Physical vs. Digital
The current media war!
Forget the console wars.
One of the biggest “wars” in recent years has been “Physical vs. Digital” games. I’ve seen physical collectors flaunt their massive collections while looking down on people who only play digital games. I’ve also seen people with massive digital collections make fun of physical collectors as they have more room in their places of living. The list goes on, but I’ve seen it all.
Alot of people think that the Physical vs. Digital war just started pretty recently as far back as the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii era, but I think it started much earlier.
As far back as the first modern PCs and Macs.
Back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, you could borrow games on floppy disks and CDs from your friends and copy them over to your hard drive. If you had a lot of hard drive space, you could have a pretty huge collection of digital games. However, you still needed a physical medium like a floppy disc or CD to copy the games over, so it was still kinda physical.
“Don’t copy that Floppy!”
As soon as the internet became available in modern homes and to consumers in the early 90’s, you could download ROMS and games from shady websites, newsgroups, mIRC, and many other methods. I remember downloading Quake 2 and Command and Conquer off shady AOL newsgroups with my 33k modem. I would wait a few hours and play other games or watch TV in the meantime and when I was done, I would have a nice pirated copy of a game waiting for me ready to install. This definitely beat having to go into a store and buying the game outright and would set a precedence for what was to come in the future.
Steam and the Digital Revolution
In 2003, Valve, the creators of Half Life, Counterstrike, and Team Fortress released the first Steam Client, forever changing the landscape of digital games. I remember in 2004, my nephew came over to my place and loaded up his friend’s steam account where we got to play Counterstrike without even needing a CD to install.
I started my own Steam account in 2006 and bought Half Life 2 and The Orange Box a year later in 2007. It was weird not going into a retail store and buying a nice DVD to put on my shelf. The convenience of just being able to purchase and download games from the comfort of your own home revolutionized the way we played games forever.
The Digital Revolution on Consoles
In 2006, after purchasing my Wii, I bought the first Sonic the Hedgehog and Bonk’s Adventure on Nintendo’s eShop for the Virtual Console. I confess I’ve had the roms of both for years (and still do), but it was nice being able to support the companies and play legitimate copies of those classic games without having to go on eBay and spending an arm and leg to get the original versions.
I got my Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2007 and was blown away by Xbox Live Arcade where I got Castle Crashers, Doom, and Super Meat Boy all digital as those games didn’t have physical versions at the time. However, hard drive space for all the consoles was very tiny in comparison to the PC, so I still got physical versions of most triple A games.
It wasn’t until the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U era where the hard drive space on those consoles was now (sorta) big enough to download full triple A games. When Super Mario Maker and Super Smash Bros for the Wii U were out, I downloaded those instead of getting physical copies so I could play them faster than waiting for amazon to deliver a physical copy. I was so excited for Resident Evil 7 that I bought the digital version first and used my Best Buy Rewards to get a physical copy to show off on my shelf.
My short lived Minimalist Phase
Around 2016 or so, I was rapidly running out of space in my small crammed apartment due to my obsession with collecting games, toys, and more. In order to save space and get a bit more money, I sold off a huge part of my collection and rebought alot of those games digitally. I have to admit that having the extra space once again was nice and I didn’t have to store some of my physical game collection in cabinets I would never access.
I was also thinking of selling all my consoles and just playing games on my laptop for the convenience. Luckily, I didn’t go through with this as I still love console gaming. By 2018, my “Minimalist” phase came to an end when I got an extra increase at my day job and prices for certain games got cheaper, making me go back to my obsession with collecting once again. However, since I still had limited space, I bought physical games a bit more conservatively until I moved to a bigger place in 2020.
Advantages and Disadvantages to Both Sides
Both Physical and Digital games come with their set of advantages and disadvantages as argued by both sides.
Advantages of Physical:
True ownership of a game if the entire game is on the disc/cartridge. If any of the digital services go down, you always have your physical copy. Anything before the PS4/Xbox One/Switch era should be fine.
A cool display piece for your shelf and collection.
Takes up less or no hard drive space.
Can resell it. The game’s value can also go up if it’s ever discontinued.
Can lend it out to friends or family.
Retail stores constantly have game sales where you can buy older physical games for $10 or less in bargain bins.
Disadvantages of Physical:
The full game may or may not be on the entire disc/cartridge. This means you’ll have to still download the entire game from a server and still have to insert the disc in to play.
Eats up too much space. Not enough shelf space? Gotta get more shelves or a new house to store your entire collection.
Can break easily. If your disc gets scratched at the bottom too much or cracks entirely, it’s no longer playable.
Can get stolen. How many times have you lent a game to your friend and never got it back? Or how many people have lent themselves to a “Five Finger Discount” when looking at your games?
Limited Print Runs: Companies like Limited Run Games charge a premium for physical copies and if a certain game has a limited physical run, the price can skyrocket on secondary markets.
Need to insert the disc/cartridge to play.
Advantages of Digital:
Instant purchase and play. No more need to drive to a store or wait for your physical order from amazon to arrive. Just buy it with your saved credit card info and you’ll be off to the races. Wanna play a game nearly a day early? Buy a digital copy and you can play certain games at 12AM EST, 9PM PST for me!
No more worrying about scratching your disc or losing your cartridge. Disc and cartridge damage is a thing of the past now that you don’t need to worry about having a copy that your dog can chew or step on. Your pesky friends can’t lose your digital games you can’t actually lend to them! Well, you can for a bit if you have a Switch 2 and use the virtual game cards.
No need to insert discs or cartridges. Just access your games in the menu and they’re ready to go. If you’re out on a trip, you won’t run the risk of losing your discs or cartridges (I had a friend who lost some of his Nintendo DS games on a trip once and one fell into a grate).
Constant sale opportunities. You can buy tons of digital games for cheap during the various Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo digital sale events that happen throughout the year. Indie games tend to be less than $5 and sometimes older Triple A games fall below that price too.
Disadvantages of Digital:
Can’t resell or refund easily. Bought a game you don’t like? Well, too bad! Unless you’ve bought a game on steam within it’s 2 hour refund window, you’re out of luck on other platforms.
Takes up too much hard drive space. Back in the Xbox 360 days, you could barely fit any games on the initial 20 GB hard drive (7 gigs was allocated to the operating system). I remember constantly deleting my Xbox Live Arcade games due to running out of space even after I upgraded to a 120 GB and 250 GB hard drive. Even 1TB - 2TB hard drives can barely hold most of my games. I had to buy 2TB drives for both my PS5 and Xbox Series X which I’m always fearful of filling up.
Can be taken away from you at any point. Ubisoft says you don’t own any of their games and you must destroy any copies once the game is discontinued. Bought a copy of Anthem, Concord, or an old live service shooter that’s no longer in service? Well, you might as well uninstall them as you can’t even play them (this also applies to physical versions of these games). Forget the password to your account or if a hacker steals your info? Well, kiss your entire digital game collection and the hard earned money you spent on it goodbye! If a Mad Max or Fist of the North Star apocalyptic event destroys the world and the servers your games are on? Well, you’ll never get those games back ever again.
I’m sure there are a ton more advantages and disadvantages to both, but it’s your decision in the end to choose which format your prefer.
My Preference
Right now, I’m leaning a tad more towards digital. I still love collecting games and displaying them on my shelf, but I’m beginning to run out of room again even in my bigger place. I still plan to get physical copies of certain games for collection purposes.
However, for playing games, I prefer digital as I can easily load up a game from a menu and start playing right away without having to insert a cartridge or disc. I tend to buy alot of games during the various digital sale events especially since they’re so cheap. I do plan on traveling alot more, so I would rather prefer taking my digital collection on the go instead of a carrying case that holds my switch cartridges.
Will Physical Games Go Away?
The cold hard truth is that Digital games have vastly overtaken Physical games. You can even google that 70% of all game sales are digital nowadays.
So, where does that put Physical games?
I was convinced that Physical games would never go away in my lifetime, but with the advent of Switch 2 Game Key Cards, it seems like Nintendo is really trying to push the industry more towards digital games. The big Triple A titles on PlayStation and Xbox are far too big to fit on standard discs, so most physical copies are just download authenticators to grab the game off a server rather than read off a disc.
A few game companies have stated that physical copies are still important due to having good business relationships with brick and mortar retailers that puts more eyeballs on their games. Gamestop is miraculously still in business due to selling Physical games and merchandise, although most gamestops near me have closed.
As an indie game developer trying to get a physical version of my game Popcorn Rocket out on the PS4 physically, it’s been a long, expensive, and arduous process which I had to delay a bit at the time of this writing. I’m under NDA about the entire process, but I can’t blame game companies for wanting to focus on digital more since there’s a ton of red tape you need to get past before you can even do a physical copy on the consoles.
Limited Run Games and even Xbox themselves aren’t even making physical Xbox copies of games and mostly doing them on PlayStation and Switch. Xbox has been in last place for quite a while and with the advent of Xbox Game Pass, even less people are buying physical games on Xbox.
To be honest, I have no idea if Physical games will ever go away in my lifetime, but it’s pretty obvious that the world is going more towards Digital and subscription services. Xbox and PlayStation both have Disc and Digital only versions of their consoles for the convenience of both sides. PC and Mac has pretty much gone completely digital as most people (including myself) no longer have DVD-ROM or Blu-Ray drives.
When the next Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation consoles release without a physical drive, then we’ll know that the era of Physical games is over.
Until then, keep collecting.