Should we stop buying physical copies whenever possible?

I know it's nice to have and all but we're experiencing a huge problem with plastic and trying to cut down on its usage. For a large chunk of the developed world, there's no reason to go physical over digital aside from personal preference at the detriment of our environments. I personally try to go digital as much as possible and in the past 5 years have bought only two games in disc format. Back then storage was a good argument but now you need the games installed on your drive anyway. Except if you own a Switch that is.

Of course it's different for people who live in areas where the internet is painfully slow but those who buy physical copies just because they like it should think twice about it.

@Juub1990: I prefer owning physical copies of Switch games to save on storage and sometimes purchasing physical versions is just cheaper than what is being offered on PSN/Xbox Love or e-shop.

Think of all the fossil fuels that get burned to power the internet and all those servers you are downloading from...

No.

Blog it......and bull shit on the bolded text.

@Shewgenja: That doesn’t even answer the question in the OP.

I wish physical copy if any game would come with a one time redeemable digital copy of the game too. So you get to keep it in your library forever. I love how got did it. If you buy Witcher 1 and 2 from steam you can also redeem them on gog. But these greedy fucks would never give us this option.

I still need to buy Nintendo physical games.

I agree. Think of all those plastic CD and DVD's and cases we will leave in land fills after we're all dead. Millions of them!

And yet we all survived E.T!

Take it you don't care then?

Dude plastic is not the problem, the problem is people not disposing of it correctly.

If they find a viable replacement for plastic that'll just end up in the same places that plastic does.

Prevention is better then cure and they're trying to cure the problem by replacing plastic instead of educating people on how to dispose of it correctly thus preventing it from ending up in places it shouldn't.

After dealing with Itunes and Steam I'll stick to physical for the majority of my media. I don't like greedy corporations having control over my media. I have a gaming pc and I use steam a little. My internet went out 15 times in the last 3 days. I couldn't have played anything if I wanted to. Apple screwed me over on a ton of music when I switched to digital. I won't make the same mistake with my games.

I like those physical games with nice box.. that will never change because I’m a pro artist and always like a nice design package.

No, I prefer physical games.

@Juub1990

its not about the enviroment, we are well past the point of no return on that one.

its about convenience

What kind of fool throws games away when he can either sell them to another person or keep them entirely?

When you die who's going to want them. Nobody that's who. So they will go in a landfill or dumped in a forest or something.

That is like asking whether we should stop using coins or paper currency and use cryptocurrency instead.

I'm honored to know I carry the gaming hobby on my shoulders and with me it ends!

Are you insane?

I just got Dissidia NT for 20 bucks. No one has it that cheap digital.

Nah. I still prefer getting my games on physical format and will continue to do so whenever possible. I do the same with movies, music, and books. I prefer having to rely on as little outside influences as possible and getting my stuff on physical media allow for that. Plus I just love how my collection looks.

its not about the enviroment, we have passed the point of no return so that is no longer an issue.

the issue is convenience.

I am about to retire, I live in an RV, 192 square feet, I could go even smaller. ALL my movies, hundreds of albums, hundreds of games, almost all of it is digital. and most of it is in the cloud.

I can go almost anywhere and be on the road with everything I own in just about 2 hours

I'm sure groceries and shopping bags use up far, FAR more plastic.

If you want to. I prefer to just buy digital.

I still buy physical copies for PS4 because PSN is an atrocious service and takes forever to download games even with a gigabit connection.

@tryit: What are you even talking about witj your "passed the point of no return"?

@onesiphorus:Most of the money is already scriptural and not physical. Kind of a terrible example because we already favor scriptural money over physical money. Not to mention people won’t simply put money in the trash bin.

so what people have been saying for decades now is that global warming will reach a point in which nothing humans can doing to reverse it.

we have passed that point. So if global warming is going to kill off humanity anyway, why do we care about a little extra garbage? and yes I am serious

First of all it's climate change, not "global warming". Second, throwing plastic in the oceans has nothing to do with climate change.

its like you didnt read what I wrote

IF people are going to die from 'climate change' (or whatever moniker doesn't rage you into a SJW)

then extra garbage (which is not 'climate change' or whatever moniker doesn't rage you into a SJW) does not matter.

get it?

the house is on fire, who care about the dirty dishes.

the hint is in what I said the first time

Our environment? No one gives a shit. We messed up. Ride it out.

No. Not sure it matters much at this point anyhow.

Every day I keep finding more and more dumb shit on System Wars.

Read your post slowly and carefully. Be amazed at what little sense it makes.

Leave the choice to the player. If they prefer physical, so be it. Me? I used to prefer physical as well. Nowadays? I prefer digital although it wasn't motivated by any concern for the environment. ;)

I used to prefer physical when the box content used to be like the one below.

Hell No

By that argument then you shouldn't upgrade your PC or buy a new one.

Hell No! I love physical media and I'm going to continue to buy physical media until it is no longer available for me to buy.

And it will be horrible for gaming if we ever get to the day when physical media is no longer available because then games can just be removed from servers at anytime and you would then have no way to acquire the game. There are already many digital-only games that are now impossible to acquire since they were removed from the servers. If these games had a physical release, people that want them would still be able to get them in the Used market, but since they were digital-only, they are now lost to history and that is sad. Physical media forever!

People should always have that option, especially for those that live in "rural" areas that don't have access to faster broadband. Now, if Sony and MS stop being little bitches and have discounts for those that buy games digitally, I think they would have something...

Do games on disc still exist?

@Juub1990: Are people really going out to buy games to then throw out all of the game cases? Do we have any solid metrics on that or is this your assumption?

I don't think this is a good enough reason to move to digital unless we have good evidence that video game discs and cases are filling up landfills and killing wildlife.

If you have a problem with excessive waste then why not start to dispose your trash correctly? It won't end in a landfill if you recycle it. Problem solved.

The only way I would switch to digitally owning games/movies is if they cost at most 10% of the physical price. Paying the full amount for digital copy is an outrage.

Also, when you factor in all that it costs for a company to print a jacket, and a Bluray, stuff those in cases and seal 'em up, ship them all over the world- you are getting something instead of (quite literally) nothing. Get your money's worth: rule number one.

Your vote doesn't matter, and if you think you yourself hold any sway I've got a digital bridge to sell you ;)

Case in point: PT. It'll soon be wiped off the face of Earth

I don't want all the stores that sell physical goods to go out of business so no. As people buy everything online or digital, people lose jobs. That will happen, but it will not be because of me. Same reason I do not use the self checkout at the store. It costs peoples jobs.

I pretty much go digital most of the time now. I usually wait for games to go into sales as I don't really play multiplayer games and I have quite a back log. I think the last physical game I got was Overwatch in May 2016, so 2 years digital only.

With installs and physical games having no manuals or goodies, they aren't worth me getting anymore. The only reason to go physical is on brand new games (UK is usually 30-35 Physical vs 49 digital) and trade in/second hand market.

i really do not support the idea of keeping jobs just for the sake of it.

hiring a bunch of people to dig a hole in the ground for no reason does maintain jobs, but its not a good use of jobs.

So in the future when all the jobs are automated, what do you want most of the world to do? Nothing?

not dig random holes!

but I am glad someone other than me is asking the question you just asked about automation because its an important question, we are not preparing for it intelligently.

keeping people randomly busy doing random useless tasks so that they can have money to eat is not a solution on my list

Swapping discs is for barbarians.

It is a difficult question for sure and I think about it all the time.

But to the main point: I choose to support my local businesses by physically going to them. If I and others do not, they will all close down and my neighborhood will not have interesting little shops anymore. To me that is boring. I find values in small local shops with physical goods providing jobs for the people near me. I feel it creates a sense of community. Could I just get everything on Amazon and save a few bucks? Sure. I would MUCH rather support my neighbors. The people that work at the gamestop right next to my house are very cool people. We enjoy chatting and I visit at least a few times a month. Sales at my local location are down do to digital sales. Someday, they will shut down. I'm simply not looking forward to that day.

To me that is not jobs for the sake of jobs. That is jobs for the sake of community. I feel that young people do not care that much about community. To me that is sad.

Nope. I don't own any digital games except the stuff I get free from PS Plus. I will always buy physical as long as the option is there.