With the disappearance of physical games, are you ok with not owning your digital games?

Perfectly fine.

It's not ideal, but there are the upsides.

I only have finite space. If I have to collect anything then it has to be books. I have no further space for games.

Better for the environment. Less plastics is always a good thing.

Convenience. I can download and access games without getting up to change disc.

More people should go all digital.
 
I only buy digital.

Whatever you wanna call it. (Ownership/ renting etc)

No interest in keeping shelves of disk. As long as game is preserved and available to purchase / rent online, am ok.

Should be available if I get in mood to play it. Even if I have to buy again.
Digital games won't be always available. Steam one day will end. Most games licenses will be impossible to get or not worth it. Many games need servers that die. There are already hundreds of games dead an unavailable forever
 
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doesnt bother me, i rarely ever buy games at launch i just wait till the keys are cheaper before jumping in, when ive finished a game i move on so i dont really care.
 
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Like I figure most people do, I have insurance and would get a payout around current value according to my insurer.
There are collectors insurance for collections. I have done it on some of my other collections in the past and it is cheap and for me would have paid out 11k in the event of a flood, fire, theft, ect.

I bet you can get that for physical gaming collections easy.

However, the issue is that user action would be the suspected cause of the ban. So there is no way any insurance can pay out if the user initiated the action by their own bad deeds. I don't think there is any way to insure a digital library if you can't even get Sony to say why the ban happened.

Any reason they did provide would blame the user so there would be no event in which insurance could pay out(though I have toyed with the idea of some sort or rider to home insurance or a bespoke policy targeting my digital games, sadly I think I would need to contact Lloyd's of London to make that happen).
 
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I recently filled a CFW PS3 with games. Instead of having to download 1tb I simply ripped the games from my collection, very convenient. It takes PS1/2 games as well though I'd rather download them since they they are small enough in size.

Patched most of them but choose not to patch some of them for various reasons like being able to play vanilla SF4 Sagat lol

I'll do the same thing with a CFW PS4 eventually.
 
How is physical disappearing? Every single game I have bought so far the past 2 years that I wanted to play I managed to get physically and every single one of them are actually on disc and perfectly playable. It's only shitty American devs and some European devs that don't give a shit about the quality of their games or scummy shit with no having any data or broken build on disc. Asian physical releases are doing perfectly fine. Good luck trying to take physical media away in places like Japan. I swear the "digital bros" have become the new vegans. Every day there is a fucking thread on here about physical dying. Wake the fuck up, it's not going anywhere
 
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Like Valve is gonna wipe all our libraries tomorrow and say "buy the games again or you're fucked, Gabe needs a new Lamborgini" or something.

I'm still not buying Ubi games because I'm full digital and they showed us bad faith with The Crew, any company that don't respect consumers won't just get away with it, or else, they'd be selling 3 months game access for full price already, which they know won't work as they wish it would.
 
There are collectors insurance for collections. I have done it on some of my other collections in the past and it is cheap and for me would have paid out 11k in the event of a flood, fire, theft, ect.

I bet you can get that for physical gaming collections easy.

However, the issue is that user action would be the suspected cause of the ban. So there is no way any insurance can pay out if the user initiated the action by their own bad deeds. I don't think there is any way to insure a digital library if you can't even get Sony to say why the ban happened.

Any reason they did provide would blame the user so there would be no event in which insurance could pay out(though I have toyed with the idea of some sort or rider to home insurance or a bespoke policy targeting my digital games, sadly I think I would need to contact Lloyd's of London to make that happen).
I mean, how do you insure something you don't own in the first place? It'll never be possible, best bet would be to sue the company which I honestly think would succeed if it reached the European Court of Justice. Someone with a giant digital collection just have to do it when banned.
 
Perfectly fine
Any idiot can still play all snes games ever released in 2025
So i am not worried at all
 
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How is physical disappearing? Every single game I have bought so far the past 2 years that I wanted to play I managed to get physically and every single one of them are actually on disc and perfectly playable. It's only shitty American devs and some European devs that don't give a shit about the quality of their games or scummy shit with no having any data or broken build on disc. Asian physical releases are doing perfectly fine. Good luck trying to take physical media away in places like Japan. I swear the "digital bros" have become the new vegans. Every day there is a fucking thread on here about physical dying. Wake the fuck up, it's not going anywhere
I don't know how you still can't see it, but all the signs are against physical right now. Of course there will always be smaller releases. Just as Dreamcast games are still being released today, but they are clearly dying out.
 
Like Valve is gonna wipe all our libraries tomorrow and say "buy the games again or you're fucked, Gabe needs a new Lamborgini" or something.

I'm still not buying Ubi games because I'm full digital and they showed us bad faith with The Crew, any company that don't respect consumers won't just get away with it, or else, they'd be selling 3 months game access for full price already, which they know won't work as they wish it would.
What if Gabe dies tomorrow. For whatever reason. What happens to Steam then? Will it stay as it was? Or will someone else take over and it will be the same as on other platforms?
 
Digital games won't be always available. Steam one day will end. Most games licenses will be impossible to get or not worth it. Many games need servers that die. There are already hundreds of games dead an unavailable forever
That is a problem.

But maintaining multiple generations of games with me is not feasible.

Digital already is a superior method of game preservation IMO, unless I become a library myself.
 
What if Gabe dies tomorrow. For whatever reason. What happens to Steam then? Will it stay as it was? Or will someone else take over and it will be the same as on other platforms?
Nobody knows, if you're too worried about it, think physical has other disadvantages over digital as well, it's a matter of trades of, I don't trust my physical media not rotting or deteriorating over the years because I'm too lazy for doing maintenance of old stuff, so digital for me, with digital I don't have to allocate physical space to store, and so on and so forth. The advantages surpass disadvantages for me, if a company fucks around my purchases they won't get my money anymore no matter how allegedly good their games are.
 
I don't know how you still can't see it, but all the signs are against physical right now. Of course there will always be smaller releases. Just as Dreamcast games are still being released today, but they are clearly dying out.
I think one of the reasons it'll last longer than most think is Sony and Nintendo do not want other stores on their hardware but the EU will not allow PSN and eShop as the only alternatives. If physical goes away, the EU will force them to open up or leave the European market altogether.

Another more obvious reason is not everyone have the ability to download 100gb games.
 
I understand that from a strictly legal standpoint, I do not "own" these games, but in my actual experience, it feels indistinguishable from owning. I can access it whenever I like, and I can play it whenever I like - just like a physical game. That's good enough for me, even if I don't technically "own" the game. I've never had a digital game taken from me because of something I said or because a company went under. Maybe if that happened on a large scale, I'd change my mind, but that seems like unlikely to me.

I used to prefer buying physical games, but the convenience of digital won me over. I know that disc-swapping is a trivial chore, but once I got accustomed to the convenience of just pressing a button rather than having to get up and change discs, I found disc-swapping kind of a bother.
 
Okay with it? No.
Can I do anything about it? No.

The PC lost that battle, and the Switch 2 will likely follow the trend of mostly digital games. The rest of the console market is pushing heavily toward digital as well.
 
Definitely not ok with not owning my digital games. I don't multiplayer that much but every month on 1 of the videogame forums someone is always getting their account banned.

9/10 it's for stupid shit and they broke terms of service but occasionally someone gets snared. SIE customer service is 1 of the worst in the entire world. They truly don't give a shit no matter if you have 10s of thousands of dollars of games or a million trophies.

I don't trust them. Their incompetence is legendary and that's really my only fear.
 
No. absolutely not, i'm not paying now upto 80 quid for a game that can be taken away at any point, and being told i don't own it, it's why i stopped buying Ubisoft's games after Valhalla, they can try and do this and i can just as easily keep my money in my wallet, which the game industry is now finding out with the low sales, crazy business tactic as far as straight up sales go.
 
We adapted to not owning our music. We're coming to grips with not owning our movies. We'll get used to not owning our games.

The real question is: If you're actively against it, what are you going to do about it?
 
We adapted to not owning our music. We're coming to grips with not owning our movies. We'll get used to not owning our games.

The real question is: If you're actively against it, what are you going to do about it?
I'm glad you asked.

I'll use man's most potent weapon against it.

Ridicule.
 
no
and i want cool box art and manuals too

plus the evolution of physical media is fun to watch
from light and largely hollow nes cartridges, to black ps1 discs, to heavy n64 cartridges, to psp minidisc thingies, to blu ray, to switch carts...
 
I have lost ton of physical games over the years, meanwhile every single Steam and GOG game I purchased in the last 22 years is still ready to be downloaded at moment's notice. And with GOG I can make offline backups anytime. So no I am not really worried.

Subscriptions and streaming is what actually sucks, should it ever become dominant. And console shops are also lot less reliable than PC ones, due to time limited nature of consoles.
 
I have lost ton of physical games over the years, meanwhile every single Steam and GOG game I purchased in the last 22 years is still ready to be downloaded at moment's notice. And with GOG I can make offline backups anytime. So no I am not really worried.

Subscriptions and streaming is what actually sucks, should it ever become dominant. And console shops are also lot less reliable than PC ones, due to time limited nature of consoles.
Well fucking said, sir. I came to say the exact same thing!
 
No offense man, but that sounds like a you problem.
And?

The whole point was it doesn't matter.. it's not your memories and you can't take it with you when you die and it's not going to go up in value because it will be easily had digitally so it will only end up a burden to your family and thrown away eventually. 🤷‍♂️
 
I think you're assuming physical game fans will simply surrender and buy digital games at the same price. Maybe some will, but me? I'll mostly wait for deep sales before I buy most digital games, so knowing that, I don't really give much of a fuck about true ownership when the game cost me the price of a candy bar.
 
And they will bury them with you and call you Pharaoh
Lol, my point is people just want things for as long as they want to keep them.
I know not everyone is like this, even back then you had people that only rented games/films or would exchange them.
But I like to replay a series just before a new entry is released and because I own every original release...I can.
 
Lol, my point is people just want things for as long as they want to keep them.
I know not everyone is like this, even back then you had people that only rented games/films or would exchange them.
But I like to replay a series just before a new entry is released and because I own every original release...I can.
Yeah I'm just shitposting :)

Will be a personal thing. I generally don't replay games unless they are excellent. Retro games etc. just arent for me. I have limited time as it is. I even needed a remaster to play through zero dawn again.

Digital works well for me. Until I ever get banned. And if that day ever comes.

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I'm ok the absence of clutter and convience more than makes up for any resell value for me. I can only imagine the space I would lose and clutter I would have if all the games i own were physical.
 
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As someone who has been gaming since the atari 2600 .. I am totally fine with it. Almost every single physical copy of old games I have had has either broke, scratched all to hell, or got thrown away in a home move at some point. I have steam games older than most of the physical copies of games I have that still work.
Also who are you saving them for? To be worth $5 as a conversational piece on antique road show 2049?

my motto now is enjoy the games and save the memories. My memories of playing SF2 and mortal kombat in the arcades greatly out weigh having the physical copies.
I feel the exact same way.

The only physical games I really care about are my 80s/90s computer games, because that was a time period when (most) publishers cared about packaging and there are some awesome boxes, manuals, and pack-in gifts in my collection.
 
This is the bullshit future of gaming. Funny how people are quick to blame Nintendo for the $80 games yet Microsoft not releasing and seemingly making it a standard for consoles is not criticized seemingly as much (yes, I know Steam has been doing this for years but with the introduction of gamepass this is what you get).

So, suck it up people. This is what the majority want. You truly do get what you deserve.
 
This is the bullshit future of gaming. Funny how people are quick to blame Nintendo for the $80 games yet Microsoft not releasing and seemingly making it a standard for consoles is not criticized seemingly as much (yes, I know Steam has been doing this for years but with the introduction of gamepass this is what you get).

So, suck it up people. This is what the majority want. You truly do get what you deserve.
Microsoft is not the market leader so no one gives a shit and like you said most people enjoy digital so why would they criticize it.
 
Microsoft is not the market leader so no one gives a shit and like you said most people enjoy digital so why would they criticize it.
Microsoft doesn't need to be the market leader in consoles to have a massive say in what happens. Besides, want to game on PC? Microsoft would love for you to have Windows to play the VAST majority of games. And we all know PC is sticking with physical games...

Either way, console gaming was physical. With the introduction of consoles without disc drives and subscription services, why the fuck would people want or need physical media?
 
We are closer than anyone thinks to a streaming only gaming future. Might be the ps7 generation or ps8 but it's coming sooner than anyone thinks.
 
My Steam account is 20 years old, you bet I'm ok with digital games. I miss not lending a game to a friend though, but otherwise it's much cleaner and practical having a virtual library.
 
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