Much like DVDs, CDs and even Blu-rays are also dead...

+1. There's no need for anyone to own physical copies as long as the games are DRM-free... save for nostalgia or personal preference, but ultimately software is software and it belongs in the ever-changing fantasy realm of 0s and 1s.

Honestly, the only thing I want(and always will) physically) is books. Everything else is digital. Besides, can you still buy a computer with a cdrom/dvd/BR drive? Haven't seen one in a while.

Why do you think Blu-Rays are dead? I love them.

I want to own the real thing, not files

Why not buy Blu-Ray movies?


You can buy an external one

I'm from Argentina, physical media is not an option.
Like a $60 game cost like $100 or $120 in retail stores and if you buying in amazon with taxes and shipping it cost almost the same, so yeah, digital is the best option for me, plus sales in PC are great too.

We live in a post-optical media world, my friend... it is the flashening :P.

You've obviously never gotten in the Tron spirit :). Information lives inside of your computer... it's not "real" per se. Putting it on a disc does not make it any more real than having a photograph of someone makes them be there.

As much as I loved physical copies in the past, digital is the way to go now (DRM-free of course). Simple reason, space. My tiny apartment does not have enough room to store much.

Same reason I own very few physical book, not enough space. Which is why my new reading standard is Kindle eBooks. I used to love the smell of new books (though I try not to imagine that a tree gave its life for my pleasure).

I try to imagine having 700+ retail game boxes and 2500+ paperback books and only see trip hazards in this tiny space I call home.

A few Tarzan novels, Conan novels and the first 4 hardcover Elfquest graphic (color) novel series are the only things I keep. As well as maybe 20 or so retail game boxes, all of which I'm thinking of just giving away now that I have the digital copies. Though I still have a copy of Skyrim Legendary Edition still wrapped in plastic that I have no clue what to do with LOL. I wish I had read the requirements before I bought it. =(
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I don't know, because they are both bad.

This thread title makes me think of the game "Hitman: Blood Money," which I had bought on disc eons ago.

Then Microsoft made my discs not work via rendering its DRM incompatible with Windows 10.

Then I double-dipped by buying the same game on GOG.

Then I played up to the level where you supposedly/allegedly/theoretically have the option to "redial Sheik," which is, in theory, supposed to make the Sheik walk outside, which is intended by the devs to be an essential gameplay mechanic for that particular mission.

Except that function doesn't actually work with my GOG version, and nothing actually happens when I try to activate the function.

Then I had to do the whole mission over multiple times, since the game has a horrible fake "save system" that doesn't actually let you save & reload your game in a true sense of the word "save."

I was hoping the bugged function was just a freak accident the first time, and that it would work the second time, after I had finally went through the arduous task of repeating almost the whole mission again from the start.

But then the function failed to activate the next times I tried it too, after having re-done the mission.

So, in summary:

- Microsoft made my disc version of that game become defective and unplayable.
- GOG then sold me a digital version of the game, which is also defective and unplayable.

Conclusion: physical media is bad, and digital media is also bad.

Why do you deem optical media inferior?

I prefer physical media wherever possible. On PC, this is basically impossible and the bigger companies on console, who are increasingly not only the only companies who can afford to distribute games but are also increasingly not putting the whole game on disc. Older games are one of those things where the physical thing is always special and you can form a sort of bond with it, as well as the physical thing having a certain value in and of itself. Otherwise you are left with what is basically a license to rent/download a title as long as the company does not care enough to take it away eventually some day. Yes, you can back the games up, which is similar to having physical media, but ultimately without artwork and the "official" printing it's just not got the same value.

Access speeds, capacity & storage density... pretty much everything which brought about the death of cassette tapes and floppy disks as well.

But streaming is still inferior to Blu-Ray when it comes to the picture and the audio quality

Consider:

A digital backup on a HDD pretty much is "physical" media. The reader (controllers, motor etc) and disc (platter) is a all-in-one device you're holding in your hands. It's not much different from simultaneously holding a disc and an ODD drive in your hands, especially when the disc is a data one holding the same files as a drive would.

The difference? How easy it is to access the data, how easy it is to copy the data to a fresh backup, how easy it is to keep your data relevant for future trends in hardware. Professional archivists know the problem well: too much stuff got kept on one type of old storage media and not transferred to new industry-standard media as time went on, so data got lost when the media died or other things required to read them properly just broke. Data only survives if it's allowed to be ported to new locations, and copied in numbers which ensure some failure doesn't result in data loss. There is no one foolproof method to ensure absolute survival.

It's easier imo to keep multiple backups on several storage drives than to hold an entire collection on disc in a cupboard. It's also easier to copy your entire collection to new drives in the future to keep your storage fresh. You can also think about including off-site backups (cloud backups) as part of your solution as well as your local drives. Discs are possible for archiving, but imo they're harder to manage in the longer term. And retail discs ... wow. DRM, disc rot, static versioning, OS compatibility, and the like all make for a challenging time keeping them working.

After a long experience with both... And post some serious thinking. I say physical. Nobody can give me a better version of Vampire Bloodlines, for instance! GOG version comes with unofficial patch incorporated and steam lacks the stylish installer, plus is client bound. Or the GTA TRILOGY, that Rockstar forcibly removed and retroactively cut content, ripping off all the gamers who spent money on their product to buy it whole, because "copyrights"! And now that i think about it, even Titan Quest + Immortal Throne is better, since nerfing + balancing destroyed lots of items that were OP (mostly monster infrequents), plus all legendaries are watered down to dust now.

Besides, even gog takes back things. At least they do not remove entire soundtrack parts like Rockstar, but still, that one Witcher 3 song, which was very good i might add, was felt.

Digital stuff and loose agreements, do provide the initiative and the "rights", to the other party rip you off. Sorry i don't trust anybody anymore. Only what i grab with my hands and stash away. And i trust Microsoft even less, i still operate win7. For which, "good old gaming" cut off compatibility, while big bad steam is still fully operational and supported on them.

A lot of those old physical copies of classics won't last forever. I rather stick to digital now with future where consumer rights for digital goods are better. I would like my games to go to my future kids if ever I was to pass away.

If there's a physical option, I try to go that route (and this is true for everything, including books, music, movies, etc). However, I try to buy DRM-free in any case where I have to go the digital route and GOG is my preference when it comes to DRM-free gaming.

Given the current climate of media, in general, I find myself buying mostly digital nowadays (sadly). I try to buy only DRM-free but given the fact that I play games of all kinds and I don't have a credit card, I do still have to buy off of Steam and Epic sometimes. I'm doing better with buying from GOG more though.

Even so, I hate the fact that we've gone so far into the digital realm. I will always prioritize physical purchases of media but at least we have GOG and other DRM-free platforms to let us do the next-best thing and actually own the games we buy.