLC included. I also hate games that think they need their own launch hub larger than the games it’s intended to launch.(Call of Duty anyone?)
Reality, even if you buy physical media, you often do not own your games, because: - The box only has a digital code to download the game. - There's a disc, but it only has a few files, the actual game must be downloaded and the disc is only a key. - Sometimes, only parts of the game are available on disc, you can play without internet, but not the full game. - You can play the game without internet with just a disc, but not the good version of the game, because at launch, the game is full of problems and you need to download a patch later or there's a patch since day 1. - Sometimes, the patch is so big that you are almost downloading the whole game. - You still need to connect to the internet to buy and download DLC. - To play online, you need to download the most recent version. - Many games are online-only, require a constant connection to the internet, even on single-player, and to make things worse, the servers often close, making your physical copy a paperweight.
Everything you mention here is just a sign of the times. Game studios these days release games before they're ready, that's why they need all the patches to fix it. Old PC games required a few patches at most, with most big changes coming in the form of expansions. It used to be the case the game would entirely be on the disc
What you are describing is not physical media. If you have to download anything to play the game, it is not solely physical media anymore. You are just paying for digital access still. We don't have to deal with this as a consumer if we don't want to. We can stop buying games that are made that way until they give us a fully fleshed out copy.
I am 52 and have collected games since the Atari 2600, I also have a huge comic book collection. My brother is 10 years younger than me and I remember him laughing at me when He got all of the X-Men comics on a single CD instead on my big 50 pound box that I have been moving around for years. or when he downloaded a bunch of emulators and Roms same with music he would buy a CD then sell it off or gift it once he made ir digital As My wife put it I need a whole room just for my games and collections, while someone like my bro just needs a CD case and some hard drives. The cost of moving and trying to protect decades of stuff is staggering and for the most part it just sits around. So I feel it depends on what you grew up with and how much of your life is tied to it. And I have a modern digital game I have played for years that I have spent more money on than my whole collection that could not be there tomorrow, I spent $50.00 or more a month like a cable bill on this one game that I don't own, But I feel like I got my moneys worth. I So if you are a collector you have to go physical otherwise save a bunch of space and time. Mind you both paths have a different experience and pros and cons.
Literally happened to me with Spider-Man on PS5. They pulled it from the store and even though I downloaded it, it doesn’t work anymore. That was my lesson to only buy physical now.
You have to go one step further and make sure the game doesn’t require an active online account or online DRM to play, like some Activision and EA games. As a physical media collector I make sure online play is optional or I don’t buy it.
The physical vs digital media relation makes me think of the own vs renting situation or how the dilemma of subscription based gaming like ps plus/xbox live etc., can feel like taxes on a possession or property. You may think you own but don't continue to pay the taxes(subscription) and you'll see. Conventional physical media gaming is by far the best yet having a convenient digital gaming experience is a neat luxury and also helps to keep your physical collection in the best possible condition as well. Digitally I prefer mods to the subscription route but ofcourse subs have their own nice benefits. We as a whole should be mindful to try and keep companies responsible as much as we can so there's no monopolies and fee increases so much to where most gamers cant afford to play anymore. It's already gotten "pay to play" enough as it is with higher fees and less value for our buck so we shoulda been had a tea party. Speaking of pay to play, I like when a great game is extended with a dlc or add on as long as the real game story ending has been completed but it could be a slippery slope like being forces to buy pieces of a game in order to get the intended canon ending. Chopping a game in parts getting to a section and instead of downloading the next portion or (put the next cd in) there's a pay wall for the remainder of the game you thought you already purchased. If people put up with this then it could become the norm God forbid. Those type of practices should be nipped in the bud right away so they dont become an issue like other things that have slipped though the cracks. Thankfully there's still many respectable developers that aren't all about money. Honorable people with integrity that want to help the industry enriching the gaming experience for everyone with games made for true gamers by true gamers which are the best to support in turn helping set the bar making other developers emulate them and so on and so forth the cycle continues. Wife-"What are you writing a book?" Me- It would seem so, I never was good at the conclusion of an essay in school.😂
Interesting video. I am both a physical and digital media gamer/collector. But, about your last point when looking at games as an "experience" rather than "ownership", physical media is hands-down the better experience. When I play retro games I am looking to recreate an experience, I felt when I was younger that emulation or a digital version cannot fully recreate. I would like to give you an example, Medieval on the PS1 can be played now both digitally and physically. But, nothing beats the experience of playing it on the original hardware, you will notice the little things like how they made Sir. Daniels's footsteps match with each vibration of the PS1 controller. And how vibrant the colors are when plugged into a CRT TV. However, If I play this on PC or emulation I won't be getting the vibrations of the controller or the vibrance of the colors because the game was created for that specific hardware. Now, when it comes to modern games, generally the experience of playing the game will be the same no matter what console, But, if we are still talking about "experience" then being able to look at the box art and game manual (if any), being able to unwrap/open the game and sliding the disc inside your system is still an "experience" That is authentic to physical media, that is lost when it comes to "digital". Also, when it comes to PC games, usually when installing the game from disc companies used to play thematic music and give you game tips in their launchers while installing the game, this experience is lost with digital media as now all you do is see a download bar for the games progress. No music playing or notes with game lore to get you excited to play the game. Furthermore, Aside from games, when it comes to movie collecting as well, the physical media is still the better "experience" Those movies came with extras like bloopers, TV games, commercials, and more that will be missed when streaming the movie digitally. That does not even include the fact that the picture and sound quality are better when playing from a disc rather than streaming it online. It is also weird to compare the experience of playing games to theme parks, because they are completely opposite experiences. A video game is an indoor activity, and to spend $70 dollars per video game just to be able to play the game once and not own the game is absurd. Theme parks are outdoor activities and is something people don't do every single day, so yes it would make more sense to pay up fo r extras like ticket passes, because riding rollercoasters is something you wont really be able to do at home.
For me, the line ISN'T blurry at all. Not even almost. You buy digital, you're renting an experience. No one has given you anything. So, paying the same price for that as you would for true ownership is absolutely absurd. I'm not even an old school gamer or collector at all. I just got into video games a couple years ago. I think it's bonkers for anyone to think it's ok.
The suggestion/argument about digital game purchases being more like a time- or use-limited movie ticket than an enduring physical product is an interesting perspective, though it doesn't really quell concerns about those limits. At least with a movie or amusement park the limits are explicit and obvious at the time of purchase. With games, there is no way to know when a digital store will close, it's license for a given content expire/not renew, etc. It could be tomorrow for anyone knows 🤷🏻♂️ Perhaps these digital products should have to include up front the minimum or maximum validity and availablity so consumers aren't left feeling like gamblers.
Non-ironiclly, if Epic will not recover your son's account at all, you should call you bank, and do a charge back on every single purchase because they lied to you about what you were buying and are not offering any help. Maybe even everything for all 3 or 4 accounts. Companies try to screw over consumers when they have access to the back end and can correct the issue. Sometimes you need a manager, or a few managers, but they can fix it in these rare, one time situations. If they do not, they lied to you, and can do the work to prove they did not lie when they did.
For me, I have both physical and digital games, but with digital, I love DRM-free digital games on PC. In recent years, I buy games from GOG, all the games I've bought, I've backed them up to disc and some USB sticks, so I have them forever thanks to the lack of DRM. I know we pay for the experience, if I go to my local arcade, it's experience for me. The difference is for me is when I buy a game for home, I want to play it forever. I still play classic games in addition to modern ones. Yes, I do have physical and digital games on Switch, I tend to prefer physical more for Switch.
No the way they treat digital media is completely wrong… if it’s stated as a purchase they should never have the rights to pull them from the store (even if licenses to the rights expire) they should always be left up to redownload incase of hard drive fail or a replacement console. I would completely have no issues with digital if they were housed on a cloud correctly. Almost like a digital game room. I wouldn’t even mind paying a yearly fee for it.
I remember digital so-called ownership was going to be cheaper to buy the game versus a physical copy the way it was pitched back then. Yet that never really happened you'd still pay the same price for the physical versus the digital just at their profit margin was much higher on the digital copy versus the physical. However with newer technology coming out just around the corner allowing you to store up to 100 terabytes of data onto a single laser disk could potentially bring back physical ownership to video games, movies, and more. As a Gen xer myself who started with pong and space Invaders in the arcades have played so many computer games and console games and of acquired a very large collection throughout the years that I will still always prefer physical copies. I have been burned in the past by DRM protected music like back in the day music match and could never get all my purchases recovered plus Microsoft back in the day pulled the same stunt that Sony did with digital content for movies and music videos and such. I'd spent over $1,000 just on music videos at the time and then came back with a o ur license ran out so you don't have access to that at anymore. But I thought I owned it? But instead they gave me a 1500 Microsoft points as compensation which was ridiculous and I told him to keep it. I still buy CDs and 4K blu-rays today over any digital purchases for fear of losing access in addition to the quality for digital media still sucks in comparison to physical copies. However I do buy digital as well when it's the only option to me and a for really want it but there will always be that stigma do I really own it. It's the reason why when it comes to PC games I buy from GOG first then I consider steam and epic later depending on the title. On steam it's kind of funny how when I look at my list of games it says I own them with the word owned and they've yet to change that since steam itself said you don't own anything. Still there is something about the nostalgia I guess from having those physical copies of games on cartridge disc floppy etc. And that if my internet's down I don't need internet to play any of these games. And I guess what makes it even more nostalgic cuz I'm an original owner of about 98% of my entire collection of games still in the boxes going back to Apple 2, 2GS, commodore Amiga, commodore 64, PC DOS and Windows games still in their boxes as well. Digital purchases will always be the last choice for me either until there is no other choice or until the day I die. I get the digital has its advantages and some are legit like bug fixes, DLC content that's not on your disk, and extra content behind the scenes yada yada. Which is why in some cases I own the physical copies in addition to a GOG Witcher series with all the DLCs Plus sales on Xbox like getting the Witcher 3 digital for convenience having everything for like seven or $8. Look at the music scene how it evolved into digital from 8-track, records, cassette, reel to reel, CDs, 5.1 audio music on DVD, so many ways that it's evolved but was always on physical which still gave you the best quality offering where digital music is still rather a mixed bag of quality over quantity and is so highly debated which format is better purchase Apple, Amazon, or any other format. I personally use flac as my choice when I rip my CDs and always said it the highest quality with no compression and keep three copies some in the cloud someone on external drive and some on a local NAS. And now the original disc sits in a closet still in its case like new because it only got used once. Granted I could go on and on and why physical ownership still will always outweigh digital because too many variables still point to more positives on physical over digital because in reality can we trust these big companies holding the keys to your digital content and will they last forever is the real question.
Maybe, if the game is about to go away on the store, they have to send you a physical copy, before they do so. This means, they only have to send the amount that was ordered, Or have a store front that you can go and pick up you copy. Its a thought...
Outside console stores I havent seen this happen. Hell it doesn't work anymore because server shut off MMO, but if I want to go download Marvel Heroes on steam, yeah.. I can (The fact that Ubisoft could delete their game from console users even if the software just stops working I find FAR more concerning.)
@MegabyteRedSector M:tg original online thing, use to back cards. It was short-lived... so, it's been done in some form. Heck, cereals use to give mail in stuff, what if... you get to X point in the game... they send a real copy. Like a trophy for completion. Participation trophies are just memories youve made, or go to a friend's house and play their copy. This would give a personal experience reward... so many ways to engage your customers for the love they showed of the art... then you could as a company, know what all the players loved about your game.
Both but ever since 2014 I have gone full digital. I have all my Xbox, Switch and PlayStation games digitally since the One and PS4 era and recently I have modded my Wii U and my Xbox 360 so I ripped and converted all my games to run them off a HDD. I love that I can have them all ready to go whenever I want to play. I have an Everdrive for my complete N64 list. I have all my PS Vita and 3DS games digitally after modding them and have everything from NES to PS1 on them. The Wii U has the complete list of GC, Wii, Wii U along with thousands of games via retroarch and the all the digital Nintendo virtual console games. So I still buy discs and cartridges for older games that catch my eyes but for newer consoles I rather go the digital route.
If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn't stealing. A ¼ or ½ TB micro SD card can contain a mot of retro games, and people would buy a digital copy they owned. But since buying is renting, emulators remain a great way to experience old game libraries, even if you gotta pirate them.
Physical media will always be better to me. When Steam removed over 200 games from my account without warning, I knew it was just a licensed based deal. This was a year before they announced that you were just buying a license to play the games. I own most of the systems that Nintendo has made up to the original Wii console. I also have all the Playstation consoles up to the PS4, The sega consoles and even an original Odyssey 2 system with a couple of games. Knowing that some company can never take away what I bought is the best. I still get digital games and will be buying everything I can on GOG that I have on Steam. At least I can backup my game purchases on my massive external drive when bought on GOG.
Loved this vid! Thought-provoking with a lot of good points made. Your physical/digital media collection does spiral me into sort of a jealous rage though...but I'm working through it 🫡
Here's my two cents. When you pay money for a game, you're paying for the game. Not the experience. You don't know initially if the game's going to be good or bad so you're paying for what you believe to be good. If it turns out to be bad, you're stuck with the game but you still have it. Physical or digital, when you pay for something, you should be able to play it over and over again regardless.
Im going to look at this from a PC perspective as I was pretty much playing there since the PSX era on consoles. I was kinda sad to see physical games go away, but I understood why it happened (long story short Doom 3 and Half Life 2 happened.... the former didn't need the discs to play but the same CD key if the PC was online would stop you from playing and the latter literally was the first 1-use CD-key game... and Gamestop didnt like it when they couldnt sell used copies and immediately began reducing grounds for PC titles). THAT said, there is ONE WAY I do enjoy digital: I don't really collect to show off my games. I collect to preserver them, so digital game sites like GOG appeal to me: I buy the game, and sure I can use their launcher to install and play, BUT I can also download a stand-alone installer and stick it on a hard drive myself. Effectively I might as well have a digital shelf since these are copies are not dependant on gog sticking around. They even offer patch files I can add to that shelf later. And as long as I maintain that drive, I can preserver that library like you would that disc or that cart. (Hell this is ALSO why I fully back emulation... preserves games well after the hardware to run it breaks down beyond repair)
I think both physical and digital have, as shown in your video very good reasons to exist, so it was only natural both ways to get games to a customer emerged, but neither should be forced upon us, for example by leaving out a disc reader in modern consoles or only including game codes. Also quite thought provoking things you said in your video, so thank you so much for that 🤗
Great video! My son and I are having this debate too. I prefer physical all the way, but my son prefers digital! But I’m an adult, and he’s just a kid! Of course I AM right!🤣
I'm sick of large monolithic services like social media and gaming companies that make billions and spend it all on BS (like DEI initiatives, yoga rooms, etc.). What happened to the customer is king? Give us proper support!! Not some endless support forum hunt, or email back and forths with no resolution. You would think with billions, they can afford to provide basic support. If it's a smaller operation, then at least there's an excuse. No excuse if they're spending on silly internal initiatives rather than providing the support for where their income is coming from. That should be priority.
I disagree about digital being an experience. Digital is a cornerstone of game preservation, aka rom backups. The problem is game companies are using Software as a service (SaaS) as a way to force an experience on you. Fortnite is free and is run by epic without any way for players to backup their stuff, yet games like unreal tournament can be hosted on individual player’s servers. GoG is all digital and you own the games outright on there. If you buy something from a company and their own software fails to protect your assets, it’s their responsibility to rectify the problem. If they don’t they should be open to legal repercussions. Digital or not, owning a game or a license, your right to play should still be protected. It’s not like fortnight went away; Epic’s transfer system had a glitch that caused a player who put lots of money into their system to lose access. It’s their legal responsibility to recover your paid for content. Period. And this should go for all digital media. If the company doesn’t want to support it anymore, release the server code so the game can be hosted by players. Valve does this all the time.
Thank you, I feel like both physically and digital is the way. You should be able to copy your own physical media and back it up. Physical eventually fails and disc drives are even becoming rare these days. We should make these things usable with modern hardware and software. But for now we need the option to have both.
I like my video games apocalyptic-proof. Well, you know, after they turn the electricity back on. I just ordered the Sonic Frontiers game on Switch (physical copy), for my kid, but we're gonna have to get the DLC, for him to play as his favorite character, Tails. God damn it.
I think people who argue in favor of purely digital at least company controlled digital media don't care about gaming or movies in the same way who prefer physical media do. People arguing in favor of licenses probably don't understand that it's a bad thing that this is the standard now. Also patching shouldn't be necessary. Just let them take longer to make if the end product is worth it. As far as DLC goes release a physical standard edition and a physical definitive edition a few months later. Imagine the amount of people who would buy both buy both because they can't wait, easy money!
Honestly it was only inevitable that everything went digital..once cds or cartridges weren’t needed anymore inside of hardware what else was going to happen
Great open-minded perspective on both sides. I think the issue with Fortnight is a separate issue. I think that regardless of physical or digital, it comes down to the lack of support from Epic. I agree when it's your kid as a parent we want to fix it but at the mercy of the company. I will say IMO Steam is the best digital company as for me, they have always made it right with their support. When a game is delisted, if you purchased it beforehand, you can download it. Could this change or have a flood and lose all our games, yes. The thing with physical is that humans it allows is to make a connection. Anyways great video.
BUT if I got to a theme park I have the ability to buy a souveneir to take home with me to remember my experience. That would only count if I bought said souveneir and when I'm at the park they take it away from me because Im no longer there or cant remember which card I used to pay to get into the park.
I have always tried to purchase physical versions of games for the simple fact that they charge the same price for digital version and you don't own anything. Its cheaper for them to release digital but do not pass savings to their customer's. Corporate GREED is the way of our world :(
Digital games. Don't expect buyer to buy a console with digital games at a high mark value. Digital games are under an account which ties in with phone number, email and password. So whoever has digital games under an account, write email, phone # and password down legibly for next user if the primary user no longer there. That's where physical is top notch. We bypass all that requirements.
it was the opposite for me.. I was def not on board with digital in the beginning I used to give my little brother in the 360 days so much crap for buying into digital or mts but since then I’ve gotten to where I just don’t care anymore we can’t take any of it with us when we go whether it’s digital or physical it’s about the experience 🤷
Idk I really hate how digital can just be taken away from you. But then again, when I have digital, I have more games I buy cause they go on sale more. But having the physical copy makes me more likely to play.
I enjoy the advantages of both. My Switch is full of digital 8 and 16bit looking games that arent physical format. The big Nintendo games i do own them physically. Big box PC games i collect those and have around 100...i really like them.
Unless you have Steam or emulators that's the only way to own digital copies as buying through Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony you are garanteed to lose the games in 5 years +.... Sony has already started doing it with some games and movies. Happened a few months ago and there is a class action lawsuit going on because of it.
2:37 showing some physycal game "versions" would be a cool spin off vid! I wonder what the most egregious example is from 8/16/32/64 bit eras? Also re: physical, I get 75% of my Switch games on cart but my Xbox collection post 360 is all digital (thx seriesS). The worst is the "physical requires download." Complete BS. Nice vid.
as a multi platform gamer that plays 50/50 between PCs and Console I am certain you overthinking it due to the Fortnite account issues, and also Digital vs Physical media is a mindset situation, there are many issues you discussed with limited perspective, example you mention price of digital vs physical in reality most of the time the price is same and even worse for Digital with the exception for small batch games that are made rare by design, you also mentioned about it being "eco-friendly", as cloud engineer with data center experience, there is nothing ecological about running massive data centers 24/7/365 to allow someone to buy a game for convenience reasons. Additionally physical games currently are same with digital about only containing the "license" of the game but in many cases even after store front has close downloading latest patches is possible and with game preservation its possible to side load these patches, the future is digital not because is good for the planet, or for the consumer, is because big corporations have been selling convenience with hidden costs and most of the people care more about convenience, still in some cases digital is worth its price, as long as its on sale.
Steam and epic have both come out and told their customers that they do not sell them a game. They sell them a license to the game and that the license can be recinded at anytime. You don't have that with physical media. That game is yours forever. Digital media in it's current form is a legit scam.
No man, you got screwed. Also an 80's kid. But in your situation I'll blame Nintendo. For the same reason my son has replaced his broken his switch and lost COUNTLESS hours in the pokemon games, which we owned physical and digital. They are archaic, and I bet somewhere between Nintendo and Epic is where his account is.
Can't stand digital. Same in music, I have bought songs off iTunes and later they are gone and a little store credit is given to me because the song is gone. I don't want the credit, I want the song! I hate that sometimes there isn't a choice. I LOVE Jeanne D'Arc but not a fan of playing on the PSP. So I've got the PS5 version but it's digital only. At anytime Sony can decide you know what, we call take backies.
**Please watch this video in its entirety if you intend to comment. This is meant to be thought provoking not rage inducing. ❤
Hey tofer my cousin's kid had a similar experience, I think the resolution took about 2 months but his account was recovered
Digital SUCKS! I wanna own my games, for real !!!!! Not this subscription bullshit!!!
You still need the digital patches and dlc for modern games and for online game the servers. So fake yourself as much as you want but I accepted I can lose my games but never have to store physical games in my house or change a disk. Just like buying a movie or concert ticket
digital doesn't mean subscription necessarily. hell there are ways to LEGALLY own digital games too... maybe not so much on consoles, but...
I retro game and I need my flashcarts for Hacks, Patches and Translations
@ ...I had forgotten about flash carts to be honest. more then fair
@@Bambeakzthis is the wrong way to think about purchases
I had my entire video game collection stolen from me years ago. So after that, I just stopped caring. I got into system emulation, but had all my computers, hard drives, hard drive mounts/enclosures, networking equipment stolen from me. After that, I stopped caring about system emulation even. Not worth your time as an adult trying to recover his life after having it stolen from him.😢
I’m in my 40’s, I personally think this “so called” digital era is crap. Whenever I buy something I wanna own it. Same goes for music gear. They pull the same crap. We need to keep physical media alive and well. If I wanted to pay for the experience, I’d get a hooker!
I agree with you. I grew up with it and cherish it. But I think we pay for far more experiences than we realize.
@ true, same goes for a concert. Even though are very costly these days too.
An update to a digital game I bought a few years ago basically replaced the original with the mobile game, how is this acceptable?! Manipulation of Digital media blows and what good is game preservation if it was only ever digital and you can’t access to play?!
Kids today grew up in a digital world and will never experience what it was like, buying physical media. How ever, my 4 year old daughter loves physical media because I've got all of my stuff. She loves cassette tapes! 😊
Do you mean to say “babies today”? Because kids today are still able to buy new/used physical media. A good amount of new releases are still on physical media. Specially if you want special, limited, and collectors editions with extras. Plus, not everyone(kids) can afford to keep adding digital media storage space as more games come out
Physical and your experience is one reason why.
I’m a fan of playing roms through jailbreaking means and console ODEs. I only collect for PS4/PS5, and 4k blu-rays of games/movies I actually really like. So my collection is very specific now.
Opening a game case, looking through the manual, popping the disc/cart in is all part of the gaming experience to me. The music industry is seeing a bounce back with vinyl and gaming will likely follow the same path.
I must own physical media! I'm an 80s kid and I love retro games cassette tapes and CDs! How ever due to space my VHS collection had to come to an end.
Fantastic video and I feel exactly the same way where I do enjoy digital, but I will always support physical media being a collector just like you. Absolutely absolutely loved this. Keep pumping out the long videos dude I think they’re fantastic.
Near the end I thought of "The medium is the message" a phrase coined by media theorist Marshall McLuhan and how I had never quite fully applied that to the idea of video games
PHYSICAL until the day I die.
I prefer physical copies of my games it can be a problem if you like to display your games,... or if you get a large arcade cabinets. If you have the proper storage knowledge you can store a large gaming collection within a small footprint.
When you purchase any game, physical or digital, its a license. The difference is when you purchase digital, your rights as a consumer are compromised, and its all in plain sight within each platform's EULA. They can take that license away from you, for any reason, at any time. They can never take the physical disc/cartridge away. Purchasing digital licenses are compromising your rights for convenience. Subscription services are also a whole other ballgame.
Thanks for discussing this. It's been on my mind with Switch 2 coming up.
What soured me on digital was buying a 2nd switch for my wife and realizing I couldn't easily share games I had already bought.
Man, I am about your age and I remember how exited I was to "buy" a game on Onlive. It was LA Noire. I no longer "own" that game I paid for, nor can I play what I purchased. This is the corporate future of gaming. Once they figure out a subscription model, we are all in trouble.
This is just my opinion I think that if you treat digital media as an experience it should be known ahead of time. When you buy physical you can play the games as long as they last and are in your physical possession. With media like games you are paying 70 dollars with the idea and you can go back and play them again and again. If I experience a movie it’s 20ish dollars for a ticket for a one time show. You need to know what you are buying ahead of time. They are selling it as a reusuable item and that is factored into the price.
Thanks for the thoughtful video! Great content
i like digital but if the company does take the game away from me, im just gunna pirate it back.
Congrats on the 100k play button bro. I see less than 100 away as of now.
It’s absolutely you telling yourself something to feel better. Because the great thing about the experience of physical media is that it happens pretty much whenever you want as many times as you want. And trying to compare digital as similar experiences is cope. Especially when you account for near identical costs in most cases (at least at release).
As my kids are getting old enough to enjoy games and are playing Minecraft and Roblox, I am concerned about the digital side and am introducing them to “retro games” and they are shocked they don’t need to buy upgrades or pay to unlock features.
Physical media 100% if your game dies like my Nintendo did years ago I kept all the games now I’m back into it if all that stuff was saved on a hard drive and I threw it away. It all be gone.
I love the analogy about digital media being like an experience at a theme park, however, for me I would say that's only relevant to online only games. I'm a massive Dead by Daylight fan and I own that game both digitally and have the disc, but whenever those servers finally shut down and I can no longer play the game, I'll look back at the game with fond memories like I would a theme park. And with no way to go back and replay the game even with the disc, I'd accept that.
20:56 Nah, that's more analogous to the subscription model. There I'm paying for a service, like going to an amusement park, I can try out all the different rides. Then when my time is up I can't try out all the rides anymore. But I still have that experience to take with me. When I buy a game though, I'm purchasing a product that I keep, not a service, not a rental.
Like you I end up riding the fence on this topic. I love my physical collection; but I play a lot of digital games too. I think I keep nostalgic items around as small tokens to bring back memories tied to the games. A lot of the games remind me of old friends, family and a variety of life experiences that somehow got tied to the physical games.
My collection helps me share experiences and beliefs with my kids. For me, the experiences are most important. Physical games and collectables serve as guide posts that outline my experience in gaming and life.
The fact that digital only relies soly on the fact that you HAVE TO HAVE internet access to download and play your digitally downloaded games, and in most cases, an active subscription, is a huge turn-off for me. Most physical games, excluding most modern games from the past 5 years or so, do not require an internet connection to play your physical copies. You can just plug in and play. You can also trade and re-sell physical media, something you can not do with digital downloads, unless you sell your whole system with them. Physical media is also collectible, unlike digital only media. Not to mention the growing need for hard drive space to contain all your digital games. The fact that digital only is what companies are pushing for in the future is what is getting me back into retro gaming and physical media in general.
Your game room looks like a cute little store. I love it. I had those walls in my basement as a kid. I miss them. It looks cozy.
I understand media changes overtime and that digital is the future. However, what I dislike is physical games that ship with huge day one patches, games that require a download as large as the disc itself to play, and games that constantly release DLC only to later release a definitive version with all the DLC included. I also hate games that think they need their own launch hub larger than the games it’s intended to launch.(Call of Duty anyone?)
Reality, even if you buy physical media, you often do not own your games, because:
- The box only has a digital code to download the game.
- There's a disc, but it only has a few files, the actual game must be downloaded and the disc is only a key.
- Sometimes, only parts of the game are available on disc, you can play without internet, but not the full game.
- You can play the game without internet with just a disc, but not the good version of the game, because at launch, the game is full of problems and you need to download a patch later or there's a patch since day 1.
- Sometimes, the patch is so big that you are almost downloading the whole game.
- You still need to connect to the internet to buy and download DLC.
- To play online, you need to download the most recent version.
- Many games are online-only, require a constant connection to the internet, even on single-player, and to make things worse, the servers often close, making your physical copy a paperweight.
Everything you mention here is just a sign of the times. Game studios these days release games before they're ready, that's why they need all the patches to fix it. Old PC games required a few patches at most, with most big changes coming in the form of expansions. It used to be the case the game would entirely be on the disc
What you are describing is not physical media. If you have to download anything to play the game, it is not solely physical media anymore. You are just paying for digital access still. We don't have to deal with this as a consumer if we don't want to. We can stop buying games that are made that way until they give us a fully fleshed out copy.
I am 52 and have collected games since the Atari 2600, I also have a huge comic book collection. My brother is 10 years younger than me and I remember him laughing at me when He got all of the X-Men comics on a single CD instead on my big 50 pound box that I have been moving around for years. or when he downloaded a bunch of emulators and Roms same with music he would buy a CD then sell it off or gift it once he made ir digital As My wife put it I need a whole room just for my games and collections, while someone like my bro just needs a CD case and some hard drives. The cost of moving and trying to protect decades of stuff is staggering and for the most part it just sits around. So I feel it depends on what you grew up with and how much of your life is tied to it. And I have a modern digital game I have played for years that I have spent more money on than my whole collection that could not be there tomorrow, I spent $50.00 or more a month like a cable bill on this one game that I don't own, But I feel like I got my moneys worth. I So if you are a collector you have to go physical otherwise save a bunch of space and time. Mind you both paths have a different experience and pros and cons.
Literally happened to me with Spider-Man on PS5. They pulled it from the store and even though I downloaded it, it doesn’t work anymore.
That was my lesson to only buy physical now.
You have to go one step further and make sure the game doesn’t require an active online account or online DRM to play, like some Activision and EA games. As a physical media collector I make sure online play is optional or I don’t buy it.
The physical vs digital media relation makes me think of the own vs renting situation or how the dilemma of subscription based gaming like ps plus/xbox live etc., can feel like taxes on a possession or property. You may think you own but don't continue to pay the taxes(subscription) and you'll see. Conventional physical media gaming is by far the best yet having a convenient digital gaming experience is a neat luxury and also helps to keep your physical collection in the best possible condition as well. Digitally I prefer mods to the subscription route but ofcourse subs have their own nice benefits. We as a whole should be mindful to try and keep companies responsible as much as we can so there's no monopolies and fee increases so much to where most gamers cant afford to play anymore. It's already gotten "pay to play" enough as it is with higher fees and less value for our buck so we shoulda been had a tea party.
Speaking of pay to play, I like when a great game is extended with a dlc or add on as long as the real game story ending has been completed but it could be a slippery slope like being forces to buy pieces of a game in order to get the intended canon ending. Chopping a game in parts getting to a section and instead of downloading the next portion or (put the next cd in) there's a pay wall for the remainder of the game you thought you already purchased. If people put up with this then it could become the norm God forbid. Those type of practices should be nipped in the bud right away so they dont become an issue like other things that have slipped though the cracks. Thankfully there's still many respectable developers that aren't all about money. Honorable people with integrity that want to help the industry enriching the gaming experience for everyone with games made for true gamers by true gamers which are the best to support in turn helping set the bar making other developers emulate them and so on and so forth the cycle continues.
Wife-"What are you writing a book?"
Me- It would seem so, I never was good at the conclusion of an essay in school.😂
Interesting video. I am both a physical and digital media gamer/collector. But, about your last point when looking at games as an "experience" rather than "ownership", physical media is hands-down the better experience. When I play retro games I am looking to recreate an experience, I felt when I was younger that emulation or a digital version cannot fully recreate. I would like to give you an example, Medieval on the PS1 can be played now both digitally and physically. But, nothing beats the experience of playing it on the original hardware, you will notice the little things like how they made Sir. Daniels's footsteps match with each vibration of the PS1 controller. And how vibrant the colors are when plugged into a CRT TV. However, If I play this on PC or emulation I won't be getting the vibrations of the controller or the vibrance of the colors because the game was created for that specific hardware. Now, when it comes to modern games, generally the experience of playing the game will be the same no matter what console, But, if we are still talking about "experience" then being able to look at the box art and game manual (if any), being able to unwrap/open the game and sliding the disc inside your system is still an "experience" That is authentic to physical media, that is lost when it comes to "digital". Also, when it comes to PC games, usually when installing the game from disc companies used to play thematic music and give you game tips in their launchers while installing the game, this experience is lost with digital media as now all you do is see a download bar for the games progress. No music playing or notes with game lore to get you excited to play the game.
Furthermore, Aside from games, when it comes to movie collecting as well, the physical media is still the better "experience" Those movies came with extras like bloopers, TV games, commercials, and more that will be missed when streaming the movie digitally. That does not even include the fact that the picture and sound quality are better when playing from a disc rather than streaming it online. It is also weird to compare the experience of playing games to theme parks, because they are completely opposite experiences. A video game is an indoor activity, and to spend $70 dollars per video game just to be able to play the game once and not own the game is absurd. Theme parks are outdoor activities and is something people don't do every single day, so yes it would make more sense to pay up fo r extras like ticket passes, because riding rollercoasters is something you wont really be able to do at home.
For me, the line ISN'T blurry at all. Not even almost. You buy digital, you're renting an experience. No one has given you anything. So, paying the same price for that as you would for true ownership is absolutely absurd. I'm not even an old school gamer or collector at all. I just got into video games a couple years ago. I think it's bonkers for anyone to think it's ok.
The suggestion/argument about digital game purchases being more like a time- or use-limited movie ticket than an enduring physical product is an interesting perspective, though it doesn't really quell concerns about those limits. At least with a movie or amusement park the limits are explicit and obvious at the time of purchase. With games, there is no way to know when a digital store will close, it's license for a given content expire/not renew, etc. It could be tomorrow for anyone knows 🤷🏻♂️
Perhaps these digital products should have to include up front the minimum or maximum validity and availablity so consumers aren't left feeling like gamblers.
Non-ironiclly, if Epic will not recover your son's account at all, you should call you bank, and do a charge back on every single purchase because they lied to you about what you were buying and are not offering any help. Maybe even everything for all 3 or 4 accounts. Companies try to screw over consumers when they have access to the back end and can correct the issue. Sometimes you need a manager, or a few managers, but they can fix it in these rare, one time situations. If they do not, they lied to you, and can do the work to prove they did not lie when they did.
For me, I have both physical and digital games, but with digital, I love DRM-free digital games on PC. In recent years, I buy games from GOG, all the games I've bought, I've backed them up to disc and some USB sticks, so I have them forever thanks to the lack of DRM. I know we pay for the experience, if I go to my local arcade, it's experience for me. The difference is for me is when I buy a game for home, I want to play it forever. I still play classic games in addition to modern ones. Yes, I do have physical and digital games on Switch, I tend to prefer physical more for Switch.
I like both. I love having physical for nostalgia and digital for backup fir when physical stops working.
Cartridges will not stop working within your lifetime.
I used to have a large library of digital movies that I purchased on the Sony PlayStation store, I can no longer access any of them..
As far as recovering the account, have you asked Epic to trace it based on the credit card used for the purchases?
I have. I was denied
No the way they treat digital media is completely wrong… if it’s stated as a purchase they should never have the rights to pull them from the store (even if licenses to the rights expire) they should always be left up to redownload incase of hard drive fail or a replacement console. I would completely have no issues with digital if they were housed on a cloud correctly. Almost like a digital game room. I wouldn’t even mind paying a yearly fee for it.
I remember digital so-called ownership was going to be cheaper to buy the game versus a physical copy the way it was pitched back then. Yet that never really happened you'd still pay the same price for the physical versus the digital just at their profit margin was much higher on the digital copy versus the physical. However with newer technology coming out just around the corner allowing you to store up to 100 terabytes of data onto a single laser disk could potentially bring back physical ownership to video games, movies, and more.
As a Gen xer myself who started with pong and space Invaders in the arcades have played so many computer games and console games and of acquired a very large collection throughout the years that I will still always prefer physical copies. I have been burned in the past by DRM protected music like back in the day music match and could never get all my purchases recovered plus Microsoft back in the day pulled the same stunt that Sony did with digital content for movies and music videos and such. I'd spent over $1,000 just on music videos at the time and then came back with a o ur license ran out so you don't have access to that at anymore. But I thought I owned it? But instead they gave me a 1500 Microsoft points as compensation which was ridiculous and I told him to keep it.
I still buy CDs and 4K blu-rays today over any digital purchases for fear of losing access in addition to the quality for digital media still sucks in comparison to physical copies.
However I do buy digital as well when it's the only option to me and a for really want it but there will always be that stigma do I really own it. It's the reason why when it comes to PC games I buy from GOG first then I consider steam and epic later depending on the title. On steam it's kind of funny how when I look at my list of games it says I own them with the word owned and they've yet to change that since steam itself said you don't own anything.
Still there is something about the nostalgia I guess from having those physical copies of games on cartridge disc floppy etc. And that if my internet's down I don't need internet to play any of these games. And I guess what makes it even more nostalgic cuz I'm an original owner of about 98% of my entire collection of games still in the boxes going back to Apple 2, 2GS, commodore Amiga, commodore 64, PC DOS and Windows games still in their boxes as well. Digital purchases will always be the last choice for me either until there is no other choice or until the day I die. I get the digital has its advantages and some are legit like bug fixes, DLC content that's not on your disk, and extra content behind the scenes yada yada. Which is why in some cases I own the physical copies in addition to a GOG Witcher series with all the DLCs Plus sales on Xbox like getting the Witcher 3 digital for convenience having everything for like seven or $8. Look at the music scene how it evolved into digital from 8-track, records, cassette, reel to reel, CDs, 5.1 audio music on DVD, so many ways that it's evolved but was always on physical which still gave you the best quality offering where digital music is still rather a mixed bag of quality over quantity and is so highly debated which format is better purchase Apple, Amazon, or any other format. I personally use flac as my choice when I rip my CDs and always said it the highest quality with no compression and keep three copies some in the cloud someone on external drive and some on a local NAS. And now the original disc sits in a closet still in its case like new because it only got used once. Granted I could go on and on and why physical ownership still will always outweigh digital because too many variables still point to more positives on physical over digital because in reality can we trust these big companies holding the keys to your digital content and will they last forever is the real question.
Maybe, if the game is about to go away on the store, they have to send you a physical copy, before they do so. This means, they only have to send the amount that was ordered, Or have a store front that you can go and pick up you copy. Its a thought...
Outside console stores I havent seen this happen. Hell it doesn't work anymore because server shut off MMO, but if I want to go download Marvel Heroes on steam, yeah.. I can (The fact that Ubisoft could delete their game from console users even if the software just stops working I find FAR more concerning.)
@MegabyteRedSector M:tg original online thing, use to back cards. It was short-lived... so, it's been done in some form. Heck, cereals use to give mail in stuff, what if... you get to X point in the game... they send a real copy. Like a trophy for completion. Participation trophies are just memories youve made, or go to a friend's house and play their copy. This would give a personal experience reward... so many ways to engage your customers for the love they showed of the art... then you could as a company, know what all the players loved about your game.
Both but ever since 2014 I have gone full digital.
I have all my Xbox, Switch and PlayStation games digitally since the One and PS4 era and recently I have modded my Wii U and my Xbox 360 so I ripped and converted all my games to run them off a HDD. I love that I can have them all ready to go whenever I want to play.
I have an Everdrive for my complete N64 list. I have all my PS Vita and 3DS games digitally after modding them and have everything from NES to PS1 on them. The Wii U has the complete list of GC, Wii, Wii U along with thousands of games via retroarch and the all the digital Nintendo virtual console games.
So I still buy discs and cartridges for older games that catch my eyes but for newer consoles I rather go the digital route.
If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn't stealing.
A ¼ or ½ TB micro SD card can contain a mot of retro games, and people would buy a digital copy they owned. But since buying is renting, emulators remain a great way to experience old game libraries, even if you gotta pirate them.
Physical media will always be better to me. When Steam removed over 200 games from my account without warning, I knew it was just a licensed based deal. This was a year before they announced that you were just buying a license to play the games. I own most of the systems that Nintendo has made up to the original Wii console. I also have all the Playstation consoles up to the PS4, The sega consoles and even an original Odyssey 2 system with a couple of games. Knowing that some company can never take away what I bought is the best. I still get digital games and will be buying everything I can on GOG that I have on Steam. At least I can backup my game purchases on my massive external drive when bought on GOG.
I do both ! Physical an digital, emulators, ssd , hardrives, and old fashioned disc! But digital i got around 74,000
I sold 5 graded GPK's this week. It's blowing up again.
We are emotional connected to our games both physically and digitally........ But definitely physically 👾🎮🕹️🖱️
Great video! I relate 100%
Thank you
Loved this vid! Thought-provoking with a lot of good points made. Your physical/digital media collection does spiral me into sort of a jealous rage though...but I'm working through it 🫡
I appreciate the comment, and I appreciate someone made it past the first 3 minutes before commenting ❤
Are video games a metaphor for life? It's not about what you have it's about the experiences you share with others?
How close are you to having the full catalog of nes games?
Here's my two cents. When you pay money for a game, you're paying for the game. Not the experience. You don't know initially if the game's going to be good or bad so you're paying for what you believe to be good. If it turns out to be bad, you're stuck with the game but you still have it. Physical or digital, when you pay for something, you should be able to play it over and over again regardless.
Im going to look at this from a PC perspective as I was pretty much playing there since the PSX era on consoles. I was kinda sad to see physical games go away, but I understood why it happened (long story short Doom 3 and Half Life 2 happened.... the former didn't need the discs to play but the same CD key if the PC was online would stop you from playing and the latter literally was the first 1-use CD-key game... and Gamestop didnt like it when they couldnt sell used copies and immediately began reducing grounds for PC titles).
THAT said, there is ONE WAY I do enjoy digital: I don't really collect to show off my games. I collect to preserver them, so digital game sites like GOG appeal to me: I buy the game, and sure I can use their launcher to install and play, BUT I can also download a stand-alone installer and stick it on a hard drive myself. Effectively I might as well have a digital shelf since these are copies are not dependant on gog sticking around. They even offer patch files I can add to that shelf later. And as long as I maintain that drive, I can preserver that library like you would that disc or that cart. (Hell this is ALSO why I fully back emulation... preserves games well after the hardware to run it breaks down beyond repair)
I think both physical and digital have, as shown in your video very good reasons to exist, so it was only natural both ways to get games to a customer emerged, but neither should be forced upon us, for example by leaving out a disc reader in modern consoles or only including game codes. Also quite thought provoking things you said in your video, so thank you so much for that 🤗
Great video!
My son and I are having this debate too. I prefer physical all the way, but my son prefers digital!
But I’m an adult, and he’s just a kid! Of course
I AM right!🤣
I'm sick of large monolithic services like social media and gaming companies that make billions and spend it all on BS (like DEI initiatives, yoga rooms, etc.). What happened to the customer is king? Give us proper support!! Not some endless support forum hunt, or email back and forths with no resolution. You would think with billions, they can afford to provide basic support. If it's a smaller operation, then at least there's an excuse. No excuse if they're spending on silly internal initiatives rather than providing the support for where their income is coming from. That should be priority.
I disagree about digital being an experience. Digital is a cornerstone of game preservation, aka rom backups. The problem is game companies are using Software as a service (SaaS) as a way to force an experience on you. Fortnite is free and is run by epic without any way for players to backup their stuff, yet games like unreal tournament can be hosted on individual player’s servers. GoG is all digital and you own the games outright on there. If you buy something from a company and their own software fails to protect your assets, it’s their responsibility to rectify the problem. If they don’t they should be open to legal repercussions. Digital or not, owning a game or a license, your right to play should still be protected. It’s not like fortnight went away; Epic’s transfer system had a glitch that caused a player who put lots of money into their system to lose access. It’s their legal responsibility to recover your paid for content. Period. And this should go for all digital media. If the company doesn’t want to support it anymore, release the server code so the game can be hosted by players. Valve does this all the time.
Thank you, I feel like both physically and digital is the way. You should be able to copy your own physical media and back it up.
Physical eventually fails and disc drives are even becoming rare these days. We should make these things usable with modern hardware and software.
But for now we need the option to have both.
Accepting the service agreement makes them not liable for anything negative its kinda like digital stuck again.
I like my video games apocalyptic-proof. Well, you know, after they turn the electricity back on. I just ordered the Sonic Frontiers game on Switch (physical copy), for my kid, but we're gonna have to get the DLC, for him to play as his favorite character, Tails. God damn it.
I’m genuinely curious about those gaming hard drives BUT I just have a small list for the ps2, 64, GameCube and Wii
I think people who argue in favor of purely digital at least company controlled digital media don't care about gaming or movies in the same way who prefer physical media do.
People arguing in favor of licenses probably don't understand that it's a bad thing that this is the standard now.
Also patching shouldn't be necessary. Just let them take longer to make if the end product is worth it. As far as DLC goes release a physical standard edition and a physical definitive edition a few months later.
Imagine the amount of people who would buy both buy both because they can't wait, easy money!
I like owning hard copy's but even that with the new games u still have to download stuff I miss the old way
Honestly it was only inevitable that everything went digital..once cds or cartridges weren’t needed anymore inside of hardware what else was going to happen
Seems like we are going backwards. Kinda like pumping quarters into an arcade and never owning the game.
Great open-minded perspective on both sides. I think the issue with Fortnight is a separate issue. I think that regardless of physical or digital, it comes down to the lack of support from Epic. I agree when it's your kid as a parent we want to fix it but at the mercy of the company. I will say IMO Steam is the best digital company as for me, they have always made it right with their support. When a game is delisted, if you purchased it beforehand, you can download it. Could this change or have a flood and lose all our games, yes. The thing with physical is that humans it allows is to make a connection. Anyways great video.
BUT if I got to a theme park I have the ability to buy a souveneir to take home with me to remember my experience. That would only count if I bought said souveneir and when I'm at the park they take it away from me because Im no longer there or cant remember which card I used to pay to get into the park.
I have always tried to purchase physical versions of games for the simple fact that they charge the same price for digital version and you don't own anything. Its cheaper for them to release digital but do not pass savings to their customer's. Corporate GREED is the way of our world :(
Digital games.
Don't expect buyer to buy a console with digital games at a high mark value.
Digital games are under an account which ties in with phone number, email and password. So whoever has digital games under an account, write email, phone # and password down legibly for next user if the primary user no longer there.
That's where physical is top notch. We bypass all that requirements.
Digital for me. Once I play a game I never play it again. I don't care to own it.
I refuse to own a new game system because of that. My game system now is the pow kiddy Y 6! I love that thing!
it was the opposite for me.. I was def not on board with digital in the beginning I used to give my little brother in the 360 days so much crap for buying into digital or mts but since then I’ve gotten to where I just don’t care anymore we can’t take any of it with us when we go whether it’s digital or physical it’s about the experience 🤷
Personally i think when you buy a game you should get a digital copy of the game. I guess like what they did/do with Blu Ray movies.
Physical media, especially with gaming, all day!
What if all of us decided to send invoices for them to buy back rights when they opt to delist or what have you. That would be fair
physical gave me that hype! that excitement! that suspense! seeing that cover art itself gave me chills!….
digital: meh 😅
Idk I really hate how digital can just be taken away from you. But then again, when I have digital, I have more games I buy cause they go on sale more. But having the physical copy makes me more likely to play.
I enjoy the advantages of both. My Switch is full of digital 8 and 16bit looking games that arent physical format. The big Nintendo games i do own them physically. Big box PC games i collect those and have around 100...i really like them.
Unless you have Steam or emulators that's the only way to own digital copies as buying through Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony you are garanteed to lose the games in 5 years +.... Sony has already started doing it with some games and movies. Happened a few months ago and there is a class action lawsuit going on because of it.
Simple fact the games ain't worth buying at $89.99 now a days, it hurts miss the old times actually have replay value
2:37 showing some physycal game "versions" would be a cool spin off vid! I wonder what the most egregious example is from 8/16/32/64 bit eras? Also re: physical, I get 75% of my Switch games on cart but my Xbox collection post 360 is all digital (thx seriesS). The worst is the "physical requires download." Complete BS. Nice vid.
as a multi platform gamer that plays 50/50 between PCs and Console I am certain you overthinking it due to the Fortnite account issues, and also Digital vs Physical media is a mindset situation, there are many issues you discussed with limited perspective, example you mention price of digital vs physical in reality most of the time the price is same and even worse for Digital with the exception for small batch games that are made rare by design, you also mentioned about it being "eco-friendly", as cloud engineer with data center experience, there is nothing ecological about running massive data centers 24/7/365 to allow someone to buy a game for convenience reasons. Additionally physical games currently are same with digital about only containing the "license" of the game but in many cases even after store front has close downloading latest patches is possible and with game preservation its possible to side load these patches, the future is digital not because is good for the planet, or for the consumer, is because big corporations have been selling convenience with hidden costs and most of the people care more about convenience, still in some cases digital is worth its price, as long as its on sale.
Very interesting conversation
Digital gaming takes away the quality that was demanded.
you have a wii and you have physical media also digital media. which one do you have
Steam and epic have both come out and told their customers that they do not sell them a game. They sell them a license to the game and that the license can be recinded at anytime. You don't have that with physical media. That game is yours forever. Digital media in it's current form is a legit scam.
I only buy physical. From my very first Atari 2600 when I was a kid to anything for newer consoles. If I can't buy physical I won't but it.
Ah yes this is educational man. 😊
Physical will always be better in my honest opinion.
Digital is so nuts - why have lp,s come back ?
They don't want you to own things and be happy about it 🥴
Protip: you don't own digital copies and makes you a pirate violating copyright with digital copies.
10:20 nope its a conversation for this video. You explain without using corporate greed why currently Physical games are cheaper.
Digital is fine if you own it like you do when buying on GOG. Otherwise no, DRM sucks. That is why I don't have a Steam account.
No man, you got screwed. Also an 80's kid. But in your situation I'll blame Nintendo. For the same reason my son has replaced his broken his switch and lost COUNTLESS hours in the pokemon games, which we owned physical and digital. They are archaic, and I bet somewhere between Nintendo and Epic is where his account is.
I think this is the reason that MAME and other emulators exist...
Can't stand digital. Same in music, I have bought songs off iTunes and later they are gone and a little store credit is given to me because the song is gone. I don't want the credit, I want the song! I hate that sometimes there isn't a choice. I LOVE Jeanne D'Arc but not a fan of playing on the PSP. So I've got the PS5 version but it's digital only. At anytime Sony can decide you know what, we call take backies.
I only buy physical after my internet went down for two weeks i couldnt play any of my digital games on my ps4 or xbox series x
Yeah im gonna stick with physical media
Video games will be a Netflix service instead. ☠