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Forums - Gaming Discussion - A major part of the digital/physical debate that people forget

Gamestop has a 50% trade-in bonus going on this week. Since I've upgraded to the PS4, I have no use or desire to play my old PS3 games again, and I see no point in keeping them since all they will do is collect dust. I took all of my PS3 games (about 22 of them) and traded them in for a grand total of $760 in GS credit (which I will convert to Amazon credit). Now I Have $760 to spend on my future PS4 purchases.

This reason alone is why I believe physical>digital. Had I bought my games digitally, I would've had essentially wasted money that would just sit there forever.



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VanceIX said:
Keegs79 said:
VanceIX said:

Semantics, for those who keep claiming that digital games are licensed and physical games aren't. 

And physical is fine, and has its advantages, just like how digital has its advantages.

Everything I ever heard about digital's advantages are laziness. You don't have to put a disc in or you don't have to worry about your kids breaking your discs. I heard those as positives over and over. I can't see anyone who takes digital as in better than someone who justs wants to express that everyone should go digital because that is what they like and want. Its like feeling threatened so you or like others feel the need to express themselves. The only real advantage of digital content is music. We have ipods, other MP3 players, and we content them to are vehicles. That is real value in digital content that actually has real use. With that said, there is STILL music cds to this day! Video games are played in our homes. Saving space is the only other arguement and I heard that to but it makes me wonder if peoples' homes are the size of closets!

Yeah, because everyone likes exactly the same things, and should follow your opinion or be branded as lazy

/s

Digital is personally more convenient for me, how is that laziness? I never said everyone should go fully digital either. And, believe it or not, in the real world people do have kids and pets that can cause damage. 

I simply stated that is the excuses I heard. I would also say there is very little competition as a plus for physical content. How many sources can you buy digital from? They all lead to the same network for the same price. Sony has flash sales and such but for games that were discounted many months ago. You can buy from different competition such as Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, Ebay, or by a friend.

I have two kids. I am responsible. If your a good parent, you should be watching them and have your games out of reach or being taught not to mess with those things. I have a huge collection. They never touch it. I have a girl that just turned 5 and one that turns 3 next month. I know all about kids getting into things.



Keegs79 said:
VanceIX said:

Yeah, because everyone likes exactly the same things, and should follow your opinion or be branded as lazy

/s

Digital is personally more convenient for me, how is that laziness? I never said everyone should go fully digital either. And, believe it or not, in the real world people do have kids and pets that can cause damage. 

I simply stated that is the excuses I heard. I would also say there is very little competition as a plus for physical content. How many sources can you buy digital from? They all lead to the same network for the same price. Sony has flash sales and such but for games that were discounted many months ago. You can buy from different competition such as Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, Ebay, or by a friend.

I have two kids. I am responsible. If your a good parent, you should be watching them and have your games out of reach or being taught not to mess with those things. I have a huge collection. They never touch it. I have a girl that just turned 5 and one that turns 3 next month. I know all about kids getting into things.

Do your kids play videogames? What would you do if they wanted to play some of the same games as you? Would you not let them touch the discs or take them to their friends' houses, in fear that they may break or scratch them?

I don't have any children, since I'm just a lowly university student currently. However, I remember that when my brother and I were young, we would play tons of games, taking them to our friends' houses and such. Sometimes a disc would get a bit scravhed. Not unplayable, but scrateched. It happens, no matter how responsible you try to be.



                                                                                                               You're Gonna Carry That Weight.

Xbox One - PS4 - Wii U - PC

VanceIX said:

A lot of people say that the best reason to go physical is that you actually own the game. That's not true. You own the disc itself, but the game is licensed to you, just like digital games. Under the law, there is almost no difference in ownership.

That being said, no one is coming to take away your rights to play your discs. At the same time, however, that generally doesn't happen with digital games either unless you seriously fuck up.

I'm not saying that everyone should up and quit physical and buy digital only, just saying that the concept of "ownership" is really not that different between the two, as far as the law is concerned. 


Actually, while it is true that you are just sold a "license", the Supreme Court has ruled that "First Sale Doctrine" applies to all physical copies of software.  I can resell my discs to someone else, in other words.  When you buy digitally, your First Sale rights are gone.

Personally, I prefer to buy digital downloadable anyway.  No, I can't resell them or trade them in...but I never have to worry about losing discs, nor do I have to worry that someone will "borrow" the games and "forget" to return them (sorry buddies!), nor do I worry about discs becoming damaged or unusable.  But, for me, the #1 advantage is that I dont have to get up, find a game, and physically put it in my console...I just select it from the menu and play.  To ME, the advantages of buying my games digitally outweigh the negatives.  As I bonus, I never have to walk in another Gamestop ever again...so there is that too!



jnemesh said:
VanceIX said:

A lot of people say that the best reason to go physical is that you actually own the game. That's not true. You own the disc itself, but the game is licensed to you, just like digital games. Under the law, there is almost no difference in ownership.

That being said, no one is coming to take away your rights to play your discs. At the same time, however, that generally doesn't happen with digital games either unless you seriously fuck up.

I'm not saying that everyone should up and quit physical and buy digital only, just saying that the concept of "ownership" is really not that different between the two, as far as the law is concerned. 


Actually, while it is true that you are just sold a "license", the Supreme Court has ruled that "First Sale Doctrine" applies to all physical copies of software.  I can resell my discs to someone else, in other words.  When you buy digitally, your First Sale rights are gone.

Personally, I prefer to buy digital downloadable anyway.  No, I can't resell them or trade them in...but I never have to worry about losing discs, nor do I have to worry that someone will "borrow" the games and "forget" to return them (sorry buddies!), nor do I worry about discs becoming damaged or unusable.  But, for me, the #1 advantage is that I dont have to get up, find a game, and physically put it in my console...I just select it from the menu and play.  To ME, the advantages of buying my games digitally outweigh the negatives.  As I bonus, I never have to walk in another Gamestop ever again...so there is that too!

Of course you can, I never denied that you couldn't. I'm just poiniting out that what you have is a license, not complete ownership over the game.



                                                                                                               You're Gonna Carry That Weight.

Xbox One - PS4 - Wii U - PC

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jnemesh said:
VanceIX said:

A lot of people say that the best reason to go physical is that you actually own the game. That's not true. You own the disc itself, but the game is licensed to you, just like digital games. Under the law, there is almost no difference in ownership.

That being said, no one is coming to take away your rights to play your discs. At the same time, however, that generally doesn't happen with digital games either unless you seriously fuck up.

I'm not saying that everyone should up and quit physical and buy digital only, just saying that the concept of "ownership" is really not that different between the two, as far as the law is concerned. 


Actually, while it is true that you are just sold a "license", the Supreme Court has ruled that "First Sale Doctrine" applies to all physical copies of software.  I can resell my discs to someone else, in other words.  When you buy digitally, your First Sale rights are gone.

Personally, I prefer to buy digital downloadable anyway.  No, I can't resell them or trade them in...but I never have to worry about losing discs, nor do I have to worry that someone will "borrow" the games and "forget" to return them (sorry buddies!), nor do I worry about discs becoming damaged or unusable.  But, for me, the #1 advantage is that I dont have to get up, find a game, and physically put it in my console...I just select it from the menu and play.  To ME, the advantages of buying my games digitally outweigh the negatives.  As I bonus, I never have to walk in another Gamestop ever again...so there is that too!

You simply cannot beat the convenience of digital. I can play a game on day of release, now with preloading even the minute it's out, without having to go out to the shop, or even worse, wait for the mailman to deliver it 5 days later, box damaged and all.



On the other hand, if I pre-order a physical game, I don't have a friggin' COUNTDOWN timer on my dash reminding me constantly of the really cool game I can't play quite yet! ;)



Shadow1980 said:

The decline of the album in general has to do just as much with the nature of music itself as it does the format. Albums are merely collections of songs, and songs are usually designed to where they can be listened to individually just as easily as they can as a group. Albums sales weren't all that big prior to the 60s, but started to grow rapidly throughout the remainder of the 20th century. While hard numbers for total album sales all the way back then are hard to come by, there's not many albums from the 50s that sold over a million copies. Harry Belafonte's Calypso, released in 1956, was the first album know to have sold a million copies. Back then, singles were main seller. Everybody just wanted to listen to just the hits. However, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin were the starting point of the album rather than the single becoming the "primary" unit of music — that is, people treating an album as a whole work rather than a collection of smaller, more "self-contained" works — and the oldest albums to have sold over ten million copies in the U.S. were from those two bands. Album sales trended upwards through the 70s and onward, and by the 90s having a platinum album was a trivial task even for only moderately popular bands. Album sales peaked around the turn of the century before declining with the advent of the mp3 player. Here's a graph claiming to show the number of gold albums from 1955 to 2005:

The mp3 player made the return of the single a trivial task. Individual songs could be delivered much easier than they could via a CD single, the latter of which could retail for $4-5. Interestingly, the arrival of the mp3 player coincides with popular music starting to change (I'd say "regress") back to disposable, flavor-of-the-month pop-rap music. Look at what acts produced some of the most popular albums in the 70s, 80s, & early 90s: The Beatles, Zep, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Boston, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Michael Jackson, Guns & Roses, REM, Def Leppard, Tears for Fears, Phil Collins, U2, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, among others. Sure, even the 70s & 80s had their fair share of disposable crappy bubblegum pop like disco, Debbie Gibson, and NKOTB, but they never lasted and aren't usually remembered fondly.

But today that's all we have: 21st century counterparts to Debbie Gibson and the freakin' New Kids on the Block. When you have so-called "talent" like Kesha, Flo Rida, LMFAO, Kanye West, the Black-Eyed Sellouts (my nickname for BEP; they used to be a decent hip-hop group pre-Fergie), and that trashy guttersnipe Miley Cyrus among the most popular acts of the past few years, you know there's something wrong. It's the disco of the 21st century. Adele is probably one of the few exceptions, as she's fairly talented (though I'm not a fan of her musical style, she does have a good voice) and has a more adult contemporary sound that's a lot different from most popular music, and wouldn't you know, her album 21 was the first in over a decade to sell over 10 million copies in the U.S. Considering that the majority of music is bought by older audiences (30+) these days, maybe all this cheap crap geared to teens and 20-somethings, couples with tech that helps the younger crowd get their fix for just those few big Top 40 hits, is a big reason for not just the decline of the album, but the decline of the U.S. music industry as a whole. The pendulum swung from single-driven trendy pop, to album-driven music (mostly rock) that was more "serious" and with long-lasting intergenerational appeal, and now back to single-driven trendy pop.

Well, that was a pretty big tangent there, but I hope it served to illustrate just why music sales are what they are, and that despite their decline CDs are far from dead. Buying full albums is usually cheaper for physical than for digital, the sound quality is usually better, and there are other benefits associated with a tangible copy. There is still plenty of demand for music on physical formats, though said demand is only half of what it was 30-40 years ago. MP3 players are fine if you listen to lots of music on the go, but they are by no means the clear superior to physical formats.

Thanks for that part. I have been noticing that albums are disappearing which is a shame. People got their wish and can only pay for the songs they already know from the radio or other exposure. As a result the well constructed album is now disappearing. My favorite albums include The orb's adventures beyond the ultra world, To the space Lucky people center, Just be Tiesto, Intense Armin van Buuren, Underworld live: Everything. My wife introduced me to Cake and we both enjoy Coldplay, Great big world and Lady Antebellum. Mylo Xyloto and X&Y were both great, as is the Coldplay live 2012 blu-ray. They are releasing on Vinyl too, although I would like to see more of them on blu-ray.

It seems techincal progress with music has stagnated with digital. I'm still waiting for a standard for 96/24 discreet 5.1 audio for music. Music sounds better on blu-ray but there is not much of it available. CDs with weak pro-logic surround will have to do still. Probably also a reason why Vinyl is becoming popular again, CD has never been able to fully capture the sound. (Neither can Vinyl, but it sounds different. MP3 definitely doesn't capture the full experience)

I wonder what effect a fully digital world for games will bring. It brought us indie games which is great. But it has also brought us releasing unfinished games, piecemeal DLC instead of beefy expansions, shorter campaigns supported by DLC, season passes, episodic games, early access with no guarantee of it getting finished, free to play, freemium games. Will paying once for a complete game with an epic campaign survive? Or will it further decline the same as the music album.



Burek said:
platformmaster918 said:
I buy physical because I re-sell most of my games. Can't do that with Digital. Also I'm very sentimental about cases and of course those beautiful steelbooks *drools*

I only buy digital games for my PS4, and have no problem reselling them once I'm done. Not only that, but I usually get more than when reselling physical discs, while also saving on shipping costs and time.

Digital is far superior to discs, and see no reason to ever buy a disc again, as I am notv a collector at all.

ahh how do u resell the games u buy digitally? or am I not understanding sth here?



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VanceIX said:
Keegs79 said:
VanceIX said:

Yeah, because everyone likes exactly the same things, and should follow your opinion or be branded as lazy

/s

Digital is personally more convenient for me, how is that laziness? I never said everyone should go fully digital either. And, believe it or not, in the real world people do have kids and pets that can cause damage. 

I simply stated that is the excuses I heard. I would also say there is very little competition as a plus for physical content. How many sources can you buy digital from? They all lead to the same network for the same price. Sony has flash sales and such but for games that were discounted many months ago. You can buy from different competition such as Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, Ebay, or by a friend.

I have two kids. I am responsible. If your a good parent, you should be watching them and have your games out of reach or being taught not to mess with those things. I have a huge collection. They never touch it. I have a girl that just turned 5 and one that turns 3 next month. I know all about kids getting into things.

Do your kids play videogames? What would you do if they wanted to play some of the same games as you? Would you not let them touch the discs or take them to their friends' houses, in fear that they may break or scratch them?

I don't have any children, since I'm just a lowly university student currently. However, I remember that when my brother and I were young, we would play tons of games, taking them to our friends' houses and such. Sometimes a disc would get a bit scravhed. Not unplayable, but scrateched. It happens, no matter how responsible you try to be.

My almost 3 and just turned 5 years old? No. Of course they don't play video games. First I would teach them (at a older age) to be responsible if they borrow them or anything of mine. It is important to be a good parent. Second I wouldn't let them borrow them anyway because I wouldn't allow that regardless....well maybe under some circumstances. Lastly, blu-ray discs are very resistant to scratches. You need to beat them up pretty bad to make them unplayable.  They can take a heavier beating than a standard dvd or music cd.