[Opinion] PC games should have disk copies

[WaggishOhio383]

I've been a part of the PC gaming scene for around a year and a half now. I made the move from console because I wanted to be able to play games with my friend who was on PC, I was tired of our Xbox One constantly running out of storage space, and I didn't want to keep having to pay to play games online. While I have definitely enjoyed the various perks of PC gaming over the past year and a half, there's one nagging issue I keep coming back to: digital games. Digital games are something I always avoided when I was on console. This was largely because I mostly only got new games as gifts for my birthday or Christmas, so physical copies were the way to go. But now that I'm on PC, physical games aren't really an option. At first, I was okay with having to purchase games digitally. Most of the games I played were free anyway, so I wouldn't have had a physical copy even if I was on console. But over time as I started to purchase more games (primarily from Steam), I came to miss having a physical copy that I can go to the store and purchase, and then display on my shelf. There's just something about buying a game digitally and being able to instantly download and play it that while more convenient, just feels less satisfying. I feel like it makes me put less thought into the games that I'm buying, and I don't feel as much like I actually own the game. Rather, it feels like I just payed a bunch of money to be able to play the game. And it's exactly this that brings me to my next big issue with digital games: ownership.

 

With a physical copy of a game, you never really have to worry about losing access to a game. As long as you have the disk, you'll always be able to play it regardless of what account you're on. But with platforms like Steam, all these games you purchase are attached to your one account. If you ever were to lose access to your account for any reason, all those games you've spent your own money on are just gone. When I buy a digital game, I don't feel the assurance that I'll always have the ability to continue playing this game. If anything were to happen to my account or even the platform I bought the game from, my access to the game would be gone forever unless I paid for it again. One could make the argument that the same thing can happen with a disk game if the disk were to get damaged or lost, but I feel like that's not the same thing. For starters, losing or damaging a disk is your own fault, and not at the mercy of some large company. If you treat your disks well and keep good track of them you can get them to last a long time (I have yet to have any of my PS2 disks give out on me). The other issue with buying a game digitally is the inability to transfer ownership of the game. You can't resell a digital game, so the used game market for PC games is practically nonexistent. Additionally, sharing games between family members is much more complicated. Platforms like Steam have library share, but even that has its limitations. For example, if you play even one game in your Steam library, every game in your library share is unavailable for your family to play, even if they want to play a different game than the one you're currently playing. And this, in my opinion, makes Steam's library share feature almost useless.

 

The main limiting factor I can think of for using disk games on PC is that you have to have an account management system for online games. But there's a completely logical solution to this problem. Existing platforms like Steam or even the Microsoft store could open up the possibility to play disk games using your Steam or Microsoft account. The ownership of these games would be in no way linked to your account, rather whether the disk is inserted into your computer. But you could still utilize platforms like Steam to install, run, and manage the games as well as taking advantage of these platforms' existing social features.

 

Obviously this is all just my opinion on the matter. I'm sure I'm in the minority when I say all this, and I get that for many people digital games are simply more convenient. But I feel like having disk copies of PC games as an option would be a very nice. That's not to say I think this will ever happen though. As much as I wish disks for PC games would make a comeback, there's just not enough of a demand for anything to actually change. However, I'd still like to see what other people may think or have to say about this issue. Maybe there's more of a desire for PC disk games than I thought, or maybe I'm just crazy wanting physical copies when I could just buy digitally. I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this issue!

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

With a physical copy of a game, you never really have to worry about losing access to a game.

Unless the game servers shut down....

Everything is going "online!" only these days and it's a huge risk.

But in general, I'd agree with you.

[OrangeSunshine]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

Unless the game servers shut down....

Everything is going "online!" only these days and it's a huge risk.

But in general, I'd agree with you.

I agree. nothing pisses me off more than when a game I loved as a kid is no longer playable because it requires a connection to a server. It annoys me even more when the only reason the game has for being always online is just for drm purposes. I have completely migrated to GOG because of that.

[WaggishOhio383]

2 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Unless the game servers shut down....

True... That's why I mostly play older games that don't have online play in the first place. You can't shut down the servers for a game that doesn't have them!

[AndreiArgeanu]

25 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

For starters, losing or damaging a disk is your own fault, and not at the mercy of some large company. If you treat your disks well and keep good track of them you can get them to last a long time (I have yet to have any of my PS2 disks give out on me).

Disk rot is a thing and as games age ,unless you store them in vacuum, the discs will end up rotting and becoming completely unreadable. I've had to return an Xbox 360 game I bought because it wasn't being read properly and when looking at the disc itself it clearly has suffered from disc rot. Of course the likelihood of this happening depends on various factors including manufacturing quality and how scratched is the disc, but the probability of this happening is inevitable.

25 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

But with platforms like Steam, all these games you purchase are attached to your one account. If you ever were to lose access to your account for any reason, all those games you've spent your own money on are just gone.

I haven't heard of steam randomly terminating accounts, even if they are vac banned, you still have access to all your games. And assuming you have 2 factor authentication the likelihood of your account getting stolen is very small.

25 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

You can't resell a digital game, so the used game market for PC games is practically nonexistent.

I never liked the idea of selling a game, I always liked to have a collection since I often replay many of the games I buy. But I understand why people might want there to be a used market on pc, but I doubt that publishers would appreciate such an action since 99% of people will just flock to the used market and buy a used copy instead of a new one, since there's absolutely no difference when it comes to digital games between a new and a 'used' game.

 

Personally I only like the physical games for the looks and what's included on the inside like manuals or maps. That's why I started collecting Xbox 360 titles since with the next generation of consoles the most you'd get with most games was some art work on the inside of the cover. I understand why some people would prefer if all games were available in physical form, but I'm personally not one of them.

 

Edit: Oh yeah and no one wants anymore horrible cd anti-piracy crap like SecuROM. Or maybe that's just me.

[OrangeSunshine]

6 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

True... That's why I mostly play older games that don't have online play in the first place. You can't shut down the servers for a game that doesn't have them!

Dude, I'm with ya. There are so many older titles that I never had the opportunity to buy when I was young and poor. I bought a copy of FATE a while back, and I have been enamoured with it for weeks.

[Kanna]

It would make games getting delisted not a big deal and people with slow internet their life would be better

[rice guru]

honestly none of this would be such a big deal if DRM did not exist. 

[Monkey Dust]

The thing that most often stymies your attempt to play old PC games is compatibility, or rather lack of. Even L.A Noire, less than 10 years old on PC, can be a bit fiddly to get to run. There is a reason retro PC gaming is a pretty small niche in the retro gaming scene, it's so much more complicated.   

 

Now we've mostly purged optical drives from our gaming PCs, I can't really see them coming back.

[WaggishOhio383]

11 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Disk rot is a thing and as games age ,unless you store them in vacuum, the discs will end up rotting and becoming completely unreadable.

That's true. I had honestly completely forgotten disk rot was a thing since it's not something I've ever had happen to me.

 

12 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

haven't heard of steam randomly terminating accounts, even if they are vac banned, you still have access to all your games.

Good to know. Makes me a bit more comfortable to buy games on Steam. Not that I wasn't already, because what other choice do I have?

 

13 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I never liked the idea of selling a game, I always liked to have a collection since I often replay many of the games I buy. But I understand why people might want there to be a used market on pc, but I doubt that publishers would appreciate such an action since 99% of people will just flock to the used market and buy a used copy instead of a new one, since there's absolutely no difference when it comes to digital games between a new and a 'used' game.

For me, it's not that I want to be able to sell my games when I'm done with them. It's that I wish I had the option to buy games used at a reduced price. I don't care about buying a game brand new unless I'm buying it on launch day. As long as the used copy I'm getting has the original cover art and manual, I don't care that someone else has owned it before me.

 

14 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Personally I only like the physical games for the looks and what's included on the inside like manuals or maps.

That's another reason I love collecting physical copies. 6th generation console games in particular have some really nice cover art and manuals.

[Kanna]

Also forgot to mention, I collect game discs I have maybe around 200 xbox 360 games and some have some cool stuff in the box or has a cool box for example my guitar hero aerosmith has a tour book

Edited May 2, 2021 by Kanna
Added images

[WaggishOhio383]

6 minutes ago, Monkey Dust said:

Now we've mostly purged optical drives from our gaming PCs, I can't really see them coming back.

USB optical drives are a cheap, easy solution (I have one myself for playing PS2 games in PCSX2). As far as playing older PC disk games, it is definitely a shame that most won't run on newer hardware. I have an old computer running Windows XP for that exact reason.

[OrangeSunshine]

25 minutes ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

I have an old computer running Windows XP for that exact reason.

Me too. I really want to get a Commodore 64 to play a bunch of games that remain mostly not ported to newer systems.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

2 hours ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

I've been a part of the PC gaming scene for around a year and a half now. I made the move from console because I wanted to be able to play games with my friend who was on PC, I was tired of our Xbox One constantly running out of storage space, and I didn't want to keep having to pay to play games online. While I have definitely enjoyed the various perks of PC gaming over the past year and a half, there's one nagging issue I keep coming back to: digital games. Digital games are something I always avoided when I was on console. This was largely because I mostly only got new games as gifts for my birthday or Christmas, so physical copies were the way to go. But now that I'm on PC, physical games aren't really an option. At first, I was okay with having to purchase games digitally. Most of the games I played were free anyway, so I wouldn't have had a physical copy even if I was on console. But over time as I started to purchase more games (primarily from Steam), I came to miss having a physical copy that I can go to the store and purchase, and then display on my shelf. There's just something about buying a game digitally and being able to instantly download and play it that while more convenient, just feels less satisfying. I feel like it makes me put less thought into the games that I'm buying, and I don't feel as much like I actually own the game. Rather, it feels like I just payed a bunch of money to be able to play the game. And it's exactly this that brings me to my next big issue with digital games: ownership.

 

With a physical copy of a game, you never really have to worry about losing access to a game. As long as you have the disk, you'll always be able to play it regardless of what account you're on. But with platforms like Steam, all these games you purchase are attached to your one account. If you ever were to lose access to your account for any reason, all those games you've spent your own money on are just gone. When I buy a digital game, I don't feel the assurance that I'll always have the ability to continue playing this game. If anything were to happen to my account or even the platform I bought the game from, my access to the game would be gone forever unless I paid for it again. One could make the argument that the same thing can happen with a disk game if the disk were to get damaged or lost, but I feel like that's not the same thing. For starters, losing or damaging a disk is your own fault, and not at the mercy of some large company. If you treat your disks well and keep good track of them you can get them to last a long time (I have yet to have any of my PS2 disks give out on me). The other issue with buying a game digitally is the inability to transfer ownership of the game. You can't resell a digital game, so the used game market for PC games is practically nonexistent. Additionally, sharing games between family members is much more complicated. Platforms like Steam have library share, but even that has its limitations. For example, if you play even one game in your Steam library, every game in your library share is unavailable for your family to play, even if they want to play a different game than the one you're currently playing. And this, in my opinion, makes Steam's library share feature almost useless.

 

The main limiting factor I can think of for using disk games on PC is that you have to have an account management system for online games. But there's a completely logical solution to this problem. Existing platforms like Steam or even the Microsoft store could open up the possibility to play disk games using your Steam or Microsoft account. The ownership of these games would be in no way linked to your account, rather whether the disk is inserted into your computer. But you could still utilize platforms like Steam to install, run, and manage the games as well as taking advantage of these platforms' existing social features.

 

Obviously this is all just my opinion on the matter. I'm sure I'm in the minority when I say all this, and I get that for many people digital games are simply more convenient. But I feel like having disk copies of PC games as an option would be a very nice. That's not to say I think this will ever happen though. As much as I wish disks for PC games would make a comeback, there's just not enough of a demand for anything to actually change. However, I'd still like to see what other people may think or have to say about this issue. Maybe there's more of a desire for PC disk games than I thought, or maybe I'm just crazy wanting physical copies when I could just buy digitally. I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this issue!

I'm in a very similar position to you, having made the jump to pc last year, and I kind of agree.

 

I like physical copies, primarily as I can trade them, or sell them, once I've finished the game.

 

I paid £35 for Metro Exodus a few months back, and while I enjoyed it I doubt I'll replay it again and were it a disc I may well have been able to put in toward another game or sell it for a 10er or something. 

 

As it is, it's just sitting there.

 

I guess, ultimately, pc gamers have steered the market towards digital copies, perhaps by not buying disc drives for their rigs, which is showing they aren't especially bothered by physical media - and so the distribution platforms like Steam grew massively off the back of digital sales...and here we are.

 

Saying all this, isn't it possible to buy pc CD ROM games?

 

Do you have a drive to put a disc in?

[WaggishOhio383]

2 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

Saying all this, isn't it possible to buy pc CD ROM games?

It is, but good luck finding games that actually have that as an option. Most PC games that offer "physical copies" are just cases with a digital code for the game inside.

 

2 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

Do you have a drive to put a disc in?

Yes

[Andreas Lilja]

Please no, I'm not nostalgic about having to reinstall games with 6-ish CDs/DVDs.

 

Even console games these days are no longer 100% on the disc.
 

Also the physical space necessary, I have ~1,750 games on Steam.

 

 

 

[WaggishOhio383]

4 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Please no, I'm not nostalgic about having to reinstall games with 6-ish CDs/DVDs.

 

Even console games these days are no longer 100% on the disc.
 

Also the physical space necessary, I have ~1,750 games on Steam.

I'm not saying the entirety of the game should be stored on a disk. For smaller games sure, but for larger games I wouldn't expect them to put the whole game on several disks. They could just make it like the Xbox One of PS4 where the disk is used to make sure you own the game. As far as the last part with physical space required, I'm just saying disks should be an option, not necessarily the only option.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

14 hours ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

It is, but good luck finding games that actually have that as an option. Most PC games that offer "physical copies" are just cases with a digital code for the game inside.

 

Yes

So, they don't actually provide a disc - just a code on a slip of paper?

 

That's not a physical copy then, is it?

 

I know it used to be much more common place as I have a few old pc games from back in the day, and they all have discs.

 

One of the earlier Flight Simulator games (the last before the recent release) has 4 discs.

 

I installed it on an old 2008 standard office pc and it ran...albeit poorly.

 

I'd love to see what it's like but my rig doesn't have a drive...I just didn't see the point. 

[WaggishOhio383]

30 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

So, they don't actually provide a disc - just a code on a slip of paper?

 

That's not a physical copy then, is it?

Yes, hence why I said "physical copy" in quotation marks. It's a physical copy in the sense that you get a nice case with cover art and maybe even a manual, but there's no real point in actually keeping it.

 

31 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

I know it used to be much more common place as I have a few old pc games from back in the day, and they all have discs.

PC disk games were very common back in the late 90s and early 2000s. But once platforms like Steam came around they were quickly abandoned.

 

33 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

I'd love to see what it's like but my rig doesn't have a drive...I just didn't see the point. 

You can get a USB DVD drive for $20-30. That's what I have. I don't use it often, but it's nice to have when I do need it.

[Colty]

Last PC game I got physically was Prey 2017. It was on sale, why not? I got an install disc and a code for Steam. Yes, I could have used the disc to install the game, but I activated it on Steam, I have a good network connection. I don't want to listen to a disc drive spinning up. It's a good option for those without a solid internet connection, but that's about it in my opinion. There's some "collectible" aspect, but the only reason I don't get a digital copy (PC or Playstation) is if it's on sale physically. Especially with library sharing, it's just easier. My brother and I can play the same Playstation game at the same time through library sharing, as long as we're on different accounts. I just couldn't do that with a disc, and I'm not going to say, "Oh, pay for your own copy because I wanted something to sit on a shelf." A collector's edition? Sure, I'll make an exception if I really want it, but that's rare. I do wish more PC games had collector's editions, but they're becoming more and more rare so it's not like digital gamers are missing out on much. New Playstation and Xbox's are available without disc drives as well, so I would expect even fewer, or they'll just come with a digital code, which would be nice. 

[WaggishOhio383]

1 minute ago, Colty said:

Especially with library sharing, it's just easier. My brother and I can play the same Playstation game at the same time through library sharing, as long as we're on different accounts. I just couldn't do that with a disc

Problem is library sharing on PC is absolute crap. With Steam, your shared games can only be played by other family members if you aren't playing ANY of the games in your Steam library. So if my brother was playing a game in my Steam library and I hopped on my computer to play a completely different game, it would cut him off. If we had disks for the games instead, this wouldn't be a problem. He could just walk into my room and grab the game off the shelf as long as it isn't the one I'm currently playing.

[MartinTheActor]

I still have a collection of many games on physical media. The only thing I REALLY miss about physical copies of games is game manuals. I used to love and re-read RPG manuals. Neverwinter Nights came with some cool manuals. 

I do think that there is room for maybe a specialised game storage device for installers or what-have-you...oh wait...my solution to this is an external HDD on which I put all my GOG installers. I don't think there's much room for CDs or disc based copies.

What I would like to see instead is the gaming world release a 'final build' installer to those who have purchased copies. Once a game is 'complete' or development ceases, the devs should release the installer for those who own copies to be able to load said installers onto external media and back-up themselves. GOG allows downloading installers of their games and it's comforting to know that if GOG disappeared tomorrow, I have a physical back-up in the form of my external drive of all of those games. It's why I won't use any games as a service. It's just absolute nonsense. If I had my way, when online multiplayer games have development terminated, versions of the games would be available to buy/download for those who might want to run said games on their own private servers. Sadly the whole In App Purchasing business model of the modern game dev world preculdes much of this. Incidentally, it's also why disc based games disappeared.

[MadAnt250]

I could buy RollerCoaster Tycoon from steam, or...

 

Anyway, my opinion is mixed, because it depends on the game.

[Mark Kaine]

They should , but they wont , the whole idea behind  download only games (calling them "digital" makes no sense because cds,dvds, etc are "digital" too, in fact any programs you run on your computer are "digital only") is to cut out the reselling market, so thats very unlikely to happen.