| S.Peelman said: I'll admit I was a bit colorful perhaps in my post, but the core is true. Theoretically physical things also have a lifespan sure, but it's apparently a very, very long time as I've never, ever in the over two decades I've been gaming had a single game or console that stopped working for me so for now, they're eternal. I am aware of the fact that the newer the game, the shorter I can expect it to work (this also goes for hardware, but that's beside the point) and the greater the care I have to give it, but 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen games are indestructable. I am someone who is very neat and tidy, I take good care of my things, so I will get the longest possible life out of my systems and games. There's always methods to still play something of which the service and distribution stopped, but the point is that if that happens, I don't have the game anymore obviously and need to repurchase it, while I never had any influence on the occurance besides 'hoping for the best'. Then, I payed twice for one game. Sure, this would probably be fairly rare and it could be as long as years or a decade after the fact, but if I can avoid it, and keep my game library's destiny in my own hands as much as possible, why wouldn't I? I don't care about the two or three cubic meters I need to store everything efficiently if need be. Needing to buy something twice could also happen to a game I have physically, yes, but there's just a much smaller chance and being the owner that decides a game's fate just outweighs everything else while being subject to the whim of digital services and publishers is just too big of a downside. Lastly, having it physically somewhere, increases the chance I might replay an older game or even finish one at all because they're more visible so I get way more of my money's worth. I hardly buy any game on PC anymore. I'd say 90% of my PC games are from the '90s-first half of 2000s era, PC gaming's golden days are long gone. The last game I got on PC was Rome II Total War (retail as well) in like october 2013. If I do go out to get one, I try to find it physical and if that doesn't exist, I just don't buy it. I agree it does get harder and harder on PC to get things physically because everything is primarily distributed through Steam. I don't do Steam. The only reason I have a Steam account is because it made me make one with my physical copy of Empire Total War. Digital does have one big advantage though, you have your most current library of games within an arm's reach and you can switch games without the need to swap discs and load times are better, so for that reason I like it if an option is there to install a game to a hard-drive, for the best of both worlds. |
Bolded; I am one of the few users in here who was really happy when the PS3 and 360 started getting games with mandatory or optional installs, it really helps with performance!
