Making The Digital Transition

So over the last few months I have been attempting to make the transition to a digital future by purchasing a gaming PC and stocking up on games via Steam. To be honest I am finding the whole process maybe more difficult than it should be. I will say that the games all run better. 1080p, and 60 frames is simply not possible on my xbox but there are just a few things I miss.

The first thing that keeps irking me back is the way everything on a console just works. Like I don't have to spend any time configuring anything. I just put the game in and it works first time. I have not had that experience on my PC. Granted I am not a massive tech guy but sometimes getting things to run in the most optimal way has been a bit of a challenge.

The second is clearly one of those mind fucking things. But I just find it harder to relax playing my gaming PC rather than sat on my sofa on my xbox. It is clearly a mind thing, but I just can't shake it. I know I can't sit on a sofa and play Company of Heroes but sometimes the xbox seems less stressful.

Finally, boxes. I really miss collecting the damn things. I already have a record collection I love and part of my brain is saying just stick to that but I can't help but want to clutter my room up with more shit!

It's tough. I really want to just get over this and move into the digital generation but I'm finding it hard. Has anyone done this and have they got any tips?

Boxes are for show, get a binder put all your games in there NEVER TOUCH THE BOXES again. They are now decorations in your room. I find it better to forget the boxes of games are there. Unless you are 100%steam youll continue buying retail games so dont think about it.

good for you. i enjoy steam a lot. one thing though i don't want consoles to go to digital. i just see microsoft, sony, nintendo doing something where you can't get access to the games, like backward compatibility.

I agree with you on the boxes. Just something about having shelves full of boxes, kind of a look at my collection feeling. You get over it though the first time you have to move.

Cases are okay but it's really the Gameboy, SNES and N64 boxes I have displayed on my shelf since I'm most proud of those. I just recently placed my PS2, GCN and Xbox cases into two 60L containers and moved them into the garage and I'll probably do the same with this generation of games once the next generation hits. I have all my discs in binders anyway so cases aren't necessary.

I've already started to. Getting rid of most of my game and movie boxes and putting the discs in a binder has been a huge mental step for going all digital. It's a slow, difficult continuing effort to break the compulsion of wanting to add a new item on my shelf, but it's certainly nice to have the space.

If it's not too much of a hassle to get your PC to display on your TV give big picture mode a shot. You should be able to relax on your sofa.

As someone that has over 100 DVDs just sat on a shelf being fucking useless I am more than happy for physical media to go away. I have all these DVDs that are not only worthless but also useless, who wants to watch SD content? Who wants to use 4 different discs to watch one Seinfeld season? The sad thing is by the time I put a DVD in and get all the way to watching an episode I could have downloaded the entire season because my connection is that good.

I resorted to pirating all the Seinfeld seasons because using those stupid DVDs with their stupid discs and their stupid crappy FBI disclaimers and their shitty menus is just annoying. Hey you legitimately bought this DVD? Here sit through 10 seconds of screens telling you not to pirate DVDs!

I've gotten rid of most my games, I have 5 PS2 games, 6 PS3 games and 10 Dreamcast games. All my PC ones are digital, which is great because I wouldn't wanna have 300 or so of them in boxes...and digital is an absolute must for PC games, anyone remember having to have the disc in to launch games on PC? That was the worst.

Games are just going to get more and more disposable, the era of really rare games pretty much died after the Dreamcast.

Most boxed videogame products nowadays stink. If you go all out and get a collector's/deluxe edition you may get something decent but most of the time standard in-tray cases don't even come with instruction manuals. You're basically buying it for the cover art. This helped make the transition for me easy.

Are you trying to make a digital transition or are you getting rid of the physical media you collected? I personally kept all the old stuff that has meaning to me.

I buy digital music but that doesn't mean I threw out my records. If anything I started amassing duplicates. Each format just has a different use.

Configuration can be a bitch, but personally I'm the kind of person that like tweaking options to get it the way I like. Fixes are in the pipeline. I installed this Nvidia app that "optimizes" games automatically. (link) The library is small, but growing.