Physical copies or digital copies?

[Guffe]

Hello.
I come to ask you guys a (few) simple question(s).

When you buy games, movies, music etc. do you like to have a physical copy or have you moved completely into the digital era? Perhaps someone is somewere in between, getting a little of both?

I bought Sabatons new album, Heroes, today. It's a physcial copy, then I remembered I bought 5 old Stallone movies, converted to BluRay, hadn't seen any of them and it was on sale so I thought why not. I also pre-ordered MarioKart8 a few weeks ago, so that'll be another one.

Then I started thinking. I like the physical copies, I like having them in the shelf, watching what I've collected through the years. Most my friends are very digital and DL most stuff. I only do that on the WiiU, and even then it's mostly Indie games, which don't have physical releases? or if a game is a lot cheaper in the Nintendo Eshop than in the store.

So Escapees'
Do you like your physical copies or are more of a digital person?

 

[MisterGobbles]

Space is a big concern for a lot of people. Not everyone has room for all of the CDs/whatever they want to have. I'd say anywhere from 75 to 80% of the music I have is digital-only, especially the indie stuff that's only released through that. And all of my PC games are digital except for The Elder Scrolls Anthology. But I still buy an awful lot of physical copies of music.

With consoles, it's a little different. You can't immediately move over your games to the next console if you buy digital like you can easily do with Steam games if you have a new PC, and games are generally the same price, so there's not really much of an incentive unless the games are digital only. I buy almost exclusively physical for the 360 and 3DS.

There's definitely an advantage to having a physical copy in terms of collectors value and personal satisfaction, but right now basically all video game packaging is barebones. With stuff like vinyl and CDs, most of the time you get a lot of stuff you wouldn't get if you just had the digital, like artwork and booklets. Video game packaging is mostly just a box with maybe an insert or two instead of a booklet due to environmental concerns. I think once digital becomes more of the norm, physical games will lean towards having more special packaging - we're already seeing this with most physical versions of PC games.

 

[Queen Michael]

MUSIC: I only buy individual songs nowadays (apart from Tori Amos albums, that I still collect physically), so digital all the way.

BOOKS: Dead-tree editions rule!

COMICS: I buy them digitally if there's some huge bargain going on, or if I'm just lacking one issue that's hard to get physically, like Superior Spider-Man #1.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Physical copies of everything for me, please. I like collecting. I like the "safety of things".

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I probably buy 90% to 95% of my media as physical copies. The only exception being when I can get a ridiculously low price on a game that I was kinda on the fence about buying with something like a Steam sale or Humble Bundle.

I could see space being a concern if I lived in a small apartment or something, but where I am right now it's no big deal. I have a floor-to-ceiling bookcase dedicated to my music library, two of them for my movie library (one for TV series sets and Blu-Rays, the other for DVDs), and two of them for my games (one for PC games, one for console games).

Like Johnny Novgorod above me, I also like having the "safety of things." Digital copies through many services are really just long-term license rentals that can be revoked at any time. I'm really not keen on that. Especially with all the horror stories about people losing access to all of their games on Origin because they criticized an EA game on the forums, or the people who lose their entire libraries of books on their Kindles because someone messed up a line of code at Amazon. No thanks on that crap.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While digital is definitely far more benefitical compared to physical (that is as long your digital copies are up online should your pc/ eletronic device break) but I still sometime prefered phyiscal copies mainly CD alburm.

 

[Elfgore]

CDs: If I can buy a physical disc, I will over buying digital. If not, I'm fine with digital.
Books: I only buy physical.
Games: A mix. If I can find a game for cheaper digital, I'll buy it. If not, pyshical.
Movies: I only own physical copies.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I love that feeling of going to a store, finding something I like, holding it for half a minute thinking 'Yes, I got it', taking it to the check-out, walking out of the store, and going home.

It's like a little adventure with loot and everything.

So yeah, physical. I like having my treasures displayed in my domicile.

 

[Esotera]

I don't have space for physical copies of media. Also digital is generally better for the environment, can be viewed on multiple devices, and is more future-proof than physical copies...which means I almost exclusively use digital media these days. The only exclusion would be magazines, which I very rarely buy.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Physical copies are more appealing to the eyes, and there's nothing quite like unravelling a new game and placing the install disk into the disk drive.

Digital copies, however, are more efficient.

That is the only advantage they have.

Even if I owned the entirety of the trilogy on Origin, my Mass Effect cases will always be a sight for sore eyes.

EDIT: I do feel that GOG's installer does counter this though: I love firing it up, and it somehow emulates that feeling of a physical copy(at least, in the installation sense for me).

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Love physical copies. Love going to buy games since pwning a Spectrum and looking for something awesome on the shop shelves and buying it. Traveling home on the bus and reading about the story and controls. Was part of the fun of buying a new game. Still do that now, except boxed games have fuck all manuals anymore.

Same enjoyment as browsing through the cds at Tower Records in london and finding a new awesome band - though no more tower records anymore. Same with movies and books. Browsing through physical things is more enjoyable than online.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Honestly, digital is fine for just about anything for me (Granted, that only tends to go towards anime, movies and games). I especially enjoy digital downloads, as I don't have to swap anything out again and again

 

[leberkaese]

I like to own stuff as physical copies - but only for putting them into a shelf.
But apart from this: Most of my games are on Steam, I watch shows and movies on Amazon Prime and Watchever (we don't have Netflix, yet) and I keep my books on my Kindle. It's simply more convenient.
Of course, you're highly dependent on a working internet and those companies. But even if something happens and they'll die, you probably get the chance to download everything before they shut down.

 

[Something Amyss]

Depends on what I'm buying. I read a lot, and not everything I want to have laying around. I could resell, but paperbacks aren't worth much most of the time. I tend to buy Kindle sales for convenience and expedience, but I have physical copies of most of the books I love.

Music, I've gone almost 100% digital.

Games...Depends. I have so little HDD space on my 360 that I don't buy a lot of digital. For my PC, though, I haven't bought a physical copy in ages. I think the last game I bought was specifically so my then-girlfriend could use it when I was logged into my Steam account. Bejewled 2, maybe?

Video? I mostly buy physical copies of stuff I want to keep and stream the rest through Netflix or Prime. Streaming quality isn't as good, especially with Netflix getting throttled.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Apart from a few games that I usually buy Collector Editions for (Blizzard games) everything else is digital for me. Exceptions were a few such as Witcher 2 because I wanted to give more money to CDPR.

There are a few exceptions of non CE that I buy physical (CoD, Battlefield etc).

For other media all digital as well.

 

[fenrizz]

BOOKS: Dead-tree editions rule!

It's the only way to read.

MUSIC: Even though I have a nice collection of CD's , I mostly just use Spotify these days.
Convenience is king.

GAMES: I'm fine with either, but I mostly buy digital because of sales and free games.
In retro gaming I prefer to have the real thing and not digital though.

Other than that I use Netflix more than my satellite service, but I value both.

 

[Voulan]

I prefer physical copies of everything but music, which I'll get digital.

I like to physically own the things I buy, but with music it's easier to play just through the computer and transfer to the IPod.

 

[Kotaro]

I don't mind when things are released digital-only, but if I have a choice, I will always go with the physical copy.
The only exception is PC games; if I can get it cheaper on Steam or GOG, I'll go digital then.

 

[ryessknight]

Ill buy digital but i prefere a hard copy. Im a collector by nature and it feels good to own a movie or game disk. Also i dont like the fact that companys can just pull digital stuff from the market in a flash and you just end up wasting money on em cause you deleted one from your hd to make space and when you wanna redownload it its gone. Happened to me on xbla alot. Atleast the physicial copy will still be there for me to use baring dmg or lose. I do like digital though for rare or small games but hd space just sucks nowadays. I hope we dont ever go fully digital. Its nice to have and cool at times but its very unreliable. As for music, well i listen to most if not all of my music from youtube lol, so its kinda a nonissue for me.