Talking Point #2 - Do You Still Collect Physical Games?

In the great digital age, it’s easy to slip into the comfy slippers of your preferred digital storefront. Be it Steam, the PSN store, or whatever option your ecosystem supports. This author in particular owns a number of digital software whose count is in the four digits by now, not counting the hundreds of ROMs stored on two PCs, a phone, and several modded consoles.

We’re at an interesting crossroads where you don’t have to be physical to enjoy some classic retro action; it is perfectly doable to remain strictly digital and not worry about missing out on the vast majority of old-school classics.

This poses an interesting question: Should you continue growing your physical library? We tend to address and provide some consolation while also hoping to hear your experiences on the topic!

Physical Games​

Physical indies are quite cool, you have to admit!
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Collecting physical copies of games and growing your library can be a healthy exercise in having a hobby. Being invested in something can feel great, and it’s nice to have some atmosphere while looking at great art.

But understandably, others may think it only comes down to that and nothing more besides preservation, and while that line of thinking is quite reductive, it isn’t hard to see how a person can arrive at this conclusion.

Past and Preservation​

Sometimes owning a game you already like, but in physical form, is really cool!

Or, a historically important game! (That… you also happen to like, of course!)​

Perhaps a solid starting point of where owning physical copies becomes highly valuable was in the PS3 era, particularly.

It is rather well-known by now that the PS3 was a really awkward beginning for the digital age; not only did you have to suffer through the pain of a really cool game you wanted to buy only to see it listed as “disc-only,” but the retro PSX-PS2 selection was quite laughable. Don’t forget all the PSP games taunting you for having a system fully capable of running its games but not because Sony was probably never actually ready for the digital transition.

All this combined sets up a lifestyle where you just feel it’s “better” stay physically. Not necessarily due to its positive, but because the supposed “alternative” simply has too many negatives.

But it’s quite nice having these games!​

Best modern racer, don’t @ me.

And best Zelda! I’m making a lot of friends today!​

Sometimes it just feels quite nice owning the real thing, doesn’t it? There’s a satisfaction and sense of security that can’t be quite articulated, and that’s good enough for a lot of us. Simply put, a digital copy really doesn’t “feel” quite the same. After a while, you start to realize just how important it is to actually hold something in your hands rather than it being simple pixels on screen.

It’s one of those “if you get it, you get it” kinds of scenarios. While it’s understandable to be content with the other option, as this author made it very clear by confessing to owning a number of digital games that reaches the 4 digits, physical just feels “superior,” not in an elitist sense though. Those who elevate a nerdy hobby into an elitist competition are the real losers; we don’t speak of those.

Now if only there were more space on my shelf…

So, where do we go from here?​

I… might have an Otome addiction…​

It is understandable that some may struggle to find appeal in the hobby, specially with most earlier issues getting slowly addressed in the modern digital age. It is much easier now than ever to go fully digital and not worry about inserting cartridges into consoles weaker than your phone, but for a lot of us, a full-digital lifestyle is not entirely sustainable.

There are simply too many games that get delisted with no way of owning them again, too many games that are not really great on emulation and/or require being played on original hardware to have proper cultural context for their game design, and above all else, a goofily engineered handheld device that’s too weak to handle more than 20 GBs at the time without an SD card that needs to be inserted into an opening guarded by a poorly engineered kickstand that can easily snap, leaving the SD slot permanently exposed.

Was this part written with a lot of vitriol towards the big N? But, of course! How could you have a written piece from yours truly not accompanied by some lethal dry snark?

So was this all just an excuse to show off your collection?​

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So how do you feel about collecting physical media? Get physical in the comments section below!

 

[radirgy]

rarely nowadays, mostly bc i ran out of room for everything, dont think i bought a physical game maybe 6-7 months ago, some gamecube stuff.

 

[kristycocopop]

To answer your question: F Yeah! As much as we can!!!

 

[Don Patch]

So, yes.
Less of a hobby and more of a principal at this point.
It's paid off so far.
I'm not keen on the way impossibly large companies want users and customers dependent on their shabby services and unreliable promises. Like a dealer and a junkie...
This is how all media seems to want to go and some further (hope y'all are prepared for "Windows-as-a-service" and "Xbox-as-an-app").

"Digital goods" are the norm now. Doesn't stop me from fighting against it, tho.
My games, DVD's, Blurays, etc are all backed up. Helping friends and family with theirs as well. And I'm in the process of redundant mass storage solution for all of it as well. Of course, I'm in the privileged position to be doing so. Not everyone has the resources (or bitterness towards companies) to rail against it.

Preservation is important. Fighting against corporate exploitation is equally!
I'm here for all of it!

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I like collecting retro-games in physical form because you get sometimes flyers and goodies that nowadays you never get on modern releases except you paid way too much for the collectors edition ( which nowadays is more digital than physical too ) .

Im always suprised when i got an ad flyer of an game company which advertises their upcoming ( actually already released ) games that i never heard of on other older Plattforms . Psygnosis did this often with many Ps1 games back then , which they packing a catalouge of their game projects and sometimes those catalouges were thick .

The Classic Xbox , Ps2 , Psp , Gamecube did this often too and were awesome as looking up for new games you look at the flyers and get the name and some screenshots too of those games and look those up in stores or get it on emulation when those games are really expensive .

 

[Vebent]

I still collect physical games to this day. Based on my CLZ Games account I have 880 physical games. With the most being my Nintendo Switch at 202 games. Although the Switch is the most disappointing because developers take advantage of patch downloads by putting half or most of the game in the patch (2K and WB).

I also have 1,000+ in digital games on Steam. Looking back on it now we should've seen the all-digital future coming when publishers stopped pressing PC games. Now if we want a proper copy of a PC game then we have to stick to GoG and backing up the installer to a USB thumb drive or a disc. The thing is, what about the larger games? Baldur's Gate III and Cyberpunk 2077 or 100+GB. I don't think there's a way to put those on burnable blu-rays. I don't think burnable blu-rays are going to be available because of Sony ending support of them. Are we stuck with using USB thumb drives? How long do those thumb drives last? How reliable are they to hold the data compared to discs?

As you can tell I'm a huge proponent of offline backups, but it seems like the most feasible way of having offline backups is buying 20+TB hard drives.

 

[Vebent]

If I took Cyberpunk as an example, theres kind of no point in even getting a physical for that game, because if you got it for PS4 for instance you bought a legit broken game that Sony even pulled from their stores. It's had a serious amount of patching. I believe over 100 updates since launch. So you run into this issue where whats on the disc is really just a temporal part of the overall games lifespan. Nobody wants 1.0 Cyberpunk.

But when you had to put things on a physical disc or cartridge you had to be sure this was made properly and ready to launch. If it wasn't, like on fighting games for instance, gamers would spend years dealing with unbalanced gameplay which over time evolved into new techniques for players to overcome those obstacles. Tekken 4 is Tekken 4, thats it, theres nothing more.

But what's the point in having Tekken 7 or 8 on disc? They patch it every week. In essence there is no "Tekken 7" in the same way there was a Street Fighter 2 on SNES or cabinet.

It was a glorious day we all took for granted to simply go to a store, buy a game, come home, put it in the console, and voila "it just works"

I feel so sorry for kids these days on Christmas and such. Heres your PS5, now make an account giving all your details, pay them for subscription to get online, download the software updates, put the game in, need to patch it, wait for that to install, still buggy because it just got released, half complete, DLC coming next year. Like what a joke. Sure, I'm an adult now, I can build computers and manage all that sort of thing like it's second nature at this point. But for the kids? They're just objects to be used by gaming companies now. They don't care about convenience or others enjoyment they just care about making money.

We have run into this issue in the past of updated games. The problem was you had to rebuy the game to get various fixes. Tomb Raider, for example had several variants. Usually when a Greatest Hits is released that gives the devs an opportunity to apply an update. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, however, was the worst with this. The updated releases would actually remove things. Such as songs or radio stations.

I'm not defending this. I'm only pointing out that we have had our problems in the past with updates, but as you said at least back then there was a need to playtest or have QA on staff. As for today, I would believe multiplayer games would get a pass because they are online anyways and they do need balance fixes.

My issue lies with single player offline games. If the game runs with very minor issues or none at all then why is it required of me to download anything? I bought a disc or cartridge. All of the data should be on that. I don't mean patches to fix a game either. I mean, if you want to play the game then you are required to download half of the game. It makes the disc or cartridge useless. At that point they might as well forego the physical medium.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

If I took Cyberpunk as an example, theres kind of no point in even getting a physical for that game, because if you got it for PS4 for instance you bought a legit broken game that Sony even pulled from their stores. It's had a serious amount of patching. I believe over 100 updates since launch. So you run into this issue where whats on the disc is really just a temporal part of the overall games lifespan. Nobody wants 1.0 Cyberpunk.

But when you had to put things on a physical disc or cartridge you had to be sure this was made properly and ready to launch. If it wasn't, like on fighting games for instance, gamers would spend years dealing with unbalanced gameplay which over time evolved into new techniques for players to overcome those obstacles. Tekken 4 is Tekken 4, thats it, theres nothing more.

But what's the point in having Tekken 7 or 8 on disc? They patch it every week. In essence there is no "Tekken 7" in the same way there was a Street Fighter 2 on SNES or cabinet.

It was a glorious day we all took for granted to simply go to a store, buy a game, come home, put it in the console, and voila "it just works"

I feel so sorry for kids these days on Christmas and such. Heres your PS5, now make an account giving all your details, pay them for subscription to get online, download the software updates, put the game in, need to patch it, wait for that to install, still buggy because it just got released, half complete, DLC coming next year. Like what a joke. Sure, I'm an adult now, I can build computers and manage all that sort of thing like it's second nature at this point. But for the kids? They're just objects to be used by gaming companies now. They don't care about convenience or others enjoyment they just care about making money.

Wasn't it about that games nowadays are very badly or never being compressed to have a much smaller Size overall ?

Many games nowadays arent really efficiently designed and alot of Data-dump is still left there because they cant delete those huge useless files out of the game asap because it would take way much more time to find and delete the real unecessary data while compressing the data competently to trim the unecessary fat of the games huge size . That would actually avoid alot of gamebreaking bugs already if they did .

And many huge files in games are already there that was actually planned to be later "released" via update , dlc or add-on . On-Disc-dlc is to this day a standard in many games nowadays . Thats why data-mining is a huge thing .

Maybe im wrong , but im not that deep into game-developement .

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

That's very true, you can fit so much data on a Blu Ray but then most of your game data needs to be installed from online updates and takes up space on your HDD. That's a complete waste of a Blu Ray and also a waste of your HDD when that data should run off a disc you paid for.



No, it's not because of that that Cyberpunk was broken on PS4, it just wasn't capable of running it, but every version of Cyberpunk at launch was a terrible buggy mess. I don't think it's got much to do with data compression. I think you are getting confused with optimising lines of code and trimming down stuff within the software so that the game can handle it's loads better.

Also I don't think on disc DLC is much of a thing anymore since developers are going away from discs entirely. That was really annoying though when that stuff happened. DLC actually stood for "Disc Locked Content" a few times like with some EA games.

By the way, I am not sure how that is related to data mining if you'd like to explain?

Thank you very much for your clarification .
Im more interested in old videogames with their history behind the development and even there is my technical knowledge about game design very limited .

About data mining : The game data will be opened up and you get every file , data and folder that is included in the game itsself like sounds , decals , skins , models and etc. what the game needs to be build into a functional game .

Through data-mining did people found out about upcoming dlcs , add-ons , leaks and cut-content in modern games and even old ones too . You can reverse engineer Cut-content to some extent to make it work .

But this method needs the right software and/or developerkits to access into the games files .

Thats why many old and new games get videos and showcases about the said cut-content to this day . Its highly interesting stuff and gives an insight how the game was planned out and developed .

Correct me if im wrong because its extremly complex stuff and im just a mere mortal that dwelved into game design only through some documentations and youtube videos . I would even assume that is just superficial stuff that i know .

 

[kokonatsu17234]

honestly, I like the feeling of actually touching something valuable (for me).
personally, its more than just wanting to flex your collection but more on that it feels more secure or idk maybe reassuring to see it with your own eyes and holding it in physical form than seeing the cover on the screen on your monitor.

 

[NoctemDead]

I am actively adding to my physical collection when funds allow. At the same time, I also embrace digital preservation and emulation. I like both. I even have some games I can't play, like Baroque for PS1, because I liked it that much artistically and it was meaningful to me (I also have some physical game soundtracks). I rip all my PS1 and 2 games I buy (very easy).

Some of them I play on the PS2 - I like to turn on a console, play a game, and not have a thousand pop-up notifications, social features, or the pressure in the back of my mind that I should be recording my gameplay in OBS in case I want to make content with it. Just turn it on and game.

Other times I play them on pcsx2. Super easy to pop into for a couple minutes, upscaling for the games that look good with it, save states, I can easily stream or record it.

I have my limits, of course. I'd have to be a very rich man to be buying Rule of Rose or Kuon, for instance. But for stuff that's affordable, I definitely like to have a physical copy of it.

I do buy PS4 and Switch games physically. But a lot of my modern gaming is on my gaming PC and I buy on digital storefronts there. It would be nice to have that collection physically, but then again I don't know where I'd fit the 350+ games that I have, so I'd probably pick favorites to have physically at that point haha

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Ah okay, I completely understand what you mean. It's cool learning about things like that when people mess around with the in game files and code to show people secrets. It also means though that there isn't really anything secret anymore to find in games because these people can see everything inside it quickly haha

Data mining doesn't mean that though generally. That term is more used for when businesses collect personal data, like through cookies, or perhaps they make content designed to get a response and they will mine peoples reactions or demographic information so they can use it to sell more product.

It's similar though.

Thank you again . xD
Looks like im becoming a boomer too lately.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

Digital is more convenient, but physical is better for long-term accessibility. That being said, I still buy physical copies within reason. For example if I'm buying a game for the Switch than I will absolutely buy a physical copy, but on PlayStation it's pointless because oftentimes the physical copy is essentially just a license key on a disk and you still have to install the actual game, so in 20 years the physical copy will be worthless as anything other than a coaster - this is one of several reasons why quit PlayStation with the PS4.

PC is tricky. In the modern age digital is the only real option, but I trust Steam much more in this area than I do console manufacturers. That being said, I still pick up physical copies for indie games on PC (And sometimes it's the only option available).

When it comes to retro games, I prefer to get a physical copy on the original system than a modern collection unless there is something else to make the collection worthwhile.

 

[Brader]

In my view physical will be dead in a few years and will have same fate as PC's today.

 

[Sheepy765]

I enjoy collecting physical media when I can, though it's not always viable with things like price [Silent Hill is incredibly expensive]. If money was no object [and i had a disk reader on my PC] I would 100% collect physical games more often, but right now I only collect physical versions of the games and series I really like, like Kingdom Hearts and Golden Sun.

 

[Reysot]

Sadly because the dying of phisical media(mostly because the way theindustry is working right now)

The only way to get fisical games is by DIY, there is a lot of company dedicated to made 'physical edition' of games with game intrucion and everything.

You can do also all you need is an 900$ paper printer that can paint disc, and dump the GoG Or itchio installer on the disc... s/ Wow what a marvellous we get into it in the industry.

Licencing is simply for control, isn for the money, never was... so it gonna happen eventually, manual have tranformed in to digital manuals and then get kill by an 2hr long tutorial for evanding steam refund...

And still when i re-read my manual of mario double dash of my gc still feel it passion, the brigthful colors, like i was an piece of art by itself.

the mayority of game i have was given to me as gift from friend that have left my coutry by reason 'america fuck yeah reasons' (if you know what i mean) and my n64 and snes cartriges i gifted to my younger cousins with my n64.
Without the physical edition that never ending spiral of gift and be given, sadly simply ends.

And about the Gc i own dont give av signal and have scratched the lens of the mdvd reader. but dontworry i have a wii so i dont bother fixit, is a black one with gc compatibility(weird i know)

 

[G78]

Oh, these digital editions… Sure, they’re convenient, fast, and dont take up space on your shelves. No more dusting off cases or hunting for lost discs. But wheres the thrill of holding a game in your hands, admiring the cover, flipping through the manual, and taking in that fresh (or not-so-fresh) paper smell?
A physical copy is like a good friend it’s always there for you. You can put it on your shelf, admire it, show it off to your friends, and even pass it down through generations. But a digital version? Its like a ghost: it exists, yet it doesnt. Today you buy it, tomorrow the publisher changes their mind, and poof your ownership vanishes into the digital void.
Of course, progress marches on, and the era of physical copies is fading. But as long as I have the chance to buy a game on disc or cartridge, I’ll take it. Whether its new or old, nothing beats the satisfaction of owning a real, tangible piece of gaming history.

 

[Cozycaliban]

I only have physical copies of games that stood out for me as a kid growing up. I was six when I first played Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genesis, which paved the way for my love for Castlevania. For this, I have Bloodlines as a physical copy. The same goes Symphony of the Night, as well as the original Metal Gear Solid for PSX (both in black label, non-Greatest Hits). As for collecting other forms of physical media, I tend to stray away from it. I tend to "purge" things weekly, and donate often. I am not a fan of masses of clutter (I wish my wife felt the same).

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Price point will always be an issue for me before buying. I think I over buy when I do get the chance to head out to a game store and find something I like and would play so I treat myself when I do and regret it maybe 2 years later when I get the chance to play it. This is the life of a hoarder even if I'm functional it's still the same mentality for things I love such as games, books, movies and anime.

 

[Retro Doomer]

I Collect physical Games whenever I can as I distrust those greedy Companies and know that buying a Digital copy doesn't mean you own them,you only buy a License wich they can take from you whenever they like its like buying but not owing its renting at best.So yeah physical all the way for me at least whenever I can afford it,I only buy Digital if i have no Choice because of they price but i am not Delusional and i know that i don't own the games that I buy Digital and only have the temporary license to play them,but sometimes you don't have a choice :(.