No. There are copyright laws in some countries which do not allow for a backup "personal" copy of most retail physical media. Compounded further when the disc has a copy-protection measure applied to it.

In my country personal use copies are allowed… but circumventing any kind of DRM is forbidden. So in practice you are only allowed to make copies of your DRM-free games.

Right, so... let's look at future-proofing your games that way:

Digital Copy -> Digital Copy -> Digital Copy -> Digital Copy
(Start with digital copy, progressively move it to other drives over time)

Physical Disc + Digital Copy -> Digital Copy -> Digital Copy -> Digital Copy
(Start with disc, make a digital copy (if legal), progressively move the copy to other drives over time)

Seems to me that in the end you're going to have only a digital copy if you want to keep your game in the extreme long-term.

What is the point, long-term, of having the physical disc if it eventually has to become digital anyway? Even if the disc survives the long decades ahead you'll eventually have to face the problem of ODD availability too - making that digital copy the winner imho in long-term viability. It even beats physical in sheer convenience. It can't compete in prettiness though.

Always physical, but I can also get behind GOG's offline installers. Doesn't really matter if I plug in a disc or an SSD.

What does matter though is that physical is something tangible, a collectible. No digital product can ever be that.

I've had a CD that was DRMed and in order to play the game, the CD had to be read and detected the entire time.
Eventually, the CD was scratched from wear and tear to the extent of being unreadable and I was unable to play.

I would say both.
Since no one can guarantee any online platform to exist forever, it is best to have both.
What if we want to pass our old games to our kittens?
And their kittens and so forth?
Someone needs to have multiple copies and backups to extend their shelf life.
I share the same experience as testicles, but for me, it was a PC game.
But then again, I also remember the frightening "unreadable error" during console days.
Being equivalent to BSOD on Windows.

I still miss the games I played on Sega Saturn and PS.
I wish I had kept those CDs after they stopped working.
The looping doom of unreadable error.
You know you're done for at that point.

I loved retail boxes, once upon a time. But now it takes up way too much space in my small apartment, where I still have a few. Probably going to donate it to someone at some point.

Digital is just more convenient, cause I can't imaging storing 900+ games in my room or any room.....

I do missing the physical extras you could get from a retail box sometimes. I've gotten cloth maps, die-cast figures/ships and all sorts of things. But I've also lost things easily or they accidently got throw out when I was cleaning up lol. Or my brother at one time...sat on my StarCraft 1 play disc and that was my only retail copy I ever bought...I'd like to see him sit on my digital copy lol.

So from now on (well from 2015), it's digital all the way, hands down (or is it hands up? lol) and I won't look back. I'm now just waiting for some type of quantum or dimensional storage where I have unlimited space and all GOG games are automatically backup up there the instant I buy them and automatically updated bug-free for all eternity.

Hopefully I turn into an gaming addict AI before my time comes up (or is it comes down? lol), so I can play 24/7 (or maybe re-play =P) until the universe expands to nothingness (or is it collapses to nothingness? lol). I'm gonna go re-watch the Lawnmower Man and see how he did it (I'm not gonna let Elon Musk chip me though!! lol). =P
.

To be honest, it's very likely that the majority of my physical copies will outlive me anyway. And no, I'm not old.

It's mostly due to the points I mentioned before:

-During the time my copy is operational, it has an actual value, which I can get back if I need to sell it.
-It is undeniable proof of ownership of a game. I think it's a bit harder to explain to someone you actually legally own your DRM free digital games, especially if you no longer have your account.
-The convenience argument is honestly a moot point for me personally. Using a disc honestly doesn't bother me at all. We've just gotten so entitled to the point where having to get up to switch discs is somehow a burden. Meanwhile 2 decades ago a lot of people would be thankful to have a second game to switch to, instead of spending another 500 hours on the same game;
-And lastly: I do not intend to promote piracy, but there are lots of websites which can do the game archiving for you. I do like archiving and managing my own GOG copies myself, but it almost doesn't feel like a necessity at all. Meanwhile, keeping my physical copy collection feels a lot more worthwhile to me, since it's entirely unique and not widely accessible, but this all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day.

PS: what does "ODD" mean? Is it an acronym?

If a Hard Disk Drive is HDD... what would be an ODD?

In fact, CDs are cheaper than vinyl. Who said that the producers would pass on the cost advantage to the customers? Same goes with digital downloads. It is cheaper (for the producers, not for the customers).

Digital downloads are convenient. Fast food is convenient as well.

My bad, I had never seen anyone using that acronym. I think optical drives on PC will become more "specialized", and more niche, but I don't think they'll ever disappear, at least not so soon.

Is exactly what I have said.

That one old Ferrari car didn't break because Ferrari didn't shutdown the servers since it has no electric stuff, so there's still old ferrari cars you can drive :)

As for the Battlefield 3 copy, i have two copies. (one physical copy on PS3, and got one digital copy on PC because of a free giveaway on Origin) and that DRMed digital only PC version is more preserved than the physical PS3 version as that DRMed digital only PC version already has mods like Venice Unleashed to play on self hosted private servers.

Also i'm not saying "physical media is bad because servers shutdown" I'm just annoyed in physical versus digital debates, people say stuff like "Physical games is better and cannot be taken away from you because it's in your hands" "PC is the most evil platform because they started digital only" "You don't own your games on PC because it's all digital" "Yes the servers may shutdown but atleast no evil digital store can steal your game from you" And when they show their physical collection... they have physical copies of online only games in their library.

When in reality all "physical video games" are just digital games stored in a disc like how a digital game is stored in a HDD. When The Crew shutdown i have seen lots of people in the youtube comments section say that "digital games is evil and all of us should buy physical games to save gaming" when we can already buy lots of physical copies on every platform the game released on for 10 years. These physical discs are more dead than 99% of digital only games released.

Also... looking at physical game sales most of these "buy physical" gamers don't care about always online DRM either... like how COD Black Ops 6 reached top 1 on physical game sales despite being a online only game that streams all textures from online cloud servers.

And i never heard of any "only buy physical" console gamers say that console online clients like Xbox Live has "ruined console gaming" like how many DRM-free gamers here say that PC online clients like Steam has "ruined PC gaming" :)

A DRM-free digital PC copy is more owned than a physical console copy because you don't need to rent to Xbox Live Gold, Playstation Plus, or Nintendo Switch Online to play online or backup your saves and you have more freedom on a PC since consoles are closed platforms while PC is a open platform. Bonus points if you play on a Linux PC :)

You got me there XD

The copy on PC isn't necessarily more preserved. EA could still delete it from your library if they wanted to (unlikely, but it has happened, and is always a danger with account tied digital games). But I do agree it is, right now, far more future proofed and functional than the PS3 copy, but that's only because no one made a similar mod to Venice Unleashed on PS3, which is 100% possible to do, but unlikely to happen. But if it were to happen, your PS3 copy would be the most preserved option.

This is correct. In the case of online only games, it doesn't mean the game will be functional, but you'll have a much harder to revoke license than a digital one, hands down.

I partially agree here. But it wasn't PC itself, it was Steam. I do think that in some regard, digital only is inherently predatory on customers, and that would 100% be the case if there weren't DRM free movements. Digital removes value from your purchases, doesn't lower game prices (like it was promised when they started pushing digital and killing off physical), and if it weren't for DRM free storefronts, you wouldn't even have some form of ownership. With physical, the product you buy has a value, and you own it.

Yes, but can you sell the games on your HDD? Or your HDD containing your games? You can't. This possibility with physical is for me alone a lot more pro-consumer than digital.

Once again, as I said before, the game itself is to blame here, not physical media. You shouldn't completely disregard physical media just because of this minority of games (and yes, they're a minority).

That particular example has many explanations. It (unfortunately) is a franchise that sells like hot cakes, people don't know that that disc in particular doesn't work, or don't care, and a lot of kids go to retail stores and want it, and it's still a lot easier for kids to ask parents for a disc as a gift than a digital game (unless you're a "great" parent that just slaps your debit card on PSN and let your children buy as many slop games as they want).

Oh.... you maybe haven't heard yourself, but I have, and just like me, the vast majority of people I know despise what Xbox Live did on consoles. In fact, a lot of people praised the PS3 and still do to this day, because it was the only console with online multiplayer that never required a subscription, while the 360 at the time did, and the next consoles followed suit.
I absolutely despise subscription services, and don't pay for PS Plus on my PS5. I'd say everyone hates it, but they don't have a choice, they have to play along with it at this point. And those that do like it, are too far gone, and too ignorant to realize the dangers of such services.

One last main advantage that I'd like to point out for physical: physical games are immune to delistings, and nowadays, physical is the only way to obtain a lot of games. No matter how good DRM free is, this is its biggest weakness, which is the proof of why we can't rely on digital exclusively.

Unless one forgot to pay the heated seat or the battery pack subscription. Yeah, the path towards subscriptions is set, plenty of "DRM" in the automotive industry to make it happen.


On the topic:
The good old adage "you don't own what you can't sell" applies very well to the digital market (digital of course, not in a literal sense) but nowadays I'm way more flexible and DRM-free downloads are more than enough.

Perhaps just a juvenile nostalgia but what I miss is the days when we borrowed games and music albuns (and videos, both VHS and DVD's), even if they were more expensive.
The lack of tangible value from "digital" copies leads me to only buying discounted titles.
A few years ago, say 10 to 15, there was a bit of some "perception of value" with online accounts and selling Steam accounts was pretty much a thing. Nowadays with so many free-to-play games and Epic giveaways is selling accounts still a thing?

But is that really the case?

If you are using GOG or any store where you get a game DRM-Free and back it up properly, de-listing should never be an issue ... no more than it is for a disc version when updates occur. And most de-listed games, are available via the cloud still, once you own them.

And the notion that just because you can 'maybe' obtain a game on disc, is no guarantee you get any benefit. Many games have horrible DRM on disc. Whereas with a game that has become DRM-Free, you no longer have just their neutered equivalent on disc. In fact, many folk have been able to get games from GOG etc, that were simply not available anywhere else in any format, except as abandonware, which is also a digital download.

So I fail to see any advantage in most cases, especially when you also have to deal with getting the game to work on newer OS.

I say all that as someone who is a game collector, and has many boxed disc versions of games. While I might feel a little relieved to have them, I still did not feel all that secure, and most of them I re-bought at GOG or ZOOM Platform, etc. And long after my discs die or get damaged or lost or are stolen or suffer disc rot, I will still have a copy on a hard drive somewhere. Hell, it could be as simple as losing everything in a house fire or war etc.

A big advantage, at least to me, of the digital downloads, is my games don't have to be divided up to be passed onto my kids, they can all get a digital copy if they want. Now some will see that as illegal, but I don't ... it certainly isn't the same as sharing outside the family, and honestly who is going to check ... and my kids can prove linked legal ownership anyway, and the negativity surrounding prosecuting a close family member, is likely not something desired by a company.