• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

How does buying physical copies works these days?

Miles708

Member
Why would you even buy physical discs Grandad? The future is digital and there is absolutely no reason to go to a store and buy boxes with pointless little discs in.

Proper men go digital only. Imagine bringing some broad back to your abode and her seeing your Final Fantasy PS4 collection mounted on your shelf. She'd be outta there in a shot bro I'm telling you now.
season 3 chad GIF by Bachelor in Paradise
 

Zog

Banned
Nah I find it dumb, same with PC retail releases with Steam/EGS codes inside the box. You're buying a digital version, just with a DVD case that doesn't serve any useful purpose.
It's for people who don't have a credit card. Also, they can buy gift cards.
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
I suppose they're handy if you buy them as a Christmas present for someone who prefers digital. They still get their digital game but they have something to open on Christmas morning.

Apart from that, I can't see any point to them.
Interesting reasoning. I've bought several boxed PC games as Christmas gifts, but personally I always tried to pick the ones with actual discs inside instead of a Steam code.
 
Its like buying a dvd porno movie. Plop the disc in and play with yourself. Games won't make you ejaculate though. It depends on the gamer and the game.
 
Interesting reasoning. I've bought several boxed PC games as Christmas gifts, but personally I always tried to pick the ones with actual discs inside instead of a Steam code.

Yeah, I'm scraping the barrel, but that unlikely situation, where the recipient prefers digital is the only time I can see buying a code in a box making any kind of sense.
 

keraj37

Member
So I made small purchase of physical disks:
71Nls7zTaPL._SX342_.jpg


and

91yezl-6EOL._SX385_.jpg


If that works for me, I may go back to traditional physical gaming.
 

EDMIX

Member
I haven't bought a physical copy of a game for more than a decade and I am out of the loop.

But recently I took under my roof XSX and I hear its disk drive booting with a gentle sound, so I figured out I will buy some physical game as next.
But I am not sure how it works now - could someone explain how physical is linked to my MS account (if is at all)?
Can I sell it back?
What are advantages of having physical disk over digital convenience? (Apart from obvious, less download and speed of installation/copy to disk)

Maybe this thread could be also a spark to discuss "physical vs digital".

I was so far only digital because of how extremely convenient it is - and all my massive physical library got lost/destroyed/given away due to lack of care and order, but all my Steam games are there, and waiting to just "click" and install :)
huh?

Thats like saying you mainly use a debit card and how does it work to pay with cash or something. You are not really talking about some wild concept lol
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Where do you guys sell your physical copies?
Last couple of times I've sold/traded games was on Amazon and Decluttr. I just went with whoever offered more. I'd only go to Gamestop if the trade in was higher and there's another game I want that I could put the credit towards. But I haven't done that in years cause I don't care for them and their pricing usually hardly makes a lick of sense, lmao.
 
I haven't bought a physical copy of a game for more than a decade and I am out of the loop.

But recently I took under my roof XSX and I hear its disk drive booting with a gentle sound, so I figured out I will buy some physical game as next.
But I am not sure how it works now - could someone explain how physical is linked to my MS account (if is at all)?
Can I sell it back?
What are advantages of having physical disk over digital convenience? (Apart from obvious, less download and speed of installation/copy to disk)

Maybe this thread could be also a spark to discuss "physical vs digital".

I was so far only digital because of how extremely convenient it is - and all my massive physical library got lost/destroyed/given away due to lack of care and order, but all my Steam games are there, and waiting to just "click" and install :)

Step One: Log on to e-tailer of choice (Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop, Target, Wal-Mart, Newegg, etc...)

Step Two: pick out game, add to cart

Step Three: enter credit card and address info and press order button.

Step Four: wait 2-4 days for game to arrive.

Step Five: open packaging

Step Six: insert disc into drive slot, install game

Step Seven: install any necessary updates via internet connection

Step Eight: enjoy playing game

(I couldn't tell if this was a serious post or not, but decided to write out instructions just in case)
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Last couple of times I've sold/traded games was on Amazon and Decluttr. I just went with whoever offered more. I'd only go to Gamestop if the trade in was higher and there's another game I want that I could put the credit towards. But I haven't done that in years cause I don't care for them and their pricing usually hardly makes a lick of sense, lmao.

Thanks. I didn't know you could trade on those sites.
 

rofif

Banned
Why would you even buy physical discs Grandad? The future is digital and there is absolutely no reason to go to a store and buy boxes with pointless little discs in.

Proper men go digital only. Imagine bringing some broad back to your abode and her seeing your Final Fantasy PS4 collection mounted on your shelf. She'd be outta there in a shot bro I'm telling you now.
I have like 600 games on steam but when it comes to console I like having my boxes and discs... On ps5 it is especially redundant since it takes more time to put in the disc than to load the game but still that demon souls looks so nice and warm in that shelf
 
Last edited:
Outside of PC, my gaming is almost exclusively on retro consoles, so I have no choice but to buy physical.

And these days, it works the same way it has worked for the last several years: I go to eBay, check out the game I want, decide whether I want to buy it, buy it, then the seller ships it to me. I insert the cartridge/game disc into the console, power the console on, and... magic!
 

keraj37

Member
My first experiance isn't best :) so I am not sure I follow with my physical collection.
l3MVbGA.jpg
 
Last edited:

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
My first experiance isn't best :) so I am not sure I follow with my physical collection.
l3MVbGA.jpg

Do you not have to download digital games?

The advantage of discs isn't that you don't have to ever download anything, the advantage is that when you play Watch_Dogs for a few hours and realise that it's shit, you can stick it on eBay and make most of your money back, and buy something else. You aren't stuck with a bad game forever that you just eat the entire cost of. W_D isn't the best example of this since it's worth like eight bucks.
 

keraj37

Member
Do you not have to download digital games?

The advantage of discs isn't that you don't have to ever download anything, the advantage is that when you play Watch_Dogs for a few hours and realise that it's shit, you can stick it on eBay and make most of your money back, and buy something else. You aren't stuck with a bad game forever that you just eat the entire cost of. W_D isn't the best example of this since it's worth like eight bucks.

Yeah, I get it, I was joking a bit, besides Control has this big update due to next-gen patch, and I still have an option to skip the update.
I think I will be buying more.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Yeah, I get it, I was joking a bit, besides Control has this big update due to next-gen patch, and I still have an option to skip the update.
I think I will be buying more.

It does kinda suck that discs are now basically just base installers, that's just the way it was always going to go, sadly. Devs know that they can send a game off to be put onto disc in a shitty, unfinished state and then spend weeks finalising the product with a day one patch.

It's a shame, but it's got its own advantages.
 

Miles708

Member
It does kinda suck that discs are now basically just base installers, that's just the way it was always going to go, sadly. Devs know that they can send a game off to be put onto disc in a shitty, unfinished state and then spend weeks finalising the product with a day one patch.

It's a shame, but it's got its own advantages.
That's why waiting for complete editions is the correct thing to do 100% of the time.
 

Ulsterman

Neo Member
For PlayStation you buy a disc at a retailer of your choosing then you put it in the console and play the game, after wards you can keep the game for your collection or sell it on. So works like physical media has done for the past 40 years.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
I feel like physical games are better in some ways because you can play the initial release of certain games. I'm not sure if you're able to do that with digital downloads.

For example, Mass Effect Andromeda, you can play it in all it's janky glory with the physical disc. I'm assuming the digital has all the patches bundled in and aren't able to be deleted? I want to do that for Cyber Punk on my base PS4 just to see how janky it is, just don't want to spend the money on it.
 
My first experiance isn't best :) so I am not sure I follow with my physical collection.
l3MVbGA.jpg
Control on Xbox is the worst physical version of the game. The size of the game is smaller on PlayStation and the ultimate edition on PlayStation has the full game and all the DLC on the disc, but not on Xbox. Not the best example of good physical media.
 

keraj37

Member
Control on Xbox is the worst physical version of the game. The size of the game is smaller on PlayStation and the ultimate edition on PlayStation has the full game and all the DLC on the disc, but not on Xbox. Not the best example of good physical media.

Yeah, and I didn't know that ONLY ultimate edition has the next-gen patch, so I still need to buy this version.

The second game gave much better impression: Watch Dogs 1, had just 126mb network update and 20gb of game was installed from the disk - I think installation took less than 3 minutes. Wow.
 
Last edited:

Boss Man

Member
Physical is less convenient but it’s almost always cheaper (especially for new games) and you can buy (and sell) used.

I prefer digital but only buy for $20-$30. Bought Demon’s Souls physical used for $60 and sold it for $50 after 100% completion. Did something similar with Spiderman - I bought MM, used the voucher for Spiderman Remastered, then sold MM.

Physical is way more economical. I feel like the PSN store in particular is leaving a lot of money on the table by being too rigid with their pricing. If prices were at least in line with physical, they could cut out used game sales a lot because everyone would be buying digital.
 
Last edited:
The only advantage I can think of with digital is convenience. Besides that, I can’t think of a single reason why digital is better than physical. For example, if you don’t like a $90 special digital edition preorder, you are most likely screwed. At least with the disc version, you can get something out of it with a trade it in or by selling.
 
While its a little silly, I can recall several times over last gen when Amazon was selling the "physical" version of a PC title before/at launch for way less--even though the inside was just a cardboard disc with a Steam key. When you can get something delivered to you on release day for a 20 to 30% savings over the digital asking price, I'll get the faux physical everytime. You can always discard the packaging if you don't want it and the game is still in your digital library.
 
Top Bottom