I'm despising the growing trend of devs/publishers not offering a physical option for consoles (looking at you, Alan Wake 2). I like having the disc on my shelf, especially if it's a series.
Do they even make physical PC games anymore? Last ones I bought were either discs that immediately downloaded an updated copy of the whole game, or the box just contained a download code.
For the switch I buy physical, but it may be the last console where that makes sense.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. The last "physical" PC game I bought was Mass Effect Andromeda, and it was just a box with a code. I still buy physical Switch games, though, but partially because I get them with Amazon reward points, which sadly aren't usable on digital items.
I think the last console game I bought was Metroid Dread, but I leaned physical for those as well, because their digital storefronts are a single point of failure. I've witnessed first hand a friend of mine getting frustrated with a now-sunset Xbox 360 store, a problem I could see coming a mile away even when I was in high school when the console launched. On PC, if Steam disappeared tomorrow, I could pirate my entire library. If GOG gives me a week of lead time on their store going away, I could legitimately back up those games.
Digital is more convenient. I have shelves of old games and consoles that I'm working on culling rather than expanding, especially as someone who tends to move to a new apartment every couple of years. Physical often tends to be a false sense of security in the modern age of day 1 patches and other kinds of server dependency. DRM-free is actually what you want, unless you really, really enjoy the tangible aspect of the game. Outside of nostalgia, I don't think it matters to me.
On PC I’ll buy digital because worst case if it comes unavailable I’ll torrent a copy.
For consoles I am staunchly in the physical camp because it is more likely I’ll be able to play those games in 10 years when the maker has shut down their store.
I don’t really have a strict one or the other preference anymore.
Nintendo 1st party stuff I always buy physical, Dreamcast I collect for so that’s physical too but for Xbox I buy mostly digital when on sale. I guess for Xbox its different because I have Gamepass (the £1 upgrade deal they used to offer, still 18 months remaining, but I won’t renew) so I haven’t bought a new game in like 2 years now. The there is PC… My games are all over the place!
Plus with a family we just dont have the space to keep everything forever that we buy anymore.
I prefer roms and emulators above all else as I know that as long as I back them up I’ll be able to play them. Other than that I use steam for convenience as a linux only gamer but I’m all for gog and their DRM free stance.
As for physical. The hardware fails unless its a ps2 😄. So at the end you are left with a ton of discs and you Will have to rip them to play them. Also some games are just shipping unfinished on disc and need to download patches or whatever.
Nothing changes for you, if you already own them. They’ll still be in your library like before. Visually, the only difference will be that those specific games will have no store page
I don’t know about this case specifically, but I own Alan Wake on steam which has since been delisted because of music licenses running out. At least for that one, I still own the game on steam and can download, install and play it normally whenever I want, it’s just that people cannot buy it anymore through steam. If you’re lucky, it’s gonna be the same with the adult swim games.
Alan Wake is actually back on Steam! Remedy was able to work something out with the music rights (the reason why it was delisted) that put it back on virtual storefronts.
Obviously in this case, no more updates. If there’s a server, it’s getting shut down. And no new players will buy it. So player count will decrease until it’s a dead game, even if multiplayer is peer to peer. But I doubt that’s the case.
For console games I always buy physical but for PC I buy digital. I have a ton of Ps1 - 5 games that I have physical copies of and they get played alot . My son is also getting into gaming and he likes to look through the games on my shelf to find fun things to play.
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