Physical or digital?

[BTGBullseye]

I think what BTG is trying to say is that while physical copies might get damaged beyond repair, Steam will always allow him to redownload his games on a new comp or HD in case the old one crashes.

 

I have never had any of my games broken beyond repair. My old copy of Quake 2 is scratched to hell and back but still installs without hiccups. If you take good care of your games the natural data degradation will be the end of them, and that process takes decades, even then you can make iso backups of the games (At least the ones not crippled by illegal malw- errr... I mean DRM.) or make a new CD/DVD copy.

It's that DRM that is the big problem, combine that with the fact that I've already lost 2 games to the disk exploding inside the drive, (destroyed the drive) and having that cause a permanent HDD crash at the same time... (the same HDD that has the ISO of said disk)

 

You can see why I prefer digital copies...

 

For those wondering which games I lost... Cyberstorm 2, and SimCity 3000 Unlimited. (they were my favorite games at the time, and SC3K I have been unable to find anywhere in the Unlimited version, I have already replaced Cyberstorm 2)

[Bjossi]

Backups are best kept on an offline hard drive...

[BTGBullseye]

Backups are best kept on an offline hard drive...

And what happens when that goes too? How about when shit happens, and you're dead broke at the same time? (my typical situation)

[Bjossi]

There is no perfect, future-proof backup method. The rule of thumb is to have at least two copies of the data you don't want to lose. Offline backup storage is not safe, only safer.

[BTGBullseye]

I keep it all safe on someone else's server, that way I can sue if they lose it.

[Bravetriforcer]

Physical for consoles, digital for PC.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Bumping this topic back up so people can share whether they prefer physical copies or digital copies.

[Estophelen]

Digital - preferably on Steam. I Never had a problem with it, and it's bloody comfortable.

Sometimes it drains my money account at an unpleasant pace, especially when Steam Sale comes to town, but that is to be expected.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Digital - preferably on Steam. I Never had a problem with it, and it's bloody comfortable.

Sometimes it drains my money account at an unpleasant pace, especially when Steam Sale comes to town, but that is to be expected.

I see your point.

[Humin]

Digital. Physical game resales don't make much sense from an outsiders perspective and trying to make it so people can't resell them is ridiculous.

[Alyxx Thorne]

As a collector I prefer physical as it's a more tangible format and looks better on a shelf. As a gamer I prefer digital as it's more convenient. I dunno, I'm kinda stuck either way. But I'm gonna vote for physical.