Do you buy physical games?

The only physical games I own for my X1/PS4/Switch are the bundled ones that came with them, i'm digital 100% of the way with my purchases

Although I've gone 99 percent digital on PC I really do miss the old PC gaming boxes from back in the day. I still remember at my local Best Buy where all the PC games use to be kinda of sad we don't have this anymore and AAA PC exclusives.

Yes, having the box just feels good to me

I would buy digital all the time (I started the generation doing this), but Amazon gives you %20 off on pre-orders (and new releases until recently). Digital convenience isn't worth $8-12 on every major release I get on consoles.

Obviously the convenience of digital is hard to ignore. But I just love having a physical item on my shelf. And not having to rely on my internet to play it. I also hate the idea of my purchase being tied to an online server that my go away one day and so I'll never be able to play that game again. Especially for me I mostly play single player story games. The main thing that really pisses me off these days is that most games require patches... So owning the physical copy as a way to always have access to a game regardless of online services closing goes away because it won't be the latest version. I'm still sad that games don't come with manuals :'(

I buy what's cheap. The end.

I still mostly buy physical games for consoles and handhelds, since they become cheaper more quickly (or, immediately if you want to count that 20% amazon discount) and PSN download speeds are abysmal. I also like the option of being able to sell back or lend physical copies. On PC though, I'm all digital all the time.

For everything but PC I'm a physical guy. First of all, I'm just a dirty materialist. Second, I get worried about something unforeseen happening, like maybe all records of my account with all my purchases gets deleted from the system and servers somehow and I'm shit out of luck. Third, I still have every console and game (aside from the ones I really hated) that I've owned, so what's a few more boxes in the pile.

The poll question is bad. There's no way to differentiate between people that buy all physical or those that might buy mostly digital but every once in a while buy a physical copy. Frankly, I'm surprised it isn't more lopsided.

For me, it just depends on the game. If it's a game I will play frequently over a long span of time (i.e. an online FPS or fighting game), I buy digital because I don't want to insert the disc every time.

IMO it's all going more to subscription model. EA is faintly trying but still long long way ahead

I generally buy physical because more often than not, they are cheaper than the digital alternative. The few times a digital game is cheaper, I will get that version. The only exception is Switch, where I'm trying to go digital exclusively. That will likely end when there's a physical collector's edition I want. That's how I ended up with a couple of physical games for my Vita.

If a game's available in a physical form, I will buy it in a physical form.

I get physical whenever I can because it's still faster than downloading, even with all the big patches. For Switch, I plan on getting every game I can physical, because the internal storage on that thing is so small, and eff paying $200 for a big SD card. There's also the option to trade in, and physical is the only way you can save money buying used.

You need 50Mb/s internet before downloading is faster than discs, and crappy networks like PSN can't manage a half of that.

Lol at the incredulity found in the OP that some people may still buy physical.

You can sometimes get things cheaper that way. It lets you easily share the game with others. It's quicker than downloading the whole game for people like me with slower internet. Some people like having the cases.

I understand and enjoy the convenience of digital but it's not like people are buying physical for no reason at all.

In Canada, internet is real damn expensive, and data caps are a bitch. If I choose to download a new game for PS4 that's 1/5 of my monthly limit gone in an hour.

I would probably be all digital (in a world where prices didn't matter) but I don't trust Nintendo not to do something stupid and/or ridiculous either now or in the future, so I have physical copies for the Switch.

Most of my Switch and PS4 games are digital. My X1 games are almost all physical as I send them to my cousin when I'm done with them.

Despite having a Steam account since the beginning, this is the first console generation (I guess it's the first out of two generations, but you get my point :p) I've bought the majority of games digitally. I've had to put 3TB of hard drive in my PS4. mind.

I'll still buy physical games if the deal is good, but I've seen myself re-buying stuff digitally then selling the disc (and sometimes making a profit) recently.

No I prefer the incorporeal copies

For a few years I've been gradually switching from physicals to digital, it's just cheaper and since I never sell any game that aspect of physicals doesn't matter to me. I think it all started with the rise of steam (I have like 450 games and yes I played the majority of them) and its amazing seasonal sales which are miles cheaper than anything physical. PSN lately has been having amazing sales every month or even week as well. I rarely buy physicals.

I got a ps4 in february and I have probably 7 physicals and 14 digital games & I think going forward I'll be 90% digital. Sure, it's nice to have a collection and I have a huge 2m cabinet of games which looks cool but that aspect also matters less and less as time goes on.

Digital is great. I guess it also depends on your connection. I live in a country without caps and I have a 120mb/s connection which lets me download stuff very quickly so that's also a factor. I'd probably stick with physicals if the situation wasn't that good.

I buy physical for single player games on console because it's cheaper and storage space is an issue on those platforms. If it's something multiplayer that I'd want to jump into on an impulse like Splatoon 2 I'll buy digital, but most games I know are going to be in the disc drive for a few weeks and then they'll go back in the case until I eventually want to replay it. Physical also lets me make some money back if I end up absolutely hating a game, but that rarely happens nowadays, I'm pretty good about eyeballing what I will or will not like. And console games also will often become obsolete if a PC or later generation port happens. The Kingdom Hearts HD Collections aren't the best example since they weren't available digital on the PS3, but I sold them when the PS4 60fps compilation was announced and made like $15 that could go towards the purchase of the PS4 version.

Storage space is also an issue, as I don't want to have to buy additional storage for a console. Since the Switch uses cartridges the games I buy physically don't eat into the storage, making more room for digital only purchases or the games like Splatoon that I do buy digital. I'm not buying this one myself, but LA Noire is 16GB, which is half of the internal memory. I will eventually have to get an SD Card for my Switch, but even then the biggest MicroSD card right now is 256GB, and those cost over $100 so I'd like to avoid spending that much just so I can have games digital.

I primarily play games on PC though and obviously there everything is digital. I do have to do a decent amount of uninstalling since my SSD is only 500GB.

@TechnoSyndrome: It's always a little weird to me when someone complains about real-life storage space for game boxes, since for me, I value hard-drive storage space way more. Unless you own so many physical boxes, Jeff Gerstmann-style, that you've filled up entire rooms/garages with your collection, or you live in extremely (like, tiny) limited space, you're just talking a shelf or two. Maybe a storage box you slide under your bed or something if you really have that much. But all of that is way cheaper than having multiple harddrives or expensive flash storage solutions, and way less time consuming (for the vast majority of people at least) than re-downloading 50 GB at Playstation Network speeds whenever you just want to replay Uncharted.

I've ripped all my old PC games onto my pc and have used that version of them to play, otherwise most of it is on steam.

Still waiting for 360 emulators to get into a good state and i'll start ripping all of those games too.

Have recently been thinking of ripping all my gameboy games to PC too but i'm not really in the mood to that right now.

Games that couldn't be properly transferred by ripping have just gotten a pirated version instead.

There's also a surprising amount of abandonware out there, which have compliment the games that either couldn't be ripped or couldn't run on newer windows.

Nope, not for a long time. I hate all the physical boxes I have, I still have a shelf full of shitty Wii games that I haven't played for years. Buying digitally works out great with Steam sales but unfortunately Nintendo doesn't seem to ever lower the prices which is he only downside.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Collecting is part of the hobby for me, although I've switched to digital for the games I deem unnecessary to have physical, either because they are online games or because they need a trillion patches to work anyway.

I'm a big fan of what Limited Run Games are doing, because even if it's largely scalpers market, they are making the push to put out games physically. This has also caused other similar sites to pop up. Special Reserve Games and East Asia Soft have joined in on putting stuff like Shadow Warrior 2, Absolver and Cursed Castilla out on disc. Nicalis has also done some very nice Switch releases, like Binding of Isaac and Cave Story which both come with full color manuals and stickers.

Seeing as how there is such a market for this, I think Atari could have capitalized on their upcoming Ataribox more smartly. Consider the people who still hold the Atari brand in high regard: Collectors.

If Atari had been smart, they'd have put a cartridge slot in that thing, made their own formfactor cartridges that looked like the old 2600 games, slapped some retro-looking stickers on it and then made, like, 3000 physical copies of each game as well as offering them digitally unlimited. Take an old game like Luftrausers, which is practically free these days, since it's been in numerous indie bundles and on PS+... I'd be more than happy to buy it again at, like, 30$-40$ if it came on a dope cartridge. With every new release they'd also keep the momentum up with collectors who are on YouTube and social media, keeping the Ataribox in the public awareness for years to come, rather than just being a thing for a week.

I guess Atari is more interested in making Speakerhats than they are in making money.

It's like buying vinyl records for great album art. Fun to flip through and stare at. Functional regardless of how silly it seems.

Does anyone else think that in the future there will be a market for a small-run collectable physical copy runs?

As in, in the same way that these days a lot of electronic music comes with a limited edition small run vinyl release, there might be a future where instead of even bothering to release physical copies in stores, game studios employ a small-run publisher to print out a few thousand or however many really special collectors editions and mail them out after selling them online, or through online retailers that handle similar situations like Play-Asia... and that's their ONLY physical release.

I own very little vinyl, and I have never listened to any of it. The digital copies I have sound better, are more easy to use, etc. I only buy things like, Porter Robinson - Limited Edition Worlds, Sasha - Barbican Live Limited Edition, and I buy it for sentimental value. Usually I don't even open them. Perhaps in the future people will do the same for video games. I know this already exists to some extent, like the Limited Run Games example although that is to get smaller games more exposure, but I feel like eventually, many traditional points of sale will die out due to a lack of demand for standard analogue releases and even Triple A games will follow this model.

I went all digital for the PS4 and Vita and you know what? Games are absolutely massive and you run out of space really quick. Managing a hard drive is no fun. With the Switch I have gone all physical (with the exception of those games only available digitally) and it is great because the cartridges are so small they don't take up any space. I am also just using one of these Hori game cases so I don't have to deal with any box clutter. It is a nice elegant solution.

Also Amazon and Best Buy offering 20% off new games is nothing to sneeze at.

I buy a lot of physical games, they tend to be cheaper when I'm looking and I'm happy to wait a little longer to play it.

Plus my internet isn't particularly fast, on my PS4 I'm usually downloading at about 1MB/s, so downloading anything isn't a quick process, and steam isn't much quicker, its usually around 1.2

I mostly buy digital but in the seldom cases where the physical copy is cheaper or the same price (after taking into account exchange rates), I get that. Such recent cases this year where physical was cheaper for me include RE7, Nier Automata and Prey. I'm also getting the new Dishonored expansion physically as it's the same price as digital. Wolfenstein 2 though is much cheaper digitally, so I'm going that route.

I still have my Half Life 2 box :P

with how god aweful slow Spectrum internet is (and the way net neutrality seems to be going) I am totally fine buying my disc's from amazon and waiting a day or so to play them... plus 20% discount.

The reason is simple: price. A lot of times, physical games are much cheaper than their digital counterparts. I go to best buy, use the gamerclub, and it is cheaper for a day 1 purchase than digital.

I only buy physical and I only buy new. With GCU, new games are $48 on day one, which is when I buy most of my games. Swapping a disc has never been an issue for me.

Moreover, I don't want to be downloading that much data every time I want to reinstall a game.

I don't own a car and I like the idea of being able to re-download a game whenever I feel like (though I likely never will), as well as being able to jump from game to game to app to game with clicks of buttons rather than shuffling boxes around and just picking one thing at a time. I haven't bought a physical copy of a game since the copies of inFamous Second Son and NBA 2K14 I ordered with my system initially.

Most of my PS3 stuff is second hand physical, just that much cheaper. Last physical PC game I bought was probably an import version of Saints Row 3.

I rent so it too much hustle to clutter my space up with more stuff.

I came to the realization that i need to buy more digital this weekend.

In a moment of pure laziness, I passed up playing SFV, Injustice 2, Strafe, Flinthook, and Hyper Light Drifter simply because I own the disc versions and didn't want to remove my ass from the couch to fetch them.

I instead played Battle Garegga and some Everybody's Golf before going to bed. Both great games, but the fact that I passed up 5 games I would have rather played at the time made me realize I just want all my games digital.

It's the era of digital. Everyone buys from Steam and other markets. I haven't had a CD Drive for years...

The shop nearest to me that sells games only ever has the obvious games and the people there are clueless and unhelpful. I like a lot of quite niche stuff so digital was the only way, now I buy everything digitally even if it does cost ~£10 extra (£55-60 is too much imo). I like having access to all my games without having to get up and change the disk, although I do miss having a physical item to show for it.

I also have a (probably paranoid) anxiety about the digital distribution chain going all fucked and me not having access to the games I bought in the future, but by then I'll probably be able to emulate that shit so it's digital all the way for me I think.

I've been making less money than I had in the past so physical. It's nice to be able to ebay a few games if I need to.

100% yes. There's the whole monetary thing, like some people have posted, you can sell you games and get that $$$ back for new stuff.

For me personally, I want to know that I will be able to play these games for years to come. I'm on the nutterbutter end of the spectrum where I have extra consoles in case one breaks. But I want to be able to check out Persona 5, 20 years from now if I feel like it. For me there's always the fear that a service will go down, then I won't be able to access all the content I paid for already.

Physical unless the digital form is cheaper. Finding sales for physical products on systems like the 3DS or Switch is cheaper than the digital alternative in most cases.

I've been primarily PC since 2005, and PC-only since 2012. The last physical release I bought was the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Never looked back.

Never full price, but I'm still buying a fair number of second-hand Xbox 360 games. There was no way I could buy and play every notable game for the console during its very long life cycle so this is an affordable way to catch up on a lot of those games and look for some hidden gems.

Nope. I like to keep my belongings to a small number in case I have to bug out in a hurry.

@matoya said:

I can't believe I'm the only one saying this:

I buy physical copies so I can sell them once I've finished. In this day and age, with so many games coming out, I never have the time to play a game twice. So once I'm done with it, I sell them on.

I just recently sold this stack for £250, which has got me enough money to buy a Switch. Why wouldn't I?

I like to buy digital games so I don't get tempted to sell them. Atleast that was the case in the early days of digital games when I actually might be tempted to. Now if I go to EB Games (Gamestop, but Canada) the only thing I might buy is a nerdy hat or maybe an amiibo.

I like having a collection, so I buy as much physically as I can, with exceptions for Steam. Swapping discs and storage can be a pain, and bandwidth/data caps aren't a problem--I just like having something on a shelf.

I do, on PS4 because I have some friends that own one as well and we share the games sometimes. Also my account is from a different region, so I can't have my credit card/paypal connected.

And on Switch I do because the hard drive is too small =)

Used too, but I'm loving the on-demand availability of going completely digital. I know my money is technically buying a temporary "right" to a thing that will one day vanish, but man when it comes time to moving and migrating, there's.. literally nothing else to move aside the console. It's always way easier to prevent pets and children from figuring out fun new ways of destroying fragile disks :)

Bonus: No disk read errors and infinite spinning, + better load times = good times (once the download is done of course)