What about the guy who only learned about the game a few years after it was delisted?

> once you own them

Exactly. What about those who didn't have the chance before that? Or weren't even born at that time? Delisting is a non issue for those who got it before it was delisted, obviously. It's an issue for those who want to play it after that happens.

I wouldn't have ever played Driveclub, a PS4 exclusive, otherwise. It was delisted and pretty much erased from existence as far as Sony is concerned, so it's all thanks to physical copies that are circulating in the market that I ever got the chance to play it.

That's why GOG made sure to make a whole lot of noise with the relisting of Alpha Protocol.

It's a bit easy for us to forget the deeper effect delistings have on games. Most of us, right now, probably won't forget a great game if it gets delisted. But when a game gets delisted, it's existence on the internet disappears as well. So new people getting into games will never see those games around. Mix that up with no physical copies in the future, and you have the perfect mix to increase the insanely high number of inaccessible games even more.

Same thing happens if they cannot buy the disc version.

You are talking about a slim chance, and as I stated, it might be for a game disc that has horrible DRM on it anyway, or gives real issues when trying to get the game working on a more recent OS.

Your game disc, if you do manage to acquire it, might just be a simple coaster ... especially as they get older and have maybe had a few owners, one of whom the odds say will mistreat it. I well remember the secondhand game discs I have bought, many of them flawed by scratches.

Then there is the aging of optical drives and their availability going forward. And as any experienced person knows, discs can be read on some and not others, for whatever reason.

In the end it is about playing the odds and all the other benefits from a digital copy.

And when it comes to not being aware about a great game, plenty of websites list them, and other folks can talk about them. So unless you live in a bubble, it is a kind of non issue ... and being in a bubble, games should be the least of your worries. And it is impossible to miss, in a decent way, what you aren't aware of.

I prefer le discs, le physical media

I know that a DRM-free download will take zero physical space while the disc, box and manual will take up space, but that's part of the charm. It exists in the real world.

I know a disc will stay on one static version while you would download the latest DRM-free copy and keep it that way. If you're willing to download an updated DRM-free copy you likely will also download and keep the updates for a disc version. Unless you're playing the PS3 Gran Turismos it won't be painful.

I know you can make infinite copies of downloads while you have one physical copy. You can still make digital copies of the physical copy, scan the manual, etc.

I know you effectively own the DRM-free copy. But physical games can be sold as used games - it's how I have a decent library of PS3 games, almost always cheaper than these same games while discounted on steam but you don't own them! Yes, some of them have dead multiplayer modes like ClassicGamer's Battlefield 3, but that problem is equally likely to happen on PC, or we get sold that game DRM-free through GOG but multiplayer is disabled. (Silver lining: a PS3 game with dead multiplayer can have fan revivals like MotorStorm or Killzone 2).

Oh and nothing can beat physical feelies. I don't like that game, but my PS3 copy of GTA V has a full foldable map, shame the manual is a stub that tells you to visit a dead link. My Skyrim copy should have came with a map, but at least the manual is still with it and it's a full color thing with more pages than the usual. Older consoles or PC games will have straight up outlandish feelies.



The only issue then would be the weird middle ages DRM, like SecuROM or SafeDisc. Even these will usually have cracks or solutions to run them in the modern day, the ones that will be a pain in the butt are those games that, you guessed it, come with Steam keys, Uplay keys, Origin keys, whatever. These are just digital copies in a box. It's like buying a gift card but less honest.

Video Games on DVDs and DVD Movies are the reason for my frequent visits to town(s).
It is rewarding to find a rarity. And the newest DVD I've ever found was the 2017 Smurfs - The Lost Village movie.

The problem with Multi-player is everything seems to be central-server side from the company/publishers.

They don't use TP-ICP, don't use LAN support - so, MP skirmish type of mode dies. And a lot of times, they don't make bots/AI anymore for the MP and don't make the MP work offline. Games really should go back to the old era of doing things like say Battlefield 1942, Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament games (not the Reboot), and Diablo 1 & Diablo 2 - and make all modes work online and offline with AI/bot support for skirmish modes.

I'd also love games like The Secret World be able to work offline one day & re-work the game and its content to work solo, too - in case player count dies (probably already has) and/or they feel they need to pull the plug b/c having servers ain't cheap to run.

Do you prefer physical media or DRM-free digital downloads?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What if I prefer DRM-free physical media?

You need a Salvation Army. I've found new DVDs printed in the late 1990s there.

There is a Church Salvation Army here, but to the next Charity shop, I need to go to another town : ) Let me call them to see if they do DVDs and video games..... right... you were right : D

.... then maybe the 'Digital Copy to Download' option is the option

More and more I prefer digital downloads to Physical Media. Only if I really fancy a game, and a collectors Edition is available I would go for the Box.

It is quite a different scenario when talking about console games, as there is no option to own the digital download version ... at best you only lease it for however long you are able to, with very little control yourself about that. And anything console related is flawed, because it has a limited duration, if not the discs themselves, the hardware certainly, unless it gets successfully cloned in the future.

And with a PC game, copying a disc to make a digital files version can be very problematical, reliant of course on the DRM scheme used on the disc. If you are lucky enough, you can use a combo of a virtual disc rip with a No CD patch, which I certainly used to do ... though always a pain to go to that trouble, and usually some kind of hiccup.

It is far better to do the opposite thing, and get the digital download and burn that to disc, if you must have a disc copy. And artwork is easy enough to create yourself using the various online sources for images etc out there. I might have done all that once myself, but cannot be bothered now ... life has too many other things to do.

Well I certainly don't buy games off PSN, besides, in the PS3's case, digital versions go for a lot more than their physicals used. On the Sony side, you have the PSP's store shut down, and for the PSP Go which is digital only... you have no choice but to download what you already bought or straight up PIRATE more stuff (or go through the mental gymnastics of buying PSP physicals then rip them on a CFW'd regular PSP then copy them to the PSP Go assuming it is CFW'd), in all cases it's not great - but with physical you avoid that entirely.

Assuming your hardware works though all should be fine or you can just rely on emulators (PPSSPP for PSP, DuckStation for PS1, PCSX2 for PS2, RPCS3 for PS3, Vita3K for Vita), it's not all dead-ends. PS1 CD-ROMs may be subject to disc rot and I think you could avoid it if you take care of your discs, DVDs will last longer and BDs have a protective layer that means you'd have to actually try to damage a disc yourself.

All of that is certainly true. But in my experience, most of the time you just need a No CD crack. Some game communities may straight up recommend you use a specific No CD crack, see GTA SA and its community recommending the one by Hoodlum. It's not ideal but the alternative is ROCKSTAR LAUNCHER-

(Also fuck GTA.)

It may be better buuut you'd have to have the know-how. How do you print art on a disc so it isn't just a shiny disc with "TES IV Oblivion Backup" written in marker? How do you get a good quality scan of a box art and find a place to properly print it at the best quality? What about the manual? An official physical copy does not need any prepwork.



Buuut kudos to the Hitman Collection physical. I'm not even sure what kind of mindset I'd need to have to enjoy the Hitman games without looking up a guide- but the Hitman Collection is a two-disc collection of the classic four games and it's literally DRM-free. Install the games and you're done - no need to get a No CD or keep the disc in the drive. For those games that merely insist to stay in the disc drive, I say fine, I already do that for my PS3/PS2 physicals so it's not a big deal.

Are you talking about PC emulators or hardware replacement emulators?
In my admittedly limited experience, PC emulators don't work that great.

Disc rot is usually due to how the disc was manufactured (metal used etc), and not usually how you personally treat them, unless you leave them out in the Sun, which can cause a similar state I believe. Environment can probably play a factor though.

Discs, whether CD, DVD or Blu-ray are all over the shop when it comes to how well they behave, with the burner playing a major part, and they often suffer from variables too. I've burnt a lot of discs over the years, and been disappointed by many of them, and optical drives, even though I was anal about burning speed, compared to several friends who had many more coasters than me. I am no longer big on trusting burnt discs, though my best luck has been with re-writable DVDs ... only burnt to once each though, and not in sessions.

I'm not sure how you are just getting by with only the No CD crack.
Perhaps you are just talking about those games that install fully, never needing to access the disc again.
In my experience, you also often need to either create a virtual drive copy of the disc or burn such with decent cloning software, and manage to incorporate that crack (EXE) in the resulting disc. It will be a bit simpler if the original disc isn't encrypted.
Admittedly my experience is mostly based on a no whirring physical disc scenario, provided by virtual discs.

Quite easy with the right software and white blank discs created for just that purpose, by the likes of Verbatim etc.

Sourcing good enough quality images may be a bit tricky at times, though you might be surprised by what is out there on the web. You'd probably need to use a bit of artistic license, to approximate what you want. A lot of good wallpaper images exist for many games, which you can be creative with. Good enough quality of course, is often in the eye or mind of the beholder.

Plenty of places, at least here, to print what you need, for your boxes, if your personal printer isn't up to the job or you don't have one. It's all pretty easy really, if you have the time and can be bothered to go to the trouble.

The last time I did any such, was at least a couple of decades ago, and things have improved a lot since then, though burning discs would be less common now.

DRM-free digital downloads for me. And besides, you can always burn the offline installers to a DVD if you want a physical copy anyway.

I love it too (i.e. DRM-Free files digitally) - but problem is DVD's ain't huge for newer titles. Regular BD and BDXL is fine, I guess - but w/out say a Microsoft approval or something, feels like BD as a format on PC went nowhere here. It's kind of why I wish Toshiba's HD-DVD format beat BR in the war - but that didn't happen.

I still wish we had big optical discs like BDXL or some sort of replacement of that sort, like the old days - though with disc sizes say in the 100-300gb range. Or some sort of say thumb drive or something that's super-fast for transfer speeds like Thunderbolt type speeds, but not as expensive.

Sure, HDD's and SSD's are convenient to stick lots of games on, esp. DRM-Free stuff - but, what if those drives fail? It's inevitable.

I wish we had more of that. Some games like Venetica were DRM-Free on the disc, provided by the publisher.

We can dream though, as most dev's/pub's stick DRM on their games. Often, so we re-buy digital-files from GOG without DRM so we can cut to disc, thumb drive, HDD's, SSD's, whatever - which can get dev's/pub's that double-dip, if possible.

In my experience PS2 is hit or miss, PS3 I haven't tried because my laptop isn't that powerful, and PS1 is mostly covered except for very few edge cases with DuckStation.

Which is where you do your best to take care not to expose them to the elements and they'll live longer with you. Some of my really old CDs still work, some were already done for from abuse.

Most games just behave with a no-CD, few might still nitpick - these games might have tiny virtual discs for the purposes. In the case of games where the data isn't fully installed, there could be mods to alleviate that. Admittedly I'm not too big on these aspects of physical PC games and prefer just popping the disc in and being done, or a simple no CD process.

Thing is, I dunno if there's a place nearby that even prints the art on the disc itself even if I get a high quality one. All this printing up of a physical copy from a digital one would cost not just money but also time to make them happen.

And I guess if I want to print up physical things just because I like these things being physical, I could print simpler stuff. Like say, the character sheets for my tabletop characters.