Do you prefer physical or digital distribution and why?

Do you prefer physical or digital distribution and why?

Seeing as digital is poised to drive physical to extinction I think the choice is obvious

>being this anti-freedom

Enjoy renting, never owning

You sound just as stupid and retard as the people that still buy CDs.

You own a license to the game either way, numbnuts.

The physical CD is a license. The only difference between the two is that with physical you can lose access to the game through theft or through being banned from a service. With digital you only lose access if you lose access to your account or are banned from a service.

They are one in the same since the PS4/Xbox One landed.

Steam allows you to license, not buy, games. If it were to go down today then the service that handles your licenses would be unavailable

I still buy both, eat a dick

I don't believe in piracy and I don't want to use streaming services. Buying CDs makes more sense than buying mp3s off amazon or iTunes because at least I'm getting something tangible for my $10.

Unless they have some really nice packaging - and I mean REAL NICE that could stand on it's own on design alone regardless of franchise- or come with, again, real nice freebies(not only figurines, could also be cloth maps, hardbound full versions of in-game books, or even a Lens of Truth kind of gimmick); I prefer digital.

Paper was a necessity before, but we are transitioning to a digital society where the need for physical will become less and less. Only reason why paper should survive is not as tradition, but an actual luxury with accompanying expectations and standards. Any nigger can download an epub and read fanfics in the subway on his Hello Kitty smartphone, but it takes a real gentleman to reach for his leatherbound copy of Brentano's Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, pour a goblet of brandy, put a Busoni record, sit in his favorite armchair by the fire and enjoy a night of classic literature.

You're still retarded, favoring a shitty antiquated distribution method, gramps. You're allowed to be some old billygoat buying laserdiscs, wax cylinders, and HD DVDs, but I'll be living in the modern world with the rest of non-tinfoil hat 1st worlders, desu.

>getting something tangible

It's still just data written onto magnetic strips, you fucking tool.

...

>tfw car is new enough to not have a tape deck but old enough to not have an aux port

Literally the only reason I buy CDs.

>people who think they """own""" their games just because it's on a CD instead of a hard drive

Nigger, you don't own shit. Just pick the option that's most convenient for you, and if you don't like it, stick with piracy.

Physical
>Not tied to an account
>Don't have to download the whole game again every time I want to play it
>Sometimes don't even need to install
Sucks that they stopped making physical manuals though

This. Even if you own the disk, if your machine is connected to the internet and patched up to date, the game won't run if the platform it's on revokes the license.

>buy AoE2 w/ the conquerors expansion
>comes with a 190 page booklet containing detailed descriptions of civs, units etc.

Yeah, digital games can't really compare to that. But I do like it when digital games come with a virtual .pdf manual or something similar to make up for it

Physical. I've already gone through one digital distribution service tanking and taking all "my" games with it.

Direct2Drive, when it was still a part of IGN

>game comes with a foldout map of the setting

I will always love when games do this.

I love physical media to show off my collection but that is not possible with the current state of the PC world.

I'd love to make my own physical version by burning cd and printing covers but that maybe harder than what I think it could be

fuck I remember those days, the last game I bought that had something along the lines of that was EDF 4.1.

Forgot to mention the inexorable return to cartridges. Right now they're still a bit more pricey per gig, but they have so many edges over blu rays so once they start mass producing them and it becomes cheaper everyone will flock back to it

Saying digital is better than physical is like saying you'd rather rent an apartment from a shitty landlord than buy a house.

You want to try that again?

You'd need DVDRs and high-quality printers and paper, along with the blank cases. It'd be fucking expensive and ultimately kinda pointless.

>the internet was a mistake

Still the best way to get uncompressed audio, dumb fucks

>Seeing as digital is poised to drive physical to extinction I think the choice is obvious

The fuck does that mean? So if a plague would bring humanity to extinction you'd hope a cure never ends up getting discovered?

The argument was about it being something 'tangible', tool.

Saying digital is better than physical is like saying you'd rather rent a burger than buy a burger.

This.

You buy physical and it's still a digital license that has to be validated through some third-party client, that client goes down and your copy is entirely evaporated, heck, most physical media nowadays only contain a sparce amount of the actual game and downloads the rest serverside, so you wouldn't even be able to get it jailbroken if shit goes down.

>buy retail copy of game from store
>pop disc into computer
>installs to hdd
>begin to play game
>have fun with it and put it on shelf after its time is done
>wish to revisit game in future
>cannot connect to server
>google what's going on
>servers shut down a year ago

Thank god companies aren't going that route.

Wait...

>lose Internet for a bit
>can't stream music
>grab album off shelf
>find 10+ year old pocket CD player, get new batteries
>works perfectly
>kick back in bed and listen to music

pretty comfy desu

...

To make things more pointless I was planning on using slipcases because they'll look like vinyl records but also shortens the life of the disc inside.

Not feeling it. Got anymore?

I like having a nice shelf full of vidya boxes.

It depends on what I am buying.

Console games I am willing to pay more, in exchange for a physical copy of the game and material which comes with it. That means I can own the game, I am free to give away the game, and I am free to sell the game as I choose. Once I buy it for $40 or less, then I'm free to do with it whatever I'd like. It's mine.

Steam games I'm willing to accept that I don't "own" them, and as long as I am allowed to play them as much as I'd like, I'm fine with that. In exchange, though, I pay less for my Steam games than I do physical games. A lot less, in fact. I've not payed more than $20 for any game on Steam, and most were probably under $5. I just don't expect as much from a digital copy, and as such, I don't expect to pay as much for one either.

GOG is sort of a middle ground, but far closer to the digital side (since it is) than the physical. At least GOG has the good sense to include the instruction booklets with the games they sell.

Just do what this user does.

That's laminating and mounting. There has to be some play where they'll get you posters from high resolution art of a game if the custom game cases thing doesn't work out.

physical becuz when i own something i want to hold it and feel it in my hand and have it as a proof of my ownership and be completely be certain that it's mine
digital is all make believe hidden behind accounts,passwords and all that other unnecesary shit meaning that it's only temporary and you never completely own ANY digital games

>all these underage faggots not understanding the glory of a proper box, cd, handbook, etc.
I want off this ride.

>People buying videogames

lol

Physical is just more comfy that locking everything you own somewhere in a smelly PC.

>feels like you own it
>can display your entire game collection

>games that come with a proper box, case, and booklet
That's pretty rare user.

Not if you buy the Big Dick Collector's Edition for Patrician Enthusiasts*

*$399 MSRP. Offer does not include tax. Offer not valid in all regions

Got the titty ninjas endless summer edition for the same price as the game. Shame it didn't come with a statue of one of them or something.

Physical

Digital versions go on sale more often, but physical prices decline more reliably. It's not rare for a digital price to remain within spitting distance of retail while physical price has already bumped down to beyond budget range. For example, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is still a full $60 on Steam, while the physically distributed version is less than a third of the price at under $20. Modern Warfare, a 9-year old game, is still $20 and is uncommon to go on sale, while the physically distributed option is less than a fourth of the price at $5.

Physical versions are also often easier to keep your own files and backups where you want them to. If I want to play straight from disc or C:/BackupFiles/DolphinPorn/Game, that's an option. Digitally distributed versions often do not have that out of the box and require to be inside C:/DRM/Game to run without an Application Load Error and can have problems with being recognized by the service that distributed it. It's ultimately is much better to keep a physically distributed backup than a digitally distributed one.

Then there's other elements like how you can actually switch between physical copies faster than digital copies in some cases as DRM-regulated boot times and mandatory post-game file sync can hamper people even with beefy hardware. Physically keeping a copy also assures not only that you own a copy of the game, but also that you own a specific version of the game that hasn't been forced to be patched.

I still use Digital distribution out of convenience, but DRM-free or physical is always preferable.

DRM is honestly the worst with digital. Ok with new release, but after, why encourage me to pirate instead?

The worst is fucking nintendo with their eshop, digital copies (and the save file) locked to the system?

I get the best of both worlds with my PSP since I can just rip the disks and play the off the memory card. I'll be doing the same with my 3DS when I finally get around to ripping all my carts. Might eventually get a hard drive and do it with my PS2 as well.

>play off my overpriced SD cards

Digital

Physical is for collectors and people trying to upsell to collectors

Digital collection isn't impressive to normies

I have one of those Micro SD to Memory Stick Duo adapters and it's great.I wish I could have something like that for the Vita. Part of the reason I only buy physical on the Vita is because I don't want to waste space on my card.

Digital.

I just want to play games, not be some faggot autist collector.

All storage is physical.

Hard drives have a short life span, while an optical disk (pressed, not burned) can last for decades.

All things come to an end, but the promise of servers is forever