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In the early days, you bought a game one of two ways. You bought it from the store or ordered it online. You can also download it directly from the website front, using a program like Steam or the developer’s direct site.
Now, that trend continues, but the battle rages on to establish the cadence of the future. Digital and streaming games online or buying a fresh disk or cartridge (For Switch) and slapping it in our console of choice.
The overall goal of this modern hobby we call gaming is to preserve the past of something that is slowly being phased out.
Digital: Easier but Better?
Digital games or downloading them directly is the fastest and most convenient way to buy games and it’s highly likely they’ll have a game on Steam or another store front like Epic Games. if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you get two digital games free every month with Amazon gaming. There is no short supply of ways to get these in your hands.
The other way you can play games is by streaming. Cloud technology has been normalized now where you can access your games through a focal point of your Steam library, Gamepass for Xbox or select games of the PlayStation and Nintendo.
Sony’s cloud capabilities are focused on accessing older games, as well as any purchased games in your library. You can buy this device called a portal and as long as your settings are correct, you can access your PS5 from your house anywhere on the go. This function is similar to how Gamepass is set up for Xbox and PC.
Nintendo’s strength does not lie with its online multiplayer capabilities. It is their cloud gaming as well. If you subscribe to their Nintendo online subscription, you get access to NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, GBA, DS, and even Sega Genesis games. This is great because a lot of these older games on the platforms I just listed are either hard to find or their prices have quadrupled on the third party market. An example I went through was getting Pokemon Soul Silver for no less than 100 dollars for the DS! Their subscription proves that when AAA games fail to catch our attention, we go back to the tried and true classics that we know will be fun.
A good example of utilizing the digital platform of buying games is buying the game series Commander Keen. The IP is currently owned by Bethesda, but they have a sub company called Apogee that is still publishing games for this very day! I could do a whole feature on Commander Keen and its history, but just now I consider it an important part of my gaming palette with the juggernauts like Sonic, Mario, Link, Solid Snake, Master Chief, and Pikachu. My love for platformers and action games was ignited by Commander Keen.
As of now, the only way you can get these games is through digital platforms like Steam or GOG.com. these are great, but it isn’t a complete collection. There are a total of 7 games in the Commander Keen series. Keen 1-5 can be bought online, but Keen Dreams and Keen 7, which is Aliens Ate My Babysitter, is missing because of rights issues. One day, relentless fan demand may summon the attention of Bethesda and hopefully we get a re release or a remaster. They originally shifted their attention to IPs like Fallout, and Skyrim because it was more popular but Keen kicked it all off.
Another advantage of keeping digital games is it doesn’t take up physical space. You make sure your accounts are active and you can bring all your games together at one time. Physical copies require allowing space for them, which we might not have depending on what you live in. I live in an apartment, so I try my best to allocate all games to my entertainment center and various racks and boxes.
I plan on getting the Keen games I can, but this would be impossible if I didn’t have access to these online store fronts to buy from. I laugh at the idea of trying to find these games physically because they were on floppy discs, which is an odd word to see in the era of up to 100gb Internet.
Digital storefronts and game copies serve their purpose as archiving things conveniently through the Internet, but they also establish a foothold in the past to preserve what we had. The biggest problems I have with buying digital games are storefronts updating all the time and if the rights are disputed over a specific game, it can get pulled without notice.
The other problem with digital games is that the prices are usually about the same price as a physical copy. Why would I pay the same price for a game that I don’t physically own? It could be pulled at any time or shut down if it’s a live service or MMORPG. This isn’t directly related to digital games, but it does cause ripples in the current market of acquiring games.
The last issue with digital copies is the DRM requirements. This has to do with if you download specific games on their platform, like GOG, UPlay, EA launcher, or Origin, you have to keep your game on that specific game launcher. You couldn’t have copied it to a disk and installed it to another device or computer. This example is in regards to the PC platform.
Physical: Hands on Experience
If you prefer a different route of buying your games, the traditional route is to buy games physically. This builds into many collectors, including myself, catalog as there is a refreshing feeling of setting up your library and plucking the game or games you’ll play for this week.
As I referenced earlier, collecting physical games is a driven hobby and can be competitive because so many older games are becoming harder to find, prices on the third party market have been dependent on reviews, fan demand or cult status. Based on the trends I’ve followed, if it’s an established IP making a spin off or a game with a limited amount, the value would double or triple. I also pay attention to reviews because every gameplay experience is subjective. I’ve followed games before that I haven’t liked, but the community loved them.
Physical copies provide an advantage for video games is not struggling to find it on an online marketplace and making sure the developer or whomever holds the rights to the IP didn’t pull it. The saturation of games is so high that it’s easy to miss all the major titles of games each month and at the end of the year.
The next way physical video game copies excel for gamers like us is that magical moment of opening up a new game. With digital games, you just download and it might take an hour or hours, depending on your Internet speed. With physical video games, normally, you can pop it into your system and you should be fine.
Another way physical copies help is they keep local game shops and retailers fresh with regular inventory. Without these stores everything would be ordered online. It would destroy the human aspect of connecting with the workers and getting fresh recommendations.
Though collecting physical copies of video games can be exciting and an experience, it does present its own list of problems. For one example, physical games can take up space. If you don’t properly organize them or misplace a case somewhere, you spend less time gaming and more time searching for it. Another way it brings a drawback is the older copies of games, depending on popularity, can skyrocket on the third party market.
The last way physical copies can be a disadvantage is how fragile the disc or cartridge can be. Modern Switch games have saved memory allocated on the Switch console, but older cartridges had to have batteries in them. And if these batteries died, your save game was gone. Digital does win in this advantage, since it is saved in the cloud. A disc for an Xbox or PS5 could be damaged and be unreadable. When I first bought Halo 3 for Xbox 360, it was dropped or accidentally dropped and wouldn’t play. I had to wait to get another one, but it felt like an eternity.
I personally think there’s something magical about owning a physical copy of a game because you can rest knowing you can play it immediately. The only catch is the mandatory updates. No modern game feels complete these days. Online technology does help with this, but I do wish we keep exploring ways to finalize games and not force us to play incomplete levels.
The Future: What Happens Next?
There are your cases for and against digital and physical video games. Access is the overall theme of this and it’s important to stress that older games need to find a way of being preserved. If we just keep pumping out games and expend all of our talent and resources, how can we cultivate more creativity ? We always need to be looking out for better ways to do things.
For digital games, I think the reach of platforms and access will become more broad. Xbox is already charging ahead by doing the multi-device play anywhere initiative with their games. This also is following in the cloud technology for Sony and Nintendo. They just offer different uses for the cloud.
I think digital games can continue to get better, but as I referenced earlier, I would hope they discuss a way to make it less expensive. We leave less of a carbon footprint by making it digital but we have to consistently keep it going.
So how do we decide what is better? It’s all personal preference. I like to have a mix of both. Any rare or existent games that aren’t always in the (wild) are boring now.
I would say as long as we work on ways to archive older games, things should be fine. We can’t forget the past, but also find ways to incorporate the innovation this new era brings.
I stand on the spectrum of dominantly physical copies, but I also understand that we can’t ignore the digital marketplace.
No matter what option you pick, the main thing to drive in is preservation is important. The games you play are important, but it should always be about choice. We need to keep the streams of buying games open, so this keeps things competitive and convenient to access.
Charle Subketkaew is a passionate gamer, storyteller, and daydreamer. When he's not immersed in a fresh new video game, he also enjoys creating art, graphic design, spending time with friends, watching movies or anime, listening to a podcast or custom playlist, writing, collecting, working out, and scouting out his next weekend adventure.
He runs a design page and website, Fortis Ideas. This is an evolution of his design and media career over the span of a decade. He works with different creators in different disciplines on a multitude of projects to push himself to create new ideas.
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