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Forums - Gaming - Support Physical Games

Tagged games:

 

Do you still support physical media?

Always 37 44.05%
 
Mostly 19 22.62%
 
Sometimes 11 13.10%
 
Rarely 8 9.52%
 
Never 5 5.95%
 
Don't care 3 3.57%
 
Don't have the space 1 1.19%
 
Total:84
sc94597 said:

I think the more important distinction is DRM vs. DRM-free. Digital vs. physical is moot (for most people, excepting those with poor internet access) when you can create your own physical copies and as many as you wish.

The only physical games I buy these days are Nintendo first party games, mainly because I find their IPs iconic and I like having the boxes.

Otherwise I like the convenience of digital more.

You're missing the ability to sell games you've bought in your evaluation.



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BraLoD said:
curl-6 said:

Doin' my part

Is Indy on Switch 2 fully into the cart? It's not fully on disc on PS5.

Anyway, nice to see.

If I may say so myself tho, your country rating system is so big for the boss and still has such a big space of written stuff following to the right. Does it bothers you?

That's one thing I think Brazil has nailed perfectly and make our physical game boxes look the best I've seem IMO. Here it's similar to PEGI, but it's smaller, perfectly squared, no text anyway, and has a distinct color coding for every age tier unlike PEGI that shares some.

The base game of Indy is fully on the cart, yes.

I'm used to the big ratings labels to be honest, they used to be less obvious, but apparently people weren't getting the hint as they changed them to be bigger and more colourful in the mid 2000s. Guess too many parents were grabbing GTA and such for their kids and not noticing the rating, then complaining later when they caught their kid going mature rated things in a mature rated game lmao. I still remember that being controversial back when I was a teen.



Zkuq said:
sc94597 said:

I think the more important distinction is DRM vs. DRM-free. Digital vs. physical is moot (for most people, excepting those with poor internet access) when you can create your own physical copies and as many as you wish.

The only physical games I buy these days are Nintendo first party games, mainly because I find their IPs iconic and I like having the boxes.

Otherwise I like the convenience of digital more.

You're missing the ability to sell games you've bought in your evaluation.

Game key card solves that for people who do that. I'd imagine other platforms will adopt something like that. People who want physical to keep their games forever and people who want to resell their games are mutually exclusive. Collectors are probably the people most affected with no real solution. 



rjason12 said:

I’m right there with you, but unfortunately we’re in the minority. People really don’t care about their ownership rights and the majority likely still won’t care even if their favorite movies/music/games get delisted, become unavailable or even censored. Crazy how so many people are against “big business” but will so easily give up and enable them to do whatever they want. All in the name of “convenience” but is digital media really all that convenient?

If there's one thing I've noticed over the course of my life, it really does seem that for a lot of people, the worst thing you can do to them is inconvenience them. Convenience is valued above literally everything else. And I mean that when I say "literally." I worked retail for 17 years, and I've seen people get apoplectic because they felt inconvenienced over having to wait for anything. When I worked at Party City, I had customers blithely ignore all the bright green signs we put up whenever we were out of helium, grab balloons, sit in line, and then foam at the mouth when told we couldn't fill up their balloons ("hOw CoUlD yOu Be OuT oF hElIuM? yOuR'e A pArTy StOrE!"). I've seen countless people driving down the road who are clearly willing to put their lives and the lives of everyone else at risk just to try to shave a couple of minutes off of their trip, speeding like maniacs, weaving through freeway traffic, running red lights & stop signs and passing stopped school buses. I've seen people road rage because someone wasn't going fast enough, or because they cut someone off and the other person had the sheer unmitigated gall to *gasp* honk at them. 

And then there's the laziness that a culture of convenience produces. Good lord, are there a lot of lazy bastards out there. When people know there's other people who will clean up after them, they'll intentionally leave messes and generally refuse to clean up after themselves. They don't put things back where they found them. They just toss stuff wherever. I had a customer who came in last minute looking for a gift bag, I walked him to the spot since we were about to close, he grabbed one off the peg hook, decided he didn't want it, and dropped it on the ground with me standing literally three feet away from him. And "buy online, pick up in store" and later curbside pickup being added to that was one of the biggest time sinks that kept us from doing the rest of our job. Just the entire idea of a brick-and-mortar store doing people's shopping for them and walking their purchase out to them galled me because of how it catered to the most base laziness in people.

A culture that not only produces people like that but encourages those habits will also produce people who will absolutely act like being bothered to go to a store to buy a game or having to get up and swap discs/cartridges are just the absolute worst. Of course there would be countless people who would give up ownership of the things they buy, thereby ceding all power to the big corporations they continually complain about, just to save a few seconds here and there. We continually see what happens with digital media. Titles being delisted from digital stores and from streaming services. Titles even being remotely deleted from people's devices with no refunds offered. Yet even after all the valid complaints about those things, people still keep investing in digital-only, like someone who keeps putting their hand on a red-hot stove and wondering why it hurts every time.

People need friction in their life. I know it sounds like something an old person would say, but a little bit of work here and there helps build character. While I understand and even agree with the sentiment that people ought not have to devote countless hours of their lives to working just to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, I do think there is plenty of necessary work that needs to be done, and a lot of it should be done by humans. We shouldn't get to the point where we're like the society from WALL-E, just sitting our lazy asses in a recliner 24-7 with a screen in our face and our every need catered to by the mere push of a button.

Anyway, I've written at length before in many posts how I'm a big supporter of physical and have long had an adversarial relationship with digital distribution. Anything I care to actually buy at full price, I will buy it physically if that's an option. If it's not an option, then the publisher isn't getting my money. Any future console that doesn't have physical as an option is a console I won't buy. If the industry moves to 100% digital, then that's it. I'm done. I'll have decades worth of older video games to keep me satisfied for the rest of my life.



Visit http://shadowofthevoid.wordpress.com

Art by Hunter B

In accordance to the VGC forum rules, §8.5, I hereby exercise my right to demand to be left alone regarding the subject of the effects of the pandemic on video game sales (i.e., "COVID bump").

Sorry I am too lazy to take another pic. This pic was for Bluesky and other forums for pick ups threads.  I been cleaning all day. I mainly posting this pic for Hi-Fi Rush. 2 year wait was worth to get the physical. That is just one of those special games you need to hold a copy in your hand.

(Btw whoever owned MUA2 before me left their Gamestop receipt from 2009 in there and a print out of unlocking secrets) 



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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sc94597 said:

I think the more important distinction is DRM vs. DRM-free. Digital vs. physical is moot (for most people, excepting those with poor internet access) when you can create your own physical copies and as many as you wish.

The only physical games I buy these days are Nintendo first party games, mainly because I find their IPs iconic and I like having the boxes.

Otherwise I like the convenience of digital more.

Yeah...GOG is DRM free by design, and Steam has offline backup, so you can always preserve your games.



I hate going to the store or waiting for Amazon to deliver. I also jump from one game to another a lot and changing disk/cartridge is annoying so I buy like 90% digital now.



Signature goes here!

Well since this is about supporting physical, I’ll add this elder scrolls oblivion remastered is coming to the switch 2 full on cart for 50$ on August 11.



Amen to that brotha! I'll always prioritise physical games, movies and music over streaming and digital any day. Not every one has the luxury to collect but I'll always advocate for people to buy and own there favourite things. Piracy is an option but being able to own something official and legally is important as well as imo holding much more value since I paid for an item that I'm able to hold in my hands. Physical games unlike movies and music quality wise aren't superior to there digital counterparts...but ownership and being able to install and have an offline license is also more important to me then the convenience factor of being tied to a digital store front. 

That being said I'm not opposed to digital, some indie studios don't have the budget for a physical release and or if a game is $5-10 and not full price I'm fine with buying digital since I didn't pay much if its taken away. The option should always be a choice and to be cool with letting big corpos take that away is ignorant and and quite frankly dumb. Lucky for me I don't care about GTA one bit but i feel for the physical media crowd that want it. It's complete BS for a big company like Rockstar and Take two not to offer a disc. Game key cards and incomplete disc builds suck but they are at least better then a code in the box. 

Last edited by shinsa89 - on 30 June 2026

I do support physical,i buy a pew ps2/sometimes a xbox og game every month.



 

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http://www.youtube.com/user/klaudkil