Sorry to come in a week later with a hot take.

But something I think would be awesome, probably for GOG, would be for them to offer a backup service where they will put your GOG library onto M-Disc Blurays in 100Gb increments for a nominal fee, say $40 plus postage.

For people who game preservation matters to it would be a solid statement. I doubt many of us can afford a salt mine to store the disks in but they are still about as long lived as you are going to get in a format that’s accessible for a home user (let’s be honest those disks will likely outlast the drives to read them with).

For GOG the costs would be fairly minimal and since M-Disc is a pretty valid backup media they would gain that capability from a business perspective.

Just something that sprang to mind while I was reading this thread.

I only buy digital, since I don’t like having a lot of “stuff” around. GOG is my goto, since I can just back them up to my server. I only tolerate Steam for special purchases that aren’t offered on GOG, probably ~2 games a year.

My main concern is getting games in a form that I can store locally for 20 years and then reasonably expect to boot up and play. A secondary concern (ever since I moved permanently to another country) is going digital whenever possible because shipping stuff long distances is expensive. I had hundreds of physical books that it pained me to give away, but it simply wasn’t economical to move them to my new home. I kept my physical games, CDs, and DVDs, because they’re mostly thin discs and air-filled plastic cases (often replaceable once paper inserts have been removed) and I was able to bring them over affordably.

Over the last few years I’d say I’ve slowed down on physical retro collecting and only bought a couple dozen retro console games. More often I sail the high seas looking for them because morally there’s no sane argument decades after release that paying $50-100 to a private collector or dealer today has any impact on the developer’s or publisher’s profits in terms of secondary or tertiary sales. The physical game media and packaging have ceased to be games and have become artifacts, almost independent of their content, like other vintage or antique items. Of course that doesn’t apply if the game has been rereleased in more or less its original form, in which case I either buy it (if the price is reasonable) or don’t play it at all (if the price is unreasonable). I actually have such a game in digital storage that I’ve been meaning to play for years, and I learned that it’s quite recently been put up in GOG, so now I’m morally obligated to buy it if I still want to play it, heh. Luckily for me the price seems fair.

And speaking of GOG, the majority of my recent game purchases have been split pretty evenly between GOG and itch.io; about 95%. I basically haven’t bought anything directly from Steam for more than a decade. I understand that many games there are actually DRM-free, but I’m not interested in trying to research every game before I make a purchase. If each game’s store page indicated its true DRM status clearly (not just “third-party DRM”), I’d consider buying through Steam again. As it is, whenever I learn about an interesting game that’s on Steam, I try to find it on itch.io or GOG, and if I can’t, I generally don’t buy it; I’ll buy it on Steam only if it looks really interesting and it’s dirt cheap.

Whenever I look at buying “leasing with no fixed term” anything with DRM, I assume that it will be taken away from me or otherwise rendered unusable unexpectedly at some point in the future through no fault of my own. It’s already happened to me a couple of times, and once bitten, twice shy. I know that everyone loves Gabe Newell, and he seems like a genuinely good guy, and he’s said that if Steam ever closed its doors that they’d unlock everything. However the simple fact is that in the majority of situations where that might happen, the call wouldn’t be up to Gaben, even for games published by Valve.

So yeah, I may put up with DRM in a completely offline context, but in any situation where my access terms can be changed remotely and unilaterally with a forced update, server shutdown, or removal, that’s a hard pass from me.

Depends on the platform:

• PC - digital is my only option
• Console - physical so I can loan/swap w/ friends

If I could trade digital games as easily as physical, I’d go digital every time.

I prefer buying digital games that are either DRM-free or have Steam’s DRM.

I tend to keep a backup of the games that I enjoy so that I can play them even if I end up losing a way to download them. For games with Steam DRM, I can just remove the DRM myself and use a Steam emulator if I ever lose access to Steam.

Steam Deck:

• Steam for most games because of ease of use on the Deck and what they provide to the Linux world
• GOG for old games with no achievments (I’d buy more from them if they were more Linux oriented, but I also understand they can’t do everything)

Playstation 5:

• physical except for a few exceptions as I want to be able to resell games I don’t like. I buy new physical games when I know I’m gonna love a game and used when I ain’t sure

I prefer digital for convenience, I never liked the idea of a game not being playable unless there’s some physical media inserted in my device (be it CD, cartridge, or whatever). I only buy physical when getting collector’s editions.

90% of the games I play are bought on Steam or GOG, 9% are free Epic giveaways and the last 1% is Alan Wake 2 which I had to buy on Epic because it’s not available anywhere else and I wanted to support Remedy.

I know the discussion about digital only, and I think game preservation is a great cause. There is definitely a danger with digital only. However, for me as a user having a digital library is just unbeatably convenient. My whole library is easily browsable and sortable and with modern high speed fiber internet any game I feel like playing or re-playing is just a click and a few minutes away.

I don’t really have any desire to go back to having to constantly fuck around with discs when I want to play something.

You guys are buying games?

Yo ho (60%) > Steam (35%) > any other digital platform if its exclusive (1%) > Other (4%)

Physical and Perpetual Digital only for me. No to anything else. Even Perpetual is no longer a safe choice if they don’t allow the full file to be stored elsewhere, as I see that more and more often now. So, I think I’m gonna start resorting to “the other option” for games that only have the digital option available. It makes me sad because if it’s a game that I really like, it burdens me for not supporting the creatives behind it, but this is about a larger issue than those people alone.

I won’t buy what I can’t own and neither should anyone. It’s a violation of consumer rights and of individual sovereignty.

I apply this logic to any form of media or anything else really. And “Programmed Obsolescence” should be criminalised.

I always buy discounted pc game, and the choice is virtually 0 these day, so purchase directly from steam is my preferred way.

Steam, but that is because of my approach to games and I do understand it is leasing/renting, not literally buying.

While I do enjoy going back and playing some games, most tend to lose my interest due to newer and improved versions of similar games. Nostalgia only goes so far when janky controls get in the way.

I also like a wide variety of games, but they are hit and miss on personal enjoyment. So what I prefer to do is buy several on a sale and then as long as one works out I came out ahead! This generally means I can check out games that are 5 to 10 or more years old at a heavy discounts due to being patient. I don’t even bother refunding the ones that don’t work out because most are a few bucks and if a few bucks let’s me check something out then I’m fine with that.

For that cheap pricing I get all the benefits of digitally distributed games that are reliably updated to run on new hardware, can re-download them at any time with no limits, get the other hit and miss benefits like friends and forums and other stuff. They don’t take up physical space, have regular updates, and addressed all the issues I had with gaming back in the 90s/early 2000s when still buying physical games.

I see it like a rental with no return date. I would probably quit gaming if steam goes under or changes enough to make it less convenient. Still hope that physical distribution sticks around for those that prefer it, and that other distribution sources like GoG stick around and are successful for both completion and for those who have different priorities for gaming.

I don‘t even have a disk drive anymore. I prefer digital nowadays since I like to swap around games and don‘t wanna have to swap the media every time as well. It kinda bothers me with my Switch, but I still prefer physical there so I can resell.

In an ideal world I‘d like a physical copy of a complete game on my shelf where I don‘t have to use the physical medium to play it but can fall back to that in case a platform‘s failing or I want to resell it… However all that would work.

In the current reality it‘s just Steam all the way for convenience‘s sake. Gabe was right, it‘s all about service quality. If Steam ever pulls the rug from under my feet, I’ll basically have no games anymore though lol

1. Native Linux (digital only because physical basically doesn’t exist)
2. Physical Switch
3. Digital Switch

—will not buy—

4. Game Key Card
5. Code in a box

Any format that ensures I can play it today or in 10 years. Most games I buy on Steam and when the GOG or pirated verson gets released - even if it’s years later - I get a backup.

Recently Last Epoch, which currently has a full offline mode, might not stay that way for long with the acquisition from whatstheyface, so I still play the Steam version but have a fit girl I know provided me with a nice fallback if I ever need it…