Honestly digital for me all the way, of course I object to some of the questionable delicious by some companies regarding taking away digital owned media, but as long as it’s not an issue digital.

I’m a very indicisive person and it’s so much better to just be able to switch the game without getting up and going halfway across the room, going through the process of putting it back in the case and taking a new one out until I figure out what I want to play.

Most of the time physically, it is just a code to activate it on steam.

On PC the pirates says, what you can do with it. On the console the company says if you own this movie/game you BOUGHT or not. ( See the Playstation movie “incident” where Sony removed many movies some people BOUGHT, but at least the backlash made Sone reconsider the BS they wanted to pull of. )

P.S. Yeah, yeah i know. “It iSnT BuYiNg YoU OnLy PuRchAsE a LiCenSe tO ThE PrOdUcT” But still its such b.s. that you declare it as BUYING instead of RENTING, Sony have them on their neck of the console gamers, because piracy or third party stores are not existing so they can pull of those stunts.

I ended up playing my physical copies way less than digital ones because I can’t be arsed to juggle disks and cartridges.

I sold most of my physical collection when upgrading from PS4 to XSX and bought those games digital there since Microsoft has proven to be solid when it comes to backwards compatibility.

All of my portable consoles (Switch, Vita, DSi, N3DS, Analogue Pocket) are jailbroken and digital only because memory is so cheap that I can hold all noteworthy games on a single SD card. In time current systems will end up in a similar state so there’s little point getting attached to dust collecting boxes.

For console games I always buy physical but for PC I buy digital. I have a ton of Ps1 - 5 games that I have physical copies of and they get played alot . My son is also getting into gaming and he likes to look through the games on my shelf to find fun things to play.

I prefer roms and emulators above all else as I know that as long as I back them up I’ll be able to play them. Other than that I use steam for convenience as a linux only gamer but I’m all for gog and their DRM free stance.

As for physical. The hardware fails unless its a ps2 😄. So at the end you are left with a ton of discs and you Will have to rip them to play them. Also some games are just shipping unfinished on disc and need to download patches or whatever.

I don’t really have a strict one or the other preference anymore.

Nintendo 1st party stuff I always buy physical, Dreamcast I collect for so that’s physical too but for Xbox I buy mostly digital when on sale. I guess for Xbox its different because I have Gamepass (the £1 upgrade deal they used to offer, still 18 months remaining, but I won’t renew) so I haven’t bought a new game in like 2 years now. The there is PC… My games are all over the place!

Plus with a family we just dont have the space to keep everything forever that we buy anymore.

On PC I’ll buy digital because worst case if it comes unavailable I’ll torrent a copy.

For consoles I am staunchly in the physical camp because it is more likely I’ll be able to play those games in 10 years when the maker has shut down their store.

Do they even make physical PC games anymore? Last ones I bought were either discs that immediately downloaded an updated copy of the whole game, or the box just contained a download code.

For the switch I buy physical, but it may be the last console where that makes sense.

Does a disc even matter these days? There’s still a 100gb patch and likely internet connection required?

I like collecting physical copies of games I like and that I want to display on my shelf. I have the entire Ace Combat franchise on disc, I have the collector’s edition of Ori and Crosscode, and a few artbooks for certain games I love (Spyro, Plague Tale, Oddworld).

I also bought the entire Resident Evil saga on xbox (Origins, R2make, R3make, R4master, R5master, R6master, R7 Gold, Code Veronica, Revelations 1 and 2) because I got most of them for cheap.

I also bought a lot of games on digital storefronts because either I didn’t care to have a physical copy, or it doesn’t exist. When I do, I usually buy on GoG when possible, as it’s the most future-proof option available. I do have a big digital collection on Xbox thanks to their generous Rewards program, but it got nerfed hard in the last few months, so I don’t think it will increase much in the future (I don’t plan on buying another Xbox console, and the MS Store on Windows sucks hard).

PC: Digital if on a trusted platform like Steam or the game is free. Otherwise I’m just not buying the game.

Console: Physical, as I can resell the games I purchased.

Here’s my perspective as a PC player. Even back in the early 2000s, discs were mostly just a form of DRM. When you install the game from a disc, 99% of the time, the installer copies the contents of the disk to your hard drive, then the disk just acts as a key in order to “unlock” your installed copy. No-cd patches just make the game think the disc is inserted when it’s not.

Today, the only difference is the delivery method, and it’s where things can get a little hazy. Steam is where I own most of my games, and I do like Steam and Valve, and consider them pretty trustworthy in terms of large tech companies. But, even so, because the only way I’m really able to get games from Steam is through their servers, there are situations that are out of my control where a game that was once available to me, no longer is.

This is why I’m starting to prefer GOG. They have a zero DRM policy, and offer offline installers for most of their games. Meaning, if I purchase a game, I download that installer, load it onto a thumb drive, and I effectively have that game forever, no matter what happens to GOG, the developer, the publisher, etc. I have a couple of games that have been lost to time officially, that I can install as easy as the day they came out because I have that offline installer. It’s as good as having any CD game.

So, bottom line is, CD, no CD, I really don’t care. Give me the installer, and guarantee I don’t be locked out of my game because of something I can’t control, and I’m happy.

I often buy physical for games I know I’ll like, for the rest, mostly digital.

When I end up liking a specific digitally bought game a lot, I try to buy a physical copy as an “archive” copy, in the case the store shuts down. An example would be Hades, which I bought digital, and ended up buying a switch physical copy from Limited Run Games.

The discs are also digital! The correct terminology would be “virtual”.

I have a PS5 physical so I buy all my single player games second hand and then sell them for basically the same price. The only digital games I’ve bought have been Elden Ring, Helldivers, and Spiderman Miles Morales.