If you have to burn the files to a disc, why purchase digital?Vigormortis said:Johnny Novgorod said:snipHairless Mammoth said:snipSomething Amyss said:snipWhy even create a distinction between physical and digital?inu-kun said:snip
Every single digital game I've purchased on Steam or GoG is stored either on a storage harddrive or a physical DVD, or both. Whenever I purchase a game from one of those storefronts I immediately download it and proceed to create a backup of it on an external/internal harddrive or burn the files to a disc. Hell, Steam even has an in-built utility for making backups of your games.
This way, regardless of whether I have internet access or not, or even if either respective service becomes unavailable for some reason, I will always have a physical copy of the game.
Honestly, I've never understood the desire to view digital downloads and physical copies as vastly different entities. With the tiniest of effort you can have all the benefits of digital downloads and all the reliability of physical ownership.
:/
I never said discs are infallible. Indeed if your discs are scratched,[footnote]But light and medium scratches can be fixed by taken the disc to a store with a professional resurfacing machine. Most of the time the disc looks almost new afterwards.[/footnote] broken or stolen you lost those games. Also, there is a thing called disc rot. So you do have a point that downloads offer more security in that area. All I can say to that is take care of your discs and don't let your kids/ younger siblings use them as Frisbee substitutes.DoPo said:Erm, what happens if a disk gets scratched beyond readability or it breaks? How is it that only DD is in threat of your game never being playable again, yet a physical copy is seemingly immune to this fate?Hairless Mammoth said:but what happens when the HDD or the whole console goes out.
The formats are not too much different anymore, with the way PC and the two recent consoles handle most game data. Although, I feel the licensing differences between them still necessitate some distinction.Vigormortis said:Why even create a distinction between physical and digital?
Some PC clients and DRM systems might allow you to make backups (which was handy when I switched to an SSD). What about console games? AFAIK there's no way to copy games onto an external drive with the PS4. The xbox and the Wii U might allow multiple copies of a game between the on board storage and the external drive or two external, though I'm not familiar with using externals on either system.Every single digital game I've purchased on Steam or GoG is stored either on a storage harddrive or a physical DVD, or both. Whenever I purchase a game from one of those storefronts I immediately download it and proceed to create a backup of it on an external/internal harddrive or burn the files to a disc. Hell, Steam even has an in-built utility for making backups of your games.
This way, regardless of whether I have internet access or not, or even if either respective service becomes unavailable for some reason, I will always have a physical copy of the game.
Honestly, I've never understood the desire to view digital downloads and physical copies as vastly different entities. With the tiniest of effort you can have all the benefits of digital downloads and all the reliability of physical ownership.
:/
Because we understood what he meant and didn't decide to talk about something else entirely.Vigormortis said:Why even create a distinction between physical and digital?
Figure that. Two days ago, for the first time in years I thought I'd get myself Fallout 4 for PC on DVD so I'd save myself most of the download to spare my data cap.Johnny Novgorod said:I prefer physical copies. They just seem more reliable to me.
1. You don't need to have one game per disk, you can have many, thus reducing the amount of plastic you need.Johnny Novgorod said:If you have to burn the files to a disc, why purchase digital?
Where the heck were you 8 years ago when they started doing this for PC? There was a huge controversy over people buying hard copies of games, only to find a digital download code inside.Lufia Erim said:There is nothing i love more than looking at my bookshelf and seeing the wide arrangements of videogames i have purchased across the years.
That being said i cannot deny the convenience of purchasing a game via digital download. No need to disc swap, an entire library at my fingertips.
I was wondering if anyone else would like to have the best of both worlds. I would love to see retail box games with a digital download code , to be able to have my box all while having the convenience of being able to play my games without the disc.
Console MMOs already do this where the disc in the box comes with just then game client installer and a code to activatw your account ( example : Final fantasy 14).
Here are my questions:
a): do you prefer digital download or physical copies?
b)would you like the see physical copies of games with digital download codes inside.
C) do you think this is a good idea and will ot catch on?
Edit: im talking mostly about consoles because i don't think PC games have hardcopy releases anymore.
I don't have to burn them to a disc, or store them on a backup hard drive. But doing so gives me the benefits of owning a physical copy after I've already gained the benefits of buying digital.Johnny Novgorod said:If you have to burn the files to a disc, why purchase digital?
For all intents and purposes, your ownership of the files doesn't change, whether you've bought digital or a physical copy. So in that regard, there's no difference between the two formats.Hairless Mammoth said:The formats are not too much different anymore, with the way PC and the two recent consoles handle most game data. Although, I feel the licensing differences between them still necessitate some distinction.
Some PC clients and DRM systems might allow you to make backups (which was handy when I switched to an SSD). What about console games? AFAIK there's no way to copy games onto an external drive with the PS4. The xbox and the Wii U might allow multiple copies of a game between the on board storage and the external drive or two external, though I'm not familiar with using externals on either system.
They sure are not going to allow us to burn discs with their console games on them, even if the games are encrypted to just one system/account. (It might be a nice feature if the investors didn't think it would somehow cause rampant piracy.)
Except that "mostly" doesn't equate to "only", and his primary assumption of "i don't think PC games have hardcopy releases anymore" was wrong. As a result, I felt like pointing out that the common distinction people make between digital and physical isn't quite as significant as people assume it is.Something Amyss said:Because we understood what he meant and didn't decide to talk about something else entirely.
Also, because he specified primarily consoles, so much of your response is irrelevant.
But mostly that first part.
Nor do you need to accuse me of being snappy. It's untrue. I answered with an understanding of what the topic is about. That's all.Vigormortis said:You don't need to be snappy.
I got burned like that with my physical copy of Homefront. The disc only had the steam client on it, it had to download the whole damn thing.Cowabungaa said:Figure that. Two days ago, for the first time in years I thought I'd get myself Fallout 4 for PC on DVD so I'd save myself most of the download to spare my data cap.Johnny Novgorod said:I prefer physical copies. They just seem more reliable to me.
Turned out the disc didn't work, and even if it would've I still had to download like 19GB, so I still had to download it all.
You think you do well for once, buuut nooo...
Physical copies. 10 years in the future I want to be able to pop in a disc or a cart/card and play. I may be playing an non updated version but that?s better than no version at all in most cases.OP said:a): do you prefer digital download or physical copies?
Worthless waste. You are still dependant on servers being up and running and your consoles ability to connect to them. I buy games, not box art.OP said:b)would you like the see physical copies of games with digital download codes inside.
Terrible idea and no, it won't catch on. It is a waste of money on the part of the publishers and they will eventually just stop doing it. A box with a download code has the publishers paying for distribution twice, once to manufacture the box and ship it to stores and a separate distribution cost when you download the game. I am sure that they get charged something by Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo every time a person downloads a game for the first time. A box without a disc is an unnecessary cost to publishers and I wouldn?t expect it to continue on a large scale.OP said:C) do you think this is a good idea and will ot catch on?
I have had hard drives fail from normal use. I have never scratched or broken a disc, never! Scratching/breaking a disc is not something that happens by using it as intended.DoPo said:Erm, what happens if a disk gets scratched beyond readability or it breaks? How is it that only DD is in threat of your game never being playable again, yet a physical copy is seemingly immune to this fate?Hairless Mammoth said:but what happens when the HDD or the whole console goes out.