I Hate To Admit It, But Digital Distribution Is Growing On Me....

[Grungie]

4 hours ago, runswithspatulas said:

Yeah so? We have every right to decide how we purchase something. I hate going into stores because of the people and the whole Covid thing has kept me from desiring to be in a store with a bunch of other mouth breathers. For shame? What shame? As long as I'm happy isn't that kinda the point?

Even before the pandemic, digital distribution was taking over physical sales. It was also never been a secret that the convenience of digital distribution was that you don’t have to leave the house for it, like why else would AAA titles get digital distribution?

I’m not singling anyone in particular out for this, but an observation I’ve seen that’s pretty common, is that people who are really anal over physically collecting for one form of entertainment they care about are okay with digital distribution of a hobby they don’t care about. I’m a big music nerd, and some people here might scoff at this, but I’ve run across a ton of people who complain about people listening to music through streaming and MP3’s, and tell you that physical is the only way, but they’re okay with consuming video games and movies/shows through digital means.

People who consume all their media via physical means are the true rarities out there.

[Yaramaki]

7 hours ago, runswithspatulas said:

Yeah so? We have every right to decide how we purchase something. I hate going into stores because of the people and the whole Covid thing has kept me from desiring to be in a store with a bunch of other mouth breathers. For shame? What shame? As long as I'm happy isn't that kinda the point?

Clearly my post wasn't meant to be serious, if you feel personally attack i apoligize.

Offcourse you can purchase whatever you want how the hell you want and if buying your videogames digital is you like doing by all means i'm not going stop you. I just like my games physical because otherwise i won't buy it, nobody is going to change my oppinion and stance about buying games/music/whatever digital and since i'm clearly in the minority here that prefers physical media over digital media maybe i should leave this topic for what it is before everybody starts ganging all up on me.

One thing I can't get behind are the excuses of not having to go to a store anyway, just buy it online instead if you don't want to interact or be near other people we live 2022 not in 1995.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Yaramaki

[Crescendo]

It's also growing on me too. But I will still buy physical.

[Grungie]

3 hours ago, Yaramaki said:

One thing I can't get behind are the excuses of not having to go to a store anyway, just buy it online instead if you don't want to interact or be near other people we live 2022 not in 1995.

Well downloading gives the benefit of basic instantaneous level of going to the store with the convenience of not leaving the house like ordering online. It’s like, why bother at that point you know?

[runswithspatulas]

5 hours ago, Yaramaki said:

Clearly my post wasn't meant to be serious, if you feel personally attack i apoligize.

Offcourse you can purchase whatever you want how the hell you want and if buying your videogames digital is you like doing by all means i'm not going stop you. I just like my games physical because otherwise i won't buy it, nobody is going to change my oppinion and stance about buying games/music/whatever digital and since i'm clearly in the minority here that prefers physical media over digital media maybe i should leave this topic for what it is before everybody starts ganging all up on me.

One thing I can't get behind are the excuses of not having to go to a store anyway, just buy it online instead if you don't want to interact or be near other people we live 2022 not in 1995.

it's not that you should leave. it's just the way the post came off. it didn't sound like you were joking. it's great that you like the physical games. none of us said we didn't like them. some of us just like the online option. i'm not in the best of health so it just made me feel like i was being shamed for not wanting to leave the house. nobody is faulting you. to each their own. ya know?

Edited August 22, 2022 by runswithspatulas

[Kane99]

With me, I'm just lazy and prefer the ease of use that comes with digital purchases. The ability to download them a week or so in advance for some games. It's just an overall faster process than buying physical. 

But if it's a game I really want to add to a collection, I may add it one day. But digital will be fine for now. 

[Heatman]

In all honesty, I hardly buy physical games now. I can't remember the last time I got one. In fact, it's not only in video games that I'm been deep down more with more digital purchases, with movies, it's the same thing as well. 

[Akun]

I bought a ton of Switch games on physical just around a month ago. I love the idea of ownership in a physical way, especially with franchises I want to support (one of those games I bought was actually Digimon Survive, and I'm a big Digimon fan). Yes, I could just be lazy and buy it off the Nintendo eshop, but there's just a 'cheap' feeling to buying games digitally that I'm not used to. There's just this insincere feeling to the transaction, because when I don't own the Nintendo cartridge in my hand, there's just a feeling that I don't really own the game. And the reality is, you don't. You own access to playing the game, not the game itself. It's a nuanced difference that doesn't have any major consequences for the gaming world - yet - but the difference exists.

I buy most of my PC games digitally though because buying games off Steam is just so much more convenient than turning on my Switch and loading the eshop (which can take a few seconds to 20 seconds, instead of being able to load the store page immediately like with Steam on my PC), and most of the games I've bought on Steam, I didn't care enough about them to support the physical version.

It is convenient, and I get it. But like I said, it's more about the feeling of ownership, being able to proudly display your favorite games on your shelf. I've even spent hundreds of dollars buying 3DS SMT games off Amazon instead of buying them cheap from the eshop, the eshop that's going to be closed down on the 3DS soon. I want to own the game physically and support Atlus.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Akun

[Heatman]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:49 AM, Kane99 said:

With me, I'm just lazy and prefer the ease of use that comes with digital purchases. The ability to download them a week or so in advance for some games. It's just an overall faster process than buying physical. 

But if it's a game I really want to add to a collection, I may add it one day. But digital will be fine for now. 

It's most likely those gamers that are more like collectors that are always more eager to get their video games on physical copies. It means a great deal to them. I have two friends like that. They would never buy games in digital copies. 

[killamch89]

On 8/8/2022 at 3:55 PM, Kane99 said:

It's the ease of use these digital marketplaces have. I haven't purchased physical games in years now. I got Borderlands 3, but never played it lol. 

It's also easier to keep track of the games you have, easier to access them and so on. I still prefer physical games, because I would love to build my physical collection more. But I'm too lazy these days to the point where I just want to get my games right away and not have to worry about shipment time making me wait even longer. 

Plus you got predownload options, which makes it even faster to play that new game day one. 

Me neither to be fair - I can't really remember the last time I bought a physical game outside of the games that came with my Switch as a bundle. It's not about being lazy - the amount of effort and time you spend trying to acquire physical copy of games can be quite exhausting. Just try to remember the days you'd waste weeks looking for a physical copy of a game only for it to not work because it has a scratch of some sort.

[Grungie]

37 minutes ago, killamch89 said:

Me neither to be fair - I can't really remember the last time I bought a physical game outside of the games that came with my Switch as a bundle. It's not about being lazy - the amount of effort and time you spend trying to acquire physical copy of games can be quite exhausting. Just try to remember the days you'd waste weeks looking for a physical copy of a game only for it to not work because it has a scratch of some sort.

I’m not sure what’s really exhausting about acquiring a physical copy of a game. If it’s a popular title, I can easily get it from a store, and if it’s not popular, I just order it on Amazon. It doesn’t take much of my time to get a game physically.

If the game was brand new, it was a very rare issue to see the disc scratched. I also own hundreds of used disc based games, and none of them were too scratched to not work. I could be super lucky.

I get the convenience of not having to wait for a game to be delivered, but the exhausting nature of physically acquiring a game is completely foreign for me.

[Akun]

On 9/30/2022 at 9:08 AM, Grungie said:

I’m not sure what’s really exhausting about acquiring a physical copy of a game. If it’s a popular title, I can easily get it from a store, and if it’s not popular, I just order it on Amazon. It doesn’t take much of my time to get a game physically.

If the game was brand new, it was a very rare issue to see the disc scratched. I also own hundreds of used disc based games, and none of them were too scratched to not work. I could be super lucky.

I get the convenience of not having to wait for a game to be delivered, but the exhausting nature of physically acquiring a game is completely foreign for me.

But you have to step outside and walk. lol I don't even exercise or jog. And sometimes, I just feel like playing a game immediately in the middle of the night... when the store's not opened. That's how I ended up buying Two Point Campus on Steam at around 12 midnight (not sure if there's a physical version anyway).

I still stand by initial support of physical media though, especially since I've earned a nice $400 from selling my 3DS games. This is the biggest reason why I wouldn't support digital media - no monetary returns. Unless my games could be accessed by anyone on my Switch/PS4 regardless of your account, those consoles won't have bigger monetary values no matter how many digital games I've bought on them. But if I say, "I'm selling my PS4 and I'll throw in a physical copy of Spider-Man as a bonus," that's how my Playstation 4 would get sold much easier.

[Justin11]

On 8/22/2022 at 6:12 PM, Crescendo said:

It's also growing on me too. But I will still buy physical.

You must own a huge collection of physical copies of video games by now.

In the past I only buy physical copies but as digital copies of video games became a thing I just switched and now buy mainly digital copies since they don't get broken and takes a few minutes to be installed on your hard drive or internal memory of your console.

[Kane99]

On 8/21/2022 at 12:26 PM, Yaramaki said:

So we're 2 Pages in and the only excuses i see coming up all time why people go digital only with their games is they are either too lazy to go to a physical store to buy a game or don't have the patience to wait for the damn mail to arrive when ordering something online, for shame on that.

*Shakes head in disbelief*

Eh, honestly you probably won't get the game most of the time these days anyway. With how games are coming out with just the license on disc, or no disc at all and just a code in box. The whole idea of physical media is kinda being thrown out the door, and it's being done by the studios themselves. 

Physical media is dying sadly, not much we can really do to stop it. 

 

[killamch89]

5 hours ago, Kane99 said:

Eh, honestly you probably won't get the game most of the time these days anyway. With how games are coming out with just the license on disc, or no disc at all and just a code in box. The whole idea of physical media is kinda being thrown out the door, and it's being done by the studios themselves. 

Physical media is dying sadly, not much we can really do to stop it. 

Agreed - the whole industry for the most part, has moved away from physical media and won't ever go back to that. It saves them money from paying someone to distribute the physical copies, to ship them and all kinds of other fees such as customs.