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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why so stubborn? What's really wrong with digital media?

Lately, I've been reading about, and seeing that people are generally against digital media downloads, in favor of retail discs.  I really don't understand it and would like to be enlightened on it.  The only thing I see wrong about digital media is just... getting banned?  Well, don't be a dick, and everything should be cool.  Right?

Even if you do happen to get banned, why not just make a back-up of everything?

Which brings me to the next thing, you can't make easy back-ups of physical media.  Also, discs don't last forever.  They deteriorate over time.  It would be easier to just back-up when needed, right?  Then also, how about the prices?  Again, I've bought tons of games on PSN.  I'll save you the trouble and copy my list of everything I bought, just from this year, and the pricing associated.

  1. Alice: Madness Returns: Ultimate Edition - $3
  2. Sonic Generations - $15
  3. Dead Island & Riptide bundle - $10
  4. Grand Theft Auto V - $30
  5. Fatal Frame III - $7
  6. Mortal Kombat Kollection - $2.50
  7. Resident Evil: Code Veronica X - $5
  8. Metal Gear Solid - $5
  9. Silent Hill - $2.50
  10. Borderlands 2 & Season Pass - $20
  11. Street Fighter Alpha 3: Max - $3
  12. Mod Nation Racers - $5
  13. Megaman Maverick Hunter X - $5
  14. Hitman: Absolution - $7
  15. Tomb Raider (PS3) - $10
  16. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - $4
  17. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - $2.50
  18. Grand Theft Auto III - $2.50
  19. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Vita) - $2.50
  20. Grand Theft Auto IV - $5
  21. Grand Theft Auto Episodes from Liberty City - $6
  22. Manhunt - $2.50
  23. Bully - $2.50
  24. Megaman X4 - $6
  25. The Warriors - $2.50
  26. Pixel Junk Monsters: Encore DLC - $3
  27. Bioshock: Infinite - $10
  28. BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma - $28
  29. Crystal Defenders (Vita) - $5
  30. Legend of Dragoon - $1
  31. Syphon Filter - $1
  32. Syphon Filter 2 - $1
  33. Syphon Filter 3 - $1
  34. Harvest Moon - $1
  35. Tekken 2 - $1
  36. Double Dragon Neon - $1
  37. Dino Crisis 2 - $1
  38. Virtua Fighter 2 - $1
  39. Wild Arms 2 - $1
  40. Dead or Alive 5: Core Fighters Top Costume Picks - $15
  41. Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate - $34
  42. Disgaea - $4
  43. Persona 3 - $4
  44. Trine 2 - $3
  45. Dragon Age: Origins - $5
  46. Ni No Kuni - $5
  47. Rayman 2: Revolution - $2.50
  48. Rayman 2: Great Escape - $1.50
  49. Rayman - $1.50
  50. Soul Calibur II: HD Online - $20
  51. LA Noire - $5
  52. Red Dead Redemption - $5
  53. Max Payne 3 - $5
  54. Soul Calibur V - $10
  55. Crash Bandicoot $1
  56. Crash 2 - $1
  57. Crash 3 - $1
  58. Spyro the Dragon - $1
  59. Spyro 2 - $1
  60. Spyro 3 - $1
  61. Plants Vs. Zombies - $1
  62. Braid - $1
  63. Retro City Rampage - $1
  64. Tomb Raider II (PS1) - $2.50
  65. Super Motherload - $7.50
  66. Prince of Persia: Rival Sword - $2.50
  67. Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines - $2.50
  68. Flow - $4
  69. Rayman: Origins (Vita) - $6.50
  70. Divekick (Addition Edition) - $2.50
  71. Castle Crashers - $2.50
  72. Fat Princess - $2.50
  73. Assassin's Creed III: Ultimate Edition - $25.50 (I thought I paid $50, LOL)
  74. Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (Vita) - $13.50
  75. Pixel Junk Monsters: Ultimate HD (Vita) - $7.50

(Edited for those curious of what I've played, completed, etc.)

Bolded: Completed story mode.

Underline: Haven't ever played, or haven't played longer than 15 minutes total.

And, you know what that does? Negate any disadvantage of a re-sale.  Game stop wont give me 30 bucks if I tried trading in GTAV.  However, I saved 30 dollars by getting it digital.  I don't care that I can't trade it in and I don't care that the disc version has less pop-in/fewer graphical errors.  The price is low enough that it doesn't matter.  Same for every other game I bought.

But, I will say that not every game suffers from graphical errors.  I've got Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on disc, and digital, for example, and they both look exactly the same.

And, about the collecting aspect of it.  People try to say, "it feels better when you're collecting the actual physical disc."  No it doesn't.  It feels the same.  I collect physical on other consoles that aren't PSVita or PS3.  It feels just as good scrolling through a big long list of games on the XMB.  It's just as satisfying as my Sega Genesis physical collection.  I imagine people say collecting physical is better, only because they haven't actively given digital collecting a chance.

So, considering that I bought 96? games this year, all of them digital except my Genesis games and I bought an additional Model 1 Genesis, my entire catalog for the year cost me 490 dollars.  I originally started going digital when I re-bought TTT2, because my disc reader was acting up, and I was NOT going to be without Tekken Tag 2...  But, then, I got more and more... and more...  My disc reader works again, and hasn't given me any more problems, but I don't want to stress it more than necessary.

TL;DR

Digital media can be stored on back-ups, don't wear out your disc reader, cost significantly less than physical.  Why not go digital?  My gamestop isn't even far away, but, still...  The benefits outweigh going to get a physical copy, even if I could get back home before the DL finished.  Maybe there's something I'm missing about this.



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I won't be buying digital until the prices of digital games are at least $20 lower than their physical counterpart.



Just cause its as satisfying for u to add digital games to ur collection as physical games, doesnt mean it is to everyone else.  There are many cases where its cheaper to buy a physical game than a digital one, it goes both ways.  Many times a game drops to $40 at a store a month or two after launch, but stays at full price on PSN.

Discs don't deteriorate over time, as long as you actually take care of ur stuff it will last.  I've only ever had one disc that crapped out on me, payed a few bucks to fix it and it was fine.



2 problems

1)One platform holder is virtually guaranteed to quit business in next few years, no one in world knows what will happen to digital versions of their games. Most likely they will be gone.

2)You can get banned for no reason, like paypal servers being glitchy. No one will give you your games back, even if you dropped like 1k USD. It did happen, there was a thread on neogaf from user who experienced it himself.

>Even if you do happen to get banned, why not just make a back-up of everything?

I'm not sure you know how digital DRM works. In best case your banned backups are good until your console bricks. Also do you really going to play all you bought? You gonna play Street Fighter Alpha? You just built yourself a random backlog which will just haunt you when you turn on the console.



Well, the issue with "backing up" your games these days as well as other digital media is that more and more companies are incorporating a DRM on their games that will require you to log in or else you wont be able to play the game so if you get banned, well, it doesnt matter if you back up ur games or not, u can't log in and you can't play the game

The other issue is that it takes forever to download games... They have reached 50gb+ these days and the ISP's arent really offering any plans that has epic speed unless you want to sell ur kidneys

And Sure, Discs do wear off eventually, but if you take good care of them, they will last u 1-2 decades! And lets not forget that hard drives wear off too so its a bit of eh eh situation.

Oh and btw, if you do get banned but you aren't prepared for it, then ur really fucked! And not to mention that not everyone has time to backup 500+gb worth of data each month... And also, backing up = hard drive space = $$ to buy new hard drive



                  

PC Specs: CPU: 7800X3D || GPU: Strix 4090 || RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000 || Main SSD: WD 2TB SN850

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KingdomHeartsFan said:

Just cause its as satisfying for u to add digital games to ur collection as physical games, doesnt mean it is to everyone else.  There are many cases where its cheaper to buy a physical game than a digital one, it goes both ways.  Many times a game drops to $40 at a store a month or two after launch, but stays at full price on PSN.

Discs don't deteriorate over time, as long as you actually take care of ur stuff it will last.  I've only ever had one disc that crapped out on me, payed a few bucks to fix it and it was fine.

Well, I'd personally only heard stories of discs going bad on people.  As for myself, no, I've never had that happen.  None of my PS3 discs have a single scratch on them, so they're all in like-new condition.  Everything else broke as a result of me not taking well enough care of them, lol.

And what games is it that are dropping?

I know Tekken Tag Tournament 2 dropped, but I got that game on release day.  Beyond: Two Soul also dropped.  Got it release day...  I guess I've answered my question.  But, I love each of those games, and glad I got them on release day. I beat beyond 10 times.  Five consecutive without playing any other games inbetween.  I can't do it an 11th time, because I'm all burnt out on that game, lol.  But, I enjoyed it so much, and I got the steel book, I don't mind paying 60, for it or TTT2.

Wasn't even mad when they dropped in retail price.



The problem is that your account owns the game, not you. If I buy a game of PSN, the game is tied to that account.
If I can't access it, I can't download/play it.



sterner said:

2 problems

1)One platform holder is virtually guaranteed to quit business in next few years, no one in world knows what will happen to digital versions of their games. Most likely they will be gone.

2)You can get banned for no reason, like paypal servers being glitchy. No one will give you your games back, even if you dropped like 1k USD. It did happen, there was a thread on neogaf from user who experienced it himself.

>Even if you do happen to get banned, why not just make a back-up of everything?

I'm not sure you know how digital DRM works. In best case your banned backups are good until your console bricks. Also do you really going to play all you bought? You gonna play Street Fighter Alpha? You just built yourself a random backlog which will just haunt you when you turn on the console.

LOL....  No...  I don't like Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max.  However, it IS the superior vita version.  It may seem random, but I like fighting games most of all.  I do not like street fighter very much because because there just isn't very many characters I like.  But, I like all types of games, as long as they aren't first person shooters.  The only one I remotely enjoyed was Bioshock: Infinite.

I like RPGs, third person shooters, fighters especially.  I like GTAIII, and GTAV, but I do not like IV very much.  Lately, I've been playing GTAV, Alice, Marvel Vs. Capcom Origins, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.  Honestly I've not been in the mood to play anything else.  I didn't know what to expect with Alice, but that game is fantastic.

But, about the back-ups...  I'm not sure how DRM works, honestly.  I remember last time I did a back-up, most of my games were restricted to the demo version and the others wouldn't work at all until I logged in....  The only game I know I absolutely wont be playing after PSN dies is bionic commando rearmed 2, which i don't play much because of the DRM restrictions.



In Australia at least physical games are often cheaper than buying digital, which makes no sense given the lack of packaging and transport costs. Then there is download caps that are pretty common, I've got a decent internet plan but I've only got 50GB download a month, this gen many games are around 40-50GB so if I buy digital then I'm pretty much limited to one game a month AND the likelihood of having blown my download limit.

Maybe in another 10 years when the network infrastructure in this country is better and Sony/MS realise that digital needs to be cheaper then I'll go full digital. Until then, outside of PS1/PS2 games on PSN or smaller PC games on Steam, its physical media by a mile.



For me, there's 2 main reasons I prefer retail over digital

1: More freedom with the game. I can lend it to a friend or sell it used. Much more convenient than the way to lend digital games (Create account on friend's console, then download the whole game, then delete it if someone else wants to play it on another console. For handhelds, it's not possible at all, as they only have 1 account)

2: They generally cost less. A $60 game on PSN or Xbox Live is going to stay at $60 indefinitely, only dropping temporarily during occasional sales. Disc-based games often start dropping in price as little as a week after launch. I buy my retail games from Amazon (no sales tax) So even at launch, I'm paying exactly the same as for a digital game, plus get the benefits as listed above.

Only way to make me go all-digital is to make digital games cost less than their disc-based counterparts.



"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

-Samuel Clemens