Tough one. I’ve been playing video games since pong. I tossed a big stack of 5 1/4 floppies when I realized I’d never have another drive installed that could read them. Same with 3 1/2 floppies. I still have all the CD/DVD’s I’ve ever bought but have ended up re-buying on sale through steam or GOG when I needed a nostalgia hit because they just worked on modern systems without a bunch of tinkering. I can download just about any game I once had on either sized floppy and run it in dosbox. On modern systems, I’ve been on playstation and steam. Bought the PS5 with a disk drive and have installed PS4 disks but have yet to buy a PS5 disk, only digital which I prefer. I hate trying to find the disk, then find the case for the disk for the game in the machine. I also question what you own on modern games. Do you really want to play some of these games without the day one patch, or even the one month patch? What to do really own with a No Mans Sky launch disk if hello games disappeared and it could not be patched?
On the other hand, though I’m too much of a data hoarder to sell games used, I understand the desire. And having a kid that always wants the newest game for birthdays/Christmas but grandma has no real way to buy him the game specifically, I get physical for something to wrap and have under the tree.
In theory, I want to own my games but the history and reality of video games makes that a much more nuanced question…
Tough one. I’ve been playing video games since pong. I tossed a big stack of 5 1/4 floppies when I realized I’d never have another drive installed that could read them. Same with 3 1/2 floppies. I still have all the CD/DVD’s I’ve ever bought but have ended up re-buying on sale through steam or GOG when I needed a nostalgia hit because they just worked on modern systems without a bunch of tinkering. I can download just about any game I once had on either sized floppy and run it in dosbox. On modern systems, I’ve been on playstation and steam. Bought the PS5 with a disk drive and have installed PS4 disks but have yet to buy a PS5 disk, only digital which I prefer. I hate trying to find the disk, then find the case for the disk for the game in the machine. I also question what you own on modern games. Do you really want to play some of these games without the day one patch, or even the one month patch? What to do really own with a No Mans Sky launch disk if hello games disappeared and it could not be patched?
On the other hand, though I’m too much of a data hoarder to sell games used, I understand the desire. And having a kid that always wants the newest game for birthdays/Christmas but grandma has no real way to buy him the game specifically, I get physical for something to wrap and have under the tree.
In theory, I want to own my games but the history and reality of video games makes that a much more nuanced question…