Topic: Digital or Physical?

[AndyMuller]

What type of media do you buy your games on? Are you digital only or strictly physical and enjoy the smell of a newly opened game?

I'm about 90% physical as I like to trade in once I've done absolutely everything a game has to offer. Digital if a title is digital only of course.

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[Teapot]

I buy all my games on xbox digitally.  I wouldnt have entertained digital years ago, as i liked the trade in value.

I purchase my games on foreign M$ stores with a vpn, i also gameshare with my friend.  Im saving a decent amount buying from foreign stores, on top of that, my friend also gets a copy of the game.   We take it in turn to buy games.  Bought fifa this morning for £37 digitally, my buddy gets a copy, so in theory it only costs me £18.50 etc.

[AndyMuller]

I buy all my games on xbox digitally.  I wouldnt have entertained digital years ago, as i liked the trade in value.

I purchase my games on foreign M$ stores with a vpn, i also gameshare with my friend.  Im saving a decent amount buying from foreign stores, on top of that, my friend also gets a copy of the game.   We take it in turn to buy games.  Bought fifa this morning for £37 digitally, my buddy gets a copy, so in theory it only costs me £18.50 etc.

That's a clever way of doing it!

I've been thinking about going digital only for a while on both my PS and Nintendo Switch as I'm fed up of the clutter in the house. Only thing is digital games seem more expensive than physical!

I've also got a big blu-ray collection and thinking of getting rid and going digital only on movies too.

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[Alf]

Got a pair of mates both fat bastards, who swear by digital as they don't have to get up to change the game.

[stoa]

I used to be a PC gamer, so it was all digital for me. It works well with various platforms like Steam, Gog or Origin. Downloading and installing games doesn't take a lot of time, if your internet connection is halfway decent. It's also rather comfortable having a huge library of games you can play without having to find the right discs to install and play. I'm rather sloppy in terms of keeping discs in their proper cases or even putting them back into them. With Steam you simply click "Download" and after a couple of minutes it's on your harddrive and ready to start. Of course it takes a bit longer with newer games that have 20 gigs and more, but most of the time they download in a reasonable amount of time. The downside is that you're basically dependent on Valve and other companies keeping their service alive. If they decide to pull the plug on Steam or for some reason the company blows up and doesn't exist anymore, hundreds of games will be lost.

Have started gaming on console more recently and still go digital most of the time. What I find rather annoying is that the games take ages to download and the "Play as you download"-option is a joke in most cases. You're lucky if you get one level you can do over and over again, but quite often you just get to the title-screen and can watch a progress bar for the installation. Don't really miss physical copies though, as they are often more pricy in my view. You can get deals for various games in the Xbox or PSN shop that you don't get for physical copies. I also play quite a lot of stuff on EA access or Games with Gold/PS Plus.

[ScottScott]

I'm 99% digital. I'm not one for buying a game on it's release day usually so I can wait for big sales or if I see something particularly cheap on CDKeys I'll pick it up. I've got 1 game on disc at the minute and that is a copy of Destiny I picked up with all the DLC for £7 on eBay which I haven't got around to playing. I like the ease of it, not having to get up and change discs, being able to preload if I do preorder a game so it's ready for me on release, or buying a game and having it downloaded when I get home

If Xbox went more like Steam with the levels of discounts (although I'm sure the publishers and the likes of Game/Gamestop in the US wouldn't be happy) I'd have 100s more games probably. The introduction of EA Access, GWG and now GamePass is the way forward for the newer gamer too. Pay £19.99 a year and get all the back catalogue for EA and 10 hour trials of the latest games plus GamePass where you get a constantly updated selection of classics and newer games to play through

[aaronaldo]

I buy all my games on xbox digitally.  I wouldnt have entertained digital years ago, as i liked the trade in value.

I purchase my games on foreign M$ stores with a vpn, i also gameshare with my friend.  Im saving a decent amount buying from foreign stores, on top of that, my friend also gets a copy of the game.   We take it in turn to buy games.  Bought fifa this morning for £37 digitally, my buddy gets a copy, so in theory it only costs me £18.50 etc.

How do you do that mate? is it through Xbox only?

[has gone odd]

mainly physical, especially switch and ps vita. quite like some big box special editions of various games and often try and buy a digital copy when on sale as its less hassle than juggling media about.

so while digital is less hassle, a shelf looks great and colourful with boxed games, also you have trade in and resale value to physical media.

[thelinnen]

The prices on digital games for consoles are backwards, they often cost more than physical releases and you can't trade them in.

[Upinsmoke]

I buy physical on console, digital on pc. There just isn't enough reason to go digital yet in the console space for me, unless it's a game I get free with Xbox live or ps plus or a great deal but those are few and far between.

Plus I still like having something physical, you get trade ins too.

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

The prices on digital games for consoles are backwards, they often cost more than physical releases and you can't trade them in.

Yeah the lack of trade in kills me.

I had a problem with running Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, save data kept messing up so in the end I sold it and had to buy the digital copy in order to get it working, cost me £50 for the digital and was only £35 for the physical, of which I got back 30 when I sold it, so ended up paying £55 in total. Probably worth it for that particular game but on console digital is a pain still. Do buy the odd one on sale though.

[Teapot]

How do you do that mate? is it through Xbox only?

VPN?
I only use it for xbox, if you want to do something similar on PS i think you have to create a new username for each region you're buying from.  I wouldnt be too clued up on the in's and out's of it all, best read up if you want to do it for the PS first

I have a router which has ddwrt installed, i connect the router to the vpn (purevpn), plug the xbox into the router via ethernet, change the xbox settings to reflect the locale of the store im buying from ie Argentina.  Once thats connected up, if i havent already, i add my card details to the region i want to buy a game from ie Argentina (you add your card details via xbox website).  Back on the console, i just locate the game on the foreign store and buy the game.  You only have to enter you card details once, it saves your details after that so it makes it quicker to purchase games.

You can also set all this up with a wifi hotspot from your pc or laptop.  Use a program like connectify, boot your vpn up, share your internet via a hotspot, connect your xbox to the hotspot etc.  I couldnt really get that method going tho, my card kept getting declined.

If you're into fifa points, i think you can purchase 12000 points for £60 (EDIT: just recently changed from £38) via Argentina if you have ea access. less than half price i think?

For gameshare, give your friend your gamertag login details, he logs in on his xbox and sets your gamertag to HOME on his system.  You get his gamertag login details,  you log in on your xbox and set his gamertag to HOME on your system.  Now every time either of you buy a game digitally, both of you will automatically get a copy.  Things like fifa points and add-on's dont share.

Hopefully you get the drift hehe

[Jake]

I purchase my games on foreign M$ stores with a vpn

Remember when you showed me how to do that, was a revelation.

If a game is the same price, I'll get it hard copy, two reasons. 1, trade in value and 2, theres fuck all room on my Xbone for games. Think its got 8 on there and its full.

If there's a great deal online then I'll download it. But a preowned hard copy is usually cheaper than the download.

[Rattleduser]

physical and I just lash the cases in a box in the back room, keep the disc in a plastic sleeve. Did buy destiny 2 digital because I'm never gonna trade it.

[Titi Camara]

I probably buy 95% of games digitally, the vast majority from instant-gaming

I'll buy a physical copy once in a blue moon for the Xbox but most of the time I'll just buy them digitally because I don't have to change discs, I don't have to leave the house to buy it or potentially wait for it to be delivered but principally because by the time I'd contemplate selling/trading them in they have almost zero value.

"Are you sure you want to trade in Destiny 1 for £1?"

[blacksun]

physical and I just lash the cases in a box in the back room, keep the disc in a plastic sleeve. Did buy destiny 2 digital because I'm never gonna trade it.

I'm the same, also Destiny is a go to game when others are about to play so I can have a single player game disc in the system to play at other times

[Upinsmoke]

I probably buy 95% of games digitally, the vast majority from instant-gaming

I'll buy a physical copy once in a blue moon for the Xbox but most of the time I'll just buy them digitally because I don't have to change discs, I don't have to leave the house to buy it or potentially wait for it to be delivered but principally because by the time I'd contemplate selling/trading them in they have almost zero value.

"Are you sure you want to trade in Destiny 1 for £1?"

Yeah but some games just aren't worth digital if your getting another like it down the line. Franchises and shit like fifa, nba 2k. Them shits just be collecting dust once you got the latest iteration

[BER]

My library is 95% digital.

But i buy physical for day one. Sell it on after a few weeks for a tiny loss. Maybe rebuy in sales.

Exception for me would be FIFA, I'll play that all year anyway so the convenience of digital wins out.

[Garlicbread]

Physical on consoles. Love filling my shelves with game covers. For PC or handhelds, I always go digital.

[ToneLa]

Steam or CDkeys. Haven't bought a physical game in years

if I had a console though I'd probably want the physical media

[richiedouglas]

What is the reason why digital console games are more expensive? Is it because theyre more 'impatient' purchases and so can be kept higher ?

You'd have thought making, shipping then store profit on a hard copy would make it much more expensive.

[AndyMuller]

What is the reason why digital console games are more expensive? Is it because theyre more 'impatient' purchases and so can be kept higher ?

You'd have thought making, shipping then store profit on a hard copy would make it much more expensive.

They can't be seen to undercut the retailers.

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[FiSh77]

What is the reason why digital console games are more expensive? Is it because theyre more 'impatient' purchases and so can be kept higher ?

You'd have thought making, shipping then store profit on a hard copy would make it much more expensive.

it's down to sony & microsoft needing retailers to sell hardware, they could easily undercut them with digital sales but can't afford to piss them off as they need their consoles in stores, pc games on the other hand don't rely on retailers so the market has more or less gone fully digital and the price is often reflected in that, still get some aaa titles which match the console price but you can usually find cheap keys