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.

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

Disks are for games I want to be able to pull out of a box 10 years from now and go “oh man I remember this”. I have the box from a DSi that I filled with GBA games, and a shelf for Switch and PS4 games that, when they’re retired for something else, it’d be nice to come back to once in a while. My daughter has gotten into my GBA games lately, so that’s been nice.

PC games, they’re so much more available. Steam is steady, GOG is steady, I feel I can leave it to them to keep and I’ll have any particularly treasured games 10 years from now, anyway.

I’m pretty much all digital. I know the arguments for “you don’t really own those digital copies of media,” but it still feels like it’s mine because I can still go and play any of those games whenever I want. I’d just need to reinstall it with an Internet connection.

My PC doesn’t even have a disk drive so I can’t play physical unless I get an external drive, and I don’t really care enough to do that.

I’ve been pretty much all-digital since… Steam came out. Outside of Switch games (I dont trust Nintendo with how they handle their NNID system. it’s just janky), it doesn’t really make sense for me to buy physical copies. The obvious benefit there is resale, but I can rarely afford new games, so by the time I either get them, or finish playing them, they’ve already dropped in value entirely

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.

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

I didn’t have much physical space in my last apartment, so I got used to buying as much media digitally as I could. I got used to it, and now prefer it. And now that I’ve shifted from console gaming to PC gaming, I’m pretty much all in on digital.

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’m despising the growing trend of devs/publishers not offering a physical option for consoles (looking at you, Alan Wake 2). I like having the disc on my shelf, especially if it’s a series.

GOG>Steam>digital>physical

Digital only, cheapest price that isn’t Epic.

I prefer not to devote myself to any one storefront, and while Valve is very altruistic I think healthy competition is one of the things that keeps PC gaming storefronts at their best.

Even on consoles, I prefer to go digital; saves bookcase space.

PC? All digital.

Consoles? All physical

I do t play games on console all that often so I’d rather the option to pick up a cheap used copy. Plus I could play that game any number of years down the road when the servers are long shut down. But on PC I just want to click the button and the game installs and opens.

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.

All games now are digital. Just because you have the disk doesn’t mean you can play it. It’s just a trinket now. This question doesn’t really work anymore. Maybe 10 years ago it makes sense to ask, when physical disks actually contained the full game, but now the disk is mostly just a code to access the digital copy. If you want to have a physical display of your games, sure buy a physical copy. That takes up far too much space for me though, so I stick to digital. I’m exclusively on computer though.