If you have decided to go all digital, what are your reasons?

[Miss G.]

Since on a console the prices of digital games usually don't lower (at the same rate or at all in some cases) like physical copies, the only upside is not having to go out and buy it or pay for having it shipped to you. Otherwise saving hard drive space, reselling/trading options, pre-order bonuses and collector's editions will keep me buying physical copies.

 

[Aris Khandr]

1) I don't care about reselling games. I've never sold a game or console, and I only buy used games when there is legitimately no other way to get them. I'd prefer to never buy used, and a move to digital makes that easier, as you never have to worry about running out of copies.

2) I hate moving stuff. When I moved a year ago, my books alone were eleven and a half fully packed boxes. Just of books. Each box weighed about 1/4 of what I do. Which means my book collection is nearly three of me. Who wants to deal with that? I've got an iPad now, and am slowly rebuying all of my books. Problem solved, moving means "make sure my iPad is with me" and just redownload the book I want to read. Takes about two minutes. It takes longer than that to figure out which shelf the book you want is on.

3) Convenience. I already mentioned the ease of not having to move all of those things. Another is convenience when it comes to use. Before I stopped buying CDs (about a year and a half ago), my collection could be stacked up taller than I was. If I wanted to mix up my music, it either meant shuffling CDs while driving or ripping the music to my computer and burning yet-more CDs. Now, I have a plug in for my iPad that lets me play my music from there via the tape deck. At some point in the future I will be picking up an iPod and replacing the stereo to integrate it wirelessly. Then all of my music will be available at all times.

4) Replacement. Touched on in 2 again, but a major factor for me. Say my house catches on fire. I'll lose a lot of things that cannot be replaced. My stuffed animals, my dolls, a lot of my clothes, all gone. My games? Steam has them, I'll be redownloading them as soon as I get a new computer. My music? Downloaded again in under an hour thanks to Amazon. Disasters happen every day. People say they like to own things, but it seems to me that you're far more likely to lose your things in a fire than you are to have them taken away by Steam or Apple.

In short, my life is extremely chaotic right now. I could very well pack up and move next week. And a box of game cases or books is just another thing to pack into my car. It isn't worth it. My clothes alone would require more space than I have, to say nothing of things with sentimental value to me. Why waste the space on plastic and paper?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

When I think of this debate, I am reminded of the difference between leasing and purchasing a car. When you lease, you're subject to the will of the company. If they decide that they don't want to lease that particular model of vehicle any longer, you're out of luck. BUT, if you had purchased it, they couldn't really pull those types of shenanigans on you.

If I go all digital, I'm basically leasing the right to play those games, where as if I purchase the physical copy, then no matter what that company does, I'm still able to play it.

***I know I'm not referencing multiplayer here, just making a basic argument***

This is my logic too. I know Valve probably won't take away my games or mess something up, but they can and that bothers me. If something is going to happen to my games like getting lost or damaged or whatever, I want it to be in my control. I won't rely on digital games in the same way I rely on console games unless they're drm-free but I just went through GoG's entire catalog and all they seem to have is indi games, ps1 games I can play on my vita, and adventure games from the 90's

If I do digital its for convenience. My ps vita library is all digital so I can take all my games with me and I can back up system images for my vita on my pc. I don't buy physical movies, music, and books for the same reason: portability. Digital console games don't really give me that. I hardly ever change disks so that's not a problem. I've bought a few download titles when I was feeling lazy but they weren't huge titles I was concerned about

 

[lacktheknack]

The only reason I haven't gone full digital is because gog.com doesn't offer everything yet.

When they do, though... HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY...

 

[JDLY]

I'm all digital. I went digital pretty much as soon as got a PC.

For the most part is was convenience. I live in a fairly small town, so if I wanted physical copies of games I'd have to make a 45 minute drive to the nearest "large" town, but I have fairly good internet. So if I wanted a game, I bought it online, watched tv for an hour while it downloaded, and then It's all ready.

As for the concerns about if Valve goes down the tubes, or some other theory that means Steam is no longer available to access my games. I have enough hard drive space that I have back-ups of all my games, and, regardless of what people say, it is possible to play steam games, while not having steam running, as I've done it before.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

If it were a console I'd probably want the physical game, just for trade value. I'm not that sentimental about most games, play 'em and get rid of 'em. Or better yet, rent them and return them.

On PC I much prefer digital. I dislike having the game boxes around. There was a time that I liked them, but that's long gone.

 

[Worgen]

I will always prefer a physical copy of a game, I have only once payed full price for a digital game and I'm on the pc. If I played consoles then I would never buy digital since you lose the only benefit consoles have over the pc by buying digital, the ability to trade things in.

 

[Festus Moonbear]

I always buy digital when available because I live in a part of the world where physical copies are incredibly expensive and often not in my language. Otherwise I have to ebay them from overseas, wait for a month and deal with customs red tape to get them. I'd buy all games digitally if I could.