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62% of all full PlayStation game sales were digital in 2020

How often do you buy physical copies ?

  • All my games

    Votes: 51 22.8%
  • Most of my games

    Votes: 68 30.4%
  • 50/50

    Votes: 31 13.8%
  • I buy some physical, but mostly digital

    Votes: 29 12.9%
  • I only buy digital games

    Votes: 45 20.1%

  • Total voters
    224
  • Poll closed .

Celcius

°Temp. member
There's no option in the poll for all digital only, but that's where I'm at these days. No more disks for me!
 

EruditeHobo

Member
I don't understand the point of buying physical in this day and age. I am not a collector of video games, I pay for them to support devs in the moment and experience them -- for the most part -- in real time, when they are released, within the context of their release relative to the industry's other offerings at the time. And I generally don't revisit old video games as I don't have time. If there's another reason to buy physical beyond that, I literally don't know what it is.

I don't even have time to play/finish all the games I want to play right now, in the immediate release window or for the current generation... so I definitely don't have any time or interest in keeping a PS2 or whatever around (and hooked up) in order to revisit MGS3 or what have you. It's easy enough to approximate those feels by watching some youtube clips.

Every once in awhile I do revisit a classic, like Link to the Past or Super Metroid. But for the most part, that's as far as I'll go. And that kind of thing is easy enough with emulation.
 

EruditeHobo

Member
You people must hate money.

On console its always physical and generally resell once bored or game is finished.

Doing this way makes it not that expensive to own all consoles.

Honestly my time is worth more money than the effort and storage it would take to deal with physical media, and constantly trying to sell back these games. I have no issue supporting devs for what is a very expensive development process, especially since it's still far cheaper than many hobbies.

Downloading in rest mode, awaiting digital releases which are available without any physical swapping of discs and at 9 pm PST the day before official release, that's worth it for me. I've never been the type to resell games in general.
 

dorkimoe

Member
p
You people must hate money.

On console its always physical and generally resell once bored or game is finished.

Doing this way makes it not that expensive to own all consoles.
This.
Digital is a scam. Rarely ever cheaper. Can grab a used copy or a sale copy of a game; beat it and resell it within a few weeks. Costs me about 10-20$ now to play a game and beat it.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
The only physical games I buy these days are switch games. Any other console games are digital.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Digital is nice and any indie game i own is always digital, but when a LOT of places in the world still have bellow average internet speeds and the balloning size of games it's a diffcult sell, of course it's only a matter of time before physical copies end up being regulated to niche sites like limited run games.
It does seem like some PS5 games are surprisingly small in terms of size.
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
Only physical here. It's even much more cheaper and I love to own things, not rent them.
I can even resell them or gift them, perfection.
perfection GIF
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
All physical, unless there is an insane discount.

I will always be physical, until the day they figure out how to implement digital resale.
 

EruditeHobo

Member
p

This.
Digital is a scam. Rarely ever cheaper. Can grab a used copy or a sale copy of a game; beat it and resell it within a few weeks. Costs me about 10-20$ now to play a game and beat it.

This is fine unless you actually like supporting developers and artists who make the games. I personally am prevented me from significantly participating in the secondary market for this reason. Devs deserve support.
 
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I really prefer digital games and shortly after the launch of PS4 I didn't buy almost any physical games.

I thought that it would be self-evident also this generation but no, I have been buying physical games lately because of the price difference.
I got the physical versions of TLoU2, Ghost of Tsushima, Demon's Souls Remake and Cyberpunk 2077 like close to 20 euros cheaper (some even more).
 
I personally still prefer physical copies, that being said these days I have very little time to play games because I have children and therefore mostly I work on my backlog. So what I do is mostly checking the PSN deals and buy a game that I am interested in for a good price.
 

tylrdiablos

Member
I'm quite interested in metrics like this.
I wonder how many of those games sold digitally were discounted as part of a promo/sale/PS Plus. That's a big factor if you want to steer me away from a physical copy.
 

Fake

Member
Yeah this lol

Kind of unfair to compare a year where for a looking time getting physical was a headache

Hell due to GameSpot closing I got FF7 Remake digital, I NEVER buy big games digital, but here we are...

But they do. I have my share of digital games, but COVID actually made more difficult to get physical games, so I'll never understand those people who want to force everyone into full digital.

I'll get physical as always.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Last disc I ever had was GTA5 on PS3 in 2013.

I haven't bought a physical game since.

So luckily, I can buy my PS5 for $400.
 

MrA

Banned
switch, always card unless it is card plus download, then just download
ps4 (probably ps5 as well once I get one) disc for single player games I think I'll care about later (resident evils/yakuzas/edf/ niche games)
xbox- ahaha never, I've got like 3 years of game pass I paid like nothing for so until that expires I'm not buying a thing on the xbox.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
Very rarely do I buy digital. Price has to be a good bit lower. My last title I got digital day one was Hitman 3 and it was about 20 dollars off.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
During a pandemic? Shocking.
It was going that way before the pandemic. And it's not like deliveries stopped during the pandemic. If you have a credit or debit card to buy digital games on the PlayStation store it should also work on Amazon.
 

pasterpl

Member
But I though playstation owners are all about ownership of the games, they are mentioning it in all of the gamepass threads /confused /s
 

Aenima

Member
All games i want to own, i buy them physical. All games i want to play but dont really care much about them, i buy them cheap digital during sales.
 

Sentenza

Member
I embraced digital distribution on PC years ago without a single worry and not once I ended up regretting.
If anything, some times when the price was convenient enough I ended up repurchasing old games I already had as physical copies on Steam.

With consoles, on the other hand, for the longest time I argued that I simply wasn't confident enough with their "ecosystem" to trust them with my digital purchases... And then when I got my PS4 Pro it finally hit me: I really don't give the tiniest amount of shit about having a physical copy.

Why I should I? Because "I can sell it"? Who cares.
Aside for the fact that I'm not in the habit of reselling old games in general, why should I care about wasting a hour to go back and forth from a Gamestop only to get 10 fucking bucks of "store credit" back? The time and effort wasted on it is worth less than the money I'm getting, anyway.
Not to mention that purchasing and playing a game becomes something you have to plan ahead rather than do on a whim.
 
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I was vehemently in the camp of physical only because I loved having a collection on my shelf, until I was watching a YouTube video one day by an overgrown man child with a huge collection of games, anime characters and amiibos in the background. Then it hit me, why would I want to be like that myself.

Now I'm entirely digital all the way, even on Switch
 

Wizz-Art

Member
When Xbox Live introduced the digital store on the 360 I made the switch to all digital. For PS I was still 75-25 % in favour of physical because the downloads on PSN are atrocious. After that gen I ditched the PS brand and the choice for going 100% all digital on Xbox paid off. I absolutely love that almost all of my digital games became BC going forward and better then ever too!

For movies I'm still about 90% physical, I buy most of my movies on 4K UHD or Blu-ray because it's still a much better quality A/V then 4K streaming can provide which at best is Blu-ray qualiti video wise but at best dvd quality or a little better audio wise.

Games don't have that difference between digital and physical, they're the same. As XBOX puts a lot of effort in BC I'm very confidend being all digital in their ecosystem. I wish PS was putting the same effort into it but they showed with no PS3 BC wich is the most important gen for me that they can't compete, so I will not buy another PS product untill they fix it.
 
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DelireMan7

Member
99% physical.

Possibility to lend, borrow, sale or buy second hand for cheap is priceless.
Also I like to see my game collection.

Except for physical space, digital is only an inconvenient for my way to enjoy gaming.
 
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Mithos

Member
I don't look at games digitally on console unless its a free game.
I don't look at games digitally on PC unless they are on 50-90% sale.
 

Humdinger

Member
I'm about 50/50 at this point. When I want a game that is just released, I'll buy a physical copy. That's because it gives me the option to resell. I will buy games digitally when they are old and cheap.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
This should be a nice definitive answer for those who think the majority of players are interested in the physical copy of the game. False nonsense. And the pool results show how out of touch gaf is in some cases
 
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KungFucius

King Snowflake
Why can't anyone make a poll that works for gamers that have PC and consoles? Nobody buys a physical PC game. PC gamers who also have PS5s will say they buy most games digital. This makes the poll meaningless.

I buy PC digitally because there is no choice. I tend to try to buy console physically so I can sell when I am done with them. I also look to buy used if I can. Why not try to get the best deal?
This should be a nice definitive answer for those who think the majority of players are interested in the physical copy of the game. False nonsense. And the pool results show how out of touch gaf is in some cases
Yeah because a poll that doesn't distinguish PC and console when talking about games media that only captures a few responses on a gaming forum is a definitive answer of something. I suggest you take a few courses on statistics because this kind of thinking will leave you confused by the world.
 
I try to buy all games physical.
Then give the games to friends and relatives when I'm ready with them.

Physical copy is often cheaper and has a value after purchase.
I never replay games, I don't have time for that.
 

Neff

Member
If it's a title I'm particularly looking forward to, I'll typically get both- a physical copy to keep and have on my shelf, and a digital copy for convenience. Otherwise I tend to go digital these days.

Digital is a scam. Rarely ever cheaper.

Digital has great sales. You just have to be willing to wait.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
Why can't anyone make a poll that works for gamers that have PC and consoles? Nobody buys a physical PC game. PC gamers who also have PS5s will say they buy most games digital. This makes the poll meaningless.

I buy PC digitally because there is no choice. I tend to try to buy console physically so I can sell when I am done with them. I also look to buy used if I can. Why not try to get the best deal?

Yeah because a poll that doesn't distinguish PC and console when talking about games media that only captures a few responses on a gaming forum is a definitive answer of something. I suggest you take a few courses on statistics because this kind of thinking will leave you confused by the world.
Me? probably you are already very confused if this is your answer I'm pretty sure that on pc is even worst that 62%
(in 2018 was 83%) only digital...lol
 
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sublimit

Banned
It was going that way before the pandemic. And it's not like deliveries stopped during the pandemic. If you have a credit or debit card to buy digital games on the PlayStation store it should also work on Amazon.
Of course digital was already getting more and more sales but it was nothing like it was in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Yes deliveries continued but due to work overload in many cases someone had to wait even for a month in order to receive what they bought. This forced a lot of people to buy digital even if they were the most hardcore supporters of physical (like me for example).I bought FFVIIR digital on day 1 because i didn't want to wait for a month to get it.

For the same reason a lot of parents who were hesitant to put their card details in theirr kids console were forced to buy their kids games digitally.
 
Of course digital was already getting more and more sales but it was nothing like it was in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Yes deliveries continued but due to work overload in many cases someone had to wait even for a month in order to receive what they bought. This forced a lot of people to buy digital even if they were the most hardcore supporters of physical (like me for example).I bought FFVIIR digital on day 1 because i didn't want to wait for a month to get it.

For the same reason a lot of parents who were hesitant to put their card details in theirr kids console were forced to buy their kids games digitally.

The digital jump was bigger in 2019 than 2020 fyi
 

Birdo

Banned
100% Digital here. I would prefer to collect physical, but I just hate owning clutter.

It's not so much the media, but the boxes. Why the hell are game boxes so big? Even the tiny Switch carts come in a giant plastic box. They could easily be one fourth of the size.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
All my games I buy physical. I buy digital rarely only when physical is not available.
 
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