Question Physical Copies.

[Barukanen]

Goodly Morning,

Is there anybody that misses physical copies of games? Going to your local store to pick it up, the excitement to get back and install it. While it's installing checking out your collectors edition content? A poor mouse pad and some graphic art book.. or is everyone much happier with their digital copies now days?

And if you do like collectors edition, what's your best and favourite ones you've seen or been lucky enough to own?

 

[Slasken]

I miss the big boxes and the extra stuff, but I don't miss installing from floppies or CDs or even DVDs. I don't miss having to have the disk or disc in the drive while playing either.

I don't remember the last collectors edition game I bought, but I believe it was around 2010. I have Oblivion CE on both X360 and PC. They came with a coin and a physical map. I also bought Gothic 3 collectors edition, I believe. It came with a cloth map, which was cool. My favorite CE is Neverwinter Nights 2, it came with a figurine.

The packaging was way better before though, around 1995-2003. A lot of those games would have been considered CE today. RPGs usually came with books and background story. I remember taking the bus home after buying them, and reading the books. Good times.

 

[Colif]

I don't miss having to go to a shop and hope the game isn't sold out or delayed. I too don't miss not having to have cd in PC to play games. But going to a shop to buy them means you remember buying the games.

I remember buying Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time on N64... mainly as I got home to find box was empty and had to go back to store and ask them to give me the actual game lol. And it was a gold cartridge.

I have the Age of Conan Collector's Edition around here somewhere. Funny you can buy it on internet...Game doesn't exist to play any more - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures-collectors-edition/ (think I got US edition but the ingame bonuses seem less than what I had). Maybe I got the drinking cape but didn't know its bonuses - free drinks lol.
I only remember it as the box was big. I wonder where all the books are.

I miss manuals, remember them? Diablo 2 manual compares badly against the Diablo 3 one. Manuals got reduced to pdf to nothing... Flight Sim manuals used to be books lol.

 

[Barukanen]

I don't remember the last collectors edition game I bought, but I believe it was around 2010. I have Oblivion CE on both X360 and PC. They came with a coin and a physical map. I also bought Gothic 3 collectors edition, I believe. It came with a cloth map, which was cool. My favorite CE is Neverwinter Nights 2, it came with a figurine.

The packaging was way better before though, around 1995-2003. A lot of those games would have been considered CE today. RPGs usually came with books and background story. I remember taking the bus home after buying them, and reading the books. Good times.

The little tokens like a coin and cloth maps were nice pieces to have adorn the desk setup I felt. I'm not quite sure I remember what the packaging was like exactly but I do or did own Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls edition and a couple of the World of Warcraft collectors editions that felt like they had great packaging.

I remember buying Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time on N64... mainly as I got home to find box was empty and had to go back to store and ask them to give me the actual game lol. And it was a gold cartridge.

I miss manuals, remember them? Diablo 2 manual compares badly against the Diablo 3 one. Manuals got reduced to pdf to nothing... Flight Sim manuals used to be books lol.

The gold cartridge is a unique way of making something a little extra to have.

I actually forgot about the manuals to games. I just remember the art books from collectors editions and trying to recreate the designs. I think I had a dvd or two of the making of the games it came with, they were fascinating too.

 

[Frindis]

Can't say I miss the physical copies that much as the ones I own are in an attic. I do have some collectors edition stuff hanging around in the apartment, with the SWTOR collector's edition being my best investment so far statue-wise. I do have fond memories of waiting for games as a teenager and being all excited when the release date was a day or two away. Nothing really changed there, with the exception of me just owning a hell of a lot of more games or having more to be excited for.

 

[Ryzengang]

I play on my Switch a fair amount, so I still have an opportunity to buy physical games. I buy most of my games digitally, and it's definitely more convenient to not have to swap out game cards. Still, if I really love a game I'll often buy it physically. I collect vinyl, too, so there's a similar appeal there. Also, there are some instances where it's more of a cost thing. If I can grab a cheap pre-owned copy of something I want to play, I'll do that as well.

The PC side of things is just really different. Physical games just haven't been a major thing on PC for awhile now, and I'm well accustomed to a fully digital library. I haven't even had a disk drive for many years now (and if you're just buying a code in a box, it seems pointless). I do think collector's editions for games are cool, and I hope it's a practice that continues. Still, I don't believe I've ever bought a collector's edition of a game, and if I were to, it would have to be something that I absolutely loved.

 

[ipman]

I'd prefer not to have physical copies of anything. It's just so convenient to down load games.

I still get excited if I'm waiting for a new game or music, but I just press a few buttons and they are now on my PC.

Better for the planet as well.

 

[Johnway]

Honestly i thought that i would miss actual hard copies of cds and the creative tat from collectors editions, but i had a draw a line and accept digital because of space issues. I don't miss the side stuff as its mostly kept in a box and its a bit pointless for me. Plus the CDs become worthless coasters as the keys are locked to your account.

In the end i had to dismantle the boxes, put all the cds into a wallet and place all the card stuff in a box to save space.

 

[DXCHASE]

There is a group page on fb that deals in people buying/trading physical copies of old PC games. Its neat to look at and see the kind of collections people have. I dont miss having physical copies today outside of collector editions either, but some of the old classics are just as display worthy as collectors editions. Just wish i had the bunch i had as a kid, theyd be right up on the wall.

I dont buy many collector's editions, but id have to say my favorite one is the Skyrim limited edition i bought originally for the xbox. The dragon statue is dope.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I do miss the experience of going into Babbage's or Best Buy and looking through aisle after aisle of computer games and software. I loved that experience. But I do not miss having a bunch of games lying around and hoping the discs don't get scratched. And buying those disc scratch repair tools, sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. So while I miss the experience of looking and shopping, I'm very happy with having an all digital library. That goes for console, too, especially since modern consoles are becoming more like PCs with backwards compatibility. Like the Xbox Series consoles play Xbox One games, too. It will continue that way from now on, I think.

In the end i had to dismantle the boxes, put all the cds into a wallet and place all the card stuff in a box to save space.

Yeah, that's exactly what I did, too. I'd buy those 50-100 CD wallets, store all my game discs in them, and just throw away the boxes. I'm not a collector.

 

[Zimbaly]

I hate the digital system we got now. We don't really own any games, some people have limited bandwidth and there's a ton of games that eat it up so fast when ya download them or get a patch.

It sucks. =\

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I hate the digital system we got now. We don't really own any games, some people have limited bandwidth and there's a ton of games that eat it up so fast when ya download them or get a patch.

It sucks. =\

I get what you're saying. It's not a problem for me, so I don't feel the pain that some people do. I have Comcast/Xfinity internet, and they have something like a 1TB/month bandwidth limit. But I ended up paying a few bucks more for unlimited because I was getting close to the cap. Between having a ton of games available with Gamepass, and streaming all of the TV we watch, it really runs up the usage.

 

[Zloth]

Digital all the way.

Having a physical manual to read was nice for some games, but many games are able to have proper tutorials now that work a lot better than a manual. Even back in days of yore, once the internet started cranking up, manuals were starting to have issues because game updates would invalidate them.

The downsides were big, too. You would hear a game had "gone gold" and then you had to guess when the game would actually show up at your store. Then hope they didn't run out of copies. I made a lot of trips to Best Buy where I would drive in, look for my game, and leave empty handed five minutes later. Plus, store shelf space was limited. After a few months, stores would chuck whatever games they had left into a "bargain bin," and soon after that the games were gone forever. Only the biggest games would be there six months later.

Indie games were, obviously, not going to happen at all. No retail chain is going to burn shelf space on a game that's going to sell less than a copy per store!

We don't really own any games...

You never did. Software was always licensed, not flat out sold.

 

[Shodan_]

What I miss about physical games are physical manuals with care put into them, especially for more involved and complex games.

Alt-Tabbing out to google something is quite annoying.

Two things mitigate this :

- Games nowadays are really good at integrating tutorial things into gameplay itself. I'm glad about this.
- For those games that aren't, Steam browser is a god send. Not all games handle alt-tabbing well, and for those cases Steam Browser does the trick very well.

I still wish I had a neat little themed glossy manual to thumb through next to me though.

 

[Brian Boru]

I would postpone getting a game for now if it was only in physical format—it's just so much more convenient and reliable to go digital. Same with music, I made sure to rip all our CDs to hard drive, and all my books are ebooks—I had to sell my 1,000+ print collection one time in 80s for space reasons, and never built it up again.

I'm pretty careful with stuff in general, but I've lost a heck of a lot more physical music, books, software, photos and games than digital ones. My current living space wouldn't support any significant physical collection anyway, they'd have to be boxed in the attic. Add in the planet benefit, and it's no contest unless you're a collector.

The most extra stuff I got with physical games were a little plastic minigunner with one of the Command and Conquers and a nice wall chart of the tech tree in Civilization 4. I always dumped the other stuff and put the CDs in plastic cases.

We have a couple of disc wallets here with ~300 movie and TV show discs in 'em. When was the last time we watched one? Certainly not this decade…

It's not that I have anything else against physical—I spent a couple of decades on first name terms with the staff of local bookstores. And same as @WoodenSaucer in later years, grabbing a half hour to browse the game shelves in Best Buy etc. But it's a hundred times better just to search online stores, which can have millions of titles in stock, loads of filtering, useful consumer reviews, etc etc.

 

[Colif]

one advantage to physical is it can't be altered once you have it. No little edits or tweaks to ruin story. It exists, it can't just be deleted in one location and cease to exist for everyone.

I have most of the original X-Files series on DVD, never watched it... i bought it a few years ago, only missing the movies. Getting harder to play DVD, only one pc in house has a drive now. I don't watch TV or movies.

I have gone back to buying music on CD only as Google play stopped selling albums and expects you to buy all the tracks as singles. I am old, not changing music buying habits now. Probably is another site that sells albums but I haven't looked too hard. All my music ripped years ago, its now on the cloud and on a 256gb USB

 

[Barukanen]

one advantage to physical is it can't be altered once you have it. No little edits or tweaks to ruin story. It exists, it can't just be deleted in one location and cease to exist for everyone.

I have most of the original X-Files series on DVD, never watched it... i bought it a few years ago, only missing the movies. Getting harder to play DVD, only one pc in house has a drive now. I don't watch TV or movies.

I have gone back to buying music on CD only as Google play stopped selling albums and expects you to buy all the tracks as singles. I am old, not changing music buying habits now. Probably is another site that sells albums but I haven't looked too hard. All my music ripped years ago, its now on the cloud and on a 256gb USB

Would it not more efficient to just use Spotify in general?

 

[Brian Boru]

one advantage to physical is it can't be altered once you have it. No little edits or tweaks to ruin story. It exists, it can't just be deleted in one location and cease to exist for everyone.

Which of course is also a disadvantage, imo to a much bigger degree than the advantage
Games are too complex technically these days to have any chance of shipping bug free, and digital is a godsend for fixing and updating everyone very quickly from one location.

 

[Barukanen]

Which of course is also a disadvantage, imo to a much bigger degree than the advantage
Games are too complex technically these days to have any chance of shipping bug free, and digital is a godsend for fixing and updating everyone very quickly from one location.

But you're paying full price for a broken game, you wouldn't want to pay full price for a broken truck so why is it acceptable mentality for games just because they can patch on release.

 

[Colif]

Physical: if the game was broken on release, it stays that way. Made devs work to bug fix games before releasing them. Only had one chance to get it right
Digital: I have seen games where all that was on disc is a link to download entire game. Day one 80gb "patch" that amazingly happens to be same size as actual game.

I prefer physical, no patching game on release day. I don't care if game is broken, they shouldn't be releasing broken games.

I realise that the digital can be seen as an advantage but I don't see it that way. the digital way just made them lazy... we fix it after release... maybe... if you lucky. Sort of too late after you paid for it.

Cyber Punk would have failed even harder on physical.

 

[Brian Boru]

you wouldn't want to pay full price for a broken truck

A truck is driven by only one uniform entity, ie drivers. Truck company will have drivers in QA who can identify problems before release, therefore most of the time truck is fine on release.

Software on the other hand is used by people with a myriad of variations in their systems—it is impossible for a software company to check more than a small handful of those millions of possibilities for anything beyond the simplest of products.

In addition, the systems software is used on are still evolving rapidly, with significant annual advances in various hardware components, which makes for continually shifting target user profiles.

Therefore it is essential that software be able to issue continuous updates after release to address problems and advances.

Made devs work to bug fix games before releasing them

See above—not practical these days.

I don't care if game is broken

I would, if I bought at release. I did, when I bought physical at release in 00s and earlier. For example, Civilization 4 was quite a mess on release—still playable, but with mild to severe balancing problems plus UI deficiencies, which were only addressed in the 2 major expansions in following years.

Physical back then had fewer bugs because it was much simpler software, but it wasn't all plain sailing by any means.

the digital way just made them lazy

I don't think it's laziness, going by what I've read about the often horrible working conditions in the bigger game companies, regularly burning out their devs.

I suspect it's more a disconnect between dev, pub, and marketing.

 

[Colif]

i wouldn't buy a broken game, I want them to finish the things before release.

industry needs another reset

 

[Frindis]

I hate the digital system we got now. We don't really own any games, some people have limited bandwidth and there's a ton of games that eat it up so fast when ya download them or get a patch.

It sucks. =\

Thankfully you can use the DMR free section on GOG. It is still downloaded digitally, but it is yours to own forever and you do not need to be online. You still can't evoke the license and start pirating it, but it is as close as you can come to owning the game yourself without having STEAM or similar platforms looking down at you while you are playing.

 

[mainer]

I miss the big boxes and the extra stuff, but I don't miss installing from floppies or CDs or even DVDs. I don't miss having to have the disk or disc in the drive while playing either.

My feelings as well, and being old, there are a lot of things that I miss that used to be done a certain way but no longer are; change is inevitable, not necessarily good or bad, it just "is". While I miss all the physical aspects of a game purchase, I don't miss the installation either, it's been at least 10 or 15 years since I installed a game from physical media. There's also enhanced versions, remasters, or remakes of older games that make playing them on modern systems much more enjoyable.

Digital distribution is the only way to install a game now. Click of a button and the game installs with all relevant official patches installed. Unofficial, or fan made patches, as well as mods are usually widely available and fairly easy to install, making the original game even better.

What I miss about physical games are physical manuals with care put into them, especially for more involved and complex games.

I still wish I had a neat little themed glossy manual to thumb through next to me though.

Manuals are what I miss the most from "boxed" or physical versions of games no longer being viable, both in terms of installation and production costs for the developer, that and the physical maps you could get to track your journey, whether made of paper or cloth (cloth ones were awesome).

Many games were complex enough, especially D&D games, that I always kept the manual close to my keyboard for reference. I still keep a scratch pad (and a pad of graph paper) handy to make my own references to a game's details. Tutorials, or tutorial areas are all well and good, and I appreciated them, but I miss the physical reference that a manual can provide throughout a game.

A good example of that is the manual that came with Baldur's Gate 2. Great physical construction, 263 pages long, and full of detailed information on skills, spells, abilities, characters and details of major areas you'd travel.

And if you do like collectors edition, what's your best and favorite ones you've seen or been lucky enough to own?

As to that part of your question, yes I love them for certain games, as long as they're primarily physical objects and not digital. I won't buy a collector's edition of a game that is strictly digital. Digital armor, weapons, soundtracks, "making of" videos, or PDF artwork, that type of thing. If some of those things are included with the physical objects that's fine, but I won't pay double or triple for just digital only rewards.

I've bought a few collector's editions over the years, but it's hard to pick a single favorite. Three of my top favorites would be the 1st person Fallout single player games:

Fallout 3, with the metal lunchbox and pipboy bobblehead and hardcover digital artbook:

Fallout New Vegas with Caravan cards, poker chips from all the casinos, and a hardcover graphic novel:

Fallout 4, with the Pipboy that had a place for you to insert your cell phone, download an app that connected to the game and view all your stats via the app. Very glitchy and unreliable, but it was fun when it worked. The only "interactive" collector's edition I've experienced:

 

[Colif]

Baldurs gate was a manual, the rest show the descent into pamplets that have 8 pages max, to now... do you get instructions with games any more? Collectors editions not a good example of what little you got in most game boxes.

What, no fallout 76 "Canvas" bag? you managed to avoid that pitfall. Hopefully Microsoft might keep them from repeating that in the future.