What's your game media preference? Digital Download or Physical Disk?

Just thought I'd throw a poll up here about your media preference. I separated Steam and Direct2Drive because I find Direct2Drive a lot less restrictive than Steam and some seem to have a definite preference or a hatred for one or the other.

Thanks for voting!

 

Steam FTW. Exactly what I needed to get my games here without having to wait for the games to be distributed in my country.

 

i go where the best deals are
don't really care about the type of medium but having steam does make it a lot easier to have all the games neat and organized.

 

Impulse FTW. Get the game as a download asap and hardcopy arrives in mail a week or so later. Win-win.

 

I perfer to buy the game Disc, but i want to be able to put it on my system and no longer need the disc. I hate having to use an optical drive all the time and risk damage to my Game.

 

what do you think:

 

My answer is: it depends.

If its a great online download service like Steam and they promise you not to pull your game so you cant get it in the future and you know they wont go belly up I definitely prefer the convenience of digital download.

However if I cant have that guarantee I prefer my own disk.

The disk has a few cons.

I lose them easy, you often need the disk to play, and if your away and want to install that game you cant get your disk. I cant tell you how many times I was at work and just said "hmm I want to play X game" and all I had to do was download it and play it from my steam account.

But digital download can suck like EA did with battlefield, they sent me an email one day saying my download will not be available anymore after 2 years and I would have to pay like $10 to reactivate the game to download it again, and the cost of the game was the same price as the disk so it would end up costing me more for that game when it should be cheaper as obviously the company saves on the cost of the item and shipping fee and things like that.

You can take most if not all the risk out of digital download in most cases just by saving the local files to a disk. So the only real con left is one that doesn't bother me. Not having a pretty box/disk/manual to take up space and collect dust in my room.

Often you get full color .pdf manuals for digital downloads too that are just as good or better than the real deal IMO.

Steam paved the way to make digital download better than retail disk IMO, and they also sell the games cheaper regularly to make it even better.

 

Oh yeah, Impulse. They would fit under the "any digital download" category. Plus they don't have nearly the catalog as Steam or Direct2Drive do.

 

Right now I'm at a point where I have many games in both physical and electronic forms. For me it all comes down to cost and availability when it comes to either purchasing a physical or electronic copy.

 

I used to prefer the physical disk. I'm an old stodgy fellow that tends to stick with his own tradition. But I did eventually end up liking the digital downloads. I used to buy games and resell them though, which of course then physical copies have that attraction. I just wish Steam would let you sell a game to someone else for half price or something. Of the dozens of games I have on Steam, many I will probably never play again. Just seems like a waste.

 

As long as I have a real CD-key (which steam gives you if you buy a game that also has a boxed version) I am golden. It's not hard to download an ISO if for some reason I ever lose access to steam or just really want a physical copy.

 

for my pc games direct2drive. you own the game. you actually get the full game download and serial number. so its yours to do as you please. the bonus is it automagically works without a cd crack.

after seeing people get locked out of games they paid cash for on steam there is no way I would deal with that nonsense. I will organise my own games k thanks.

 

Did you know that some games off D2D require STEAM to install?

 

I heavily prefer Direct download service like Steam. I really dislike having so many physical copies of my games and all piled up doing nothing.

 

Steam all the way! It easy and convenient, plus when I move from pc to pc all my games comes with me. I hate to have a physical disk due to not having room for it and the disks producing so much wastes in our environment. Pretty much everything for me is digital, like movies, music, even books.

Also, im probably think far here, but when its like the year 2064 we can look back at the games we played and play them if we wanted because they are all on steam. O and I wonder how many generations I can past my steam account to, lol k im done dreaming...

 

Steam doesn't have a full catalog, and locking people out is a joke.

I prefer a service like D2D. I download the game, put on a DVD, write down and store the CD-Key and I'm on my way. That way if I don't have the disc I can use their service again, but if I do have it, I won't have to bother downloading it.

If some games from D2D require Steam then so be it. I'll live with it.

The one thing that bugs me with Steam is I can't play my games without an internet connection. I mean, it's just Half-Life 2. Let me play when I'm on vacation!

 

I like to have a physical disc but not need it for game play.

 

I'm mostly DD, but will go retail for nice preorder bonuses and good sales.

 

Boxed version every time.

Can't stand Steam insisting it runs as well as the game.

 

digital, cos it's usually cheaper.
out of the few digital vendors, i prefer gog. their homepage says it all, great old games, cheap, no drm, vista compatible. i can't ask for more.

 

You can play in offline mode. If there's no internet connection it will tell you that you are in offline mode and won't get updates, blah blah blah.

 

Prefer physical media...quicker install (Stalker was two nights downloading from Direct 2 Drive) and you usually don't end up with conflicts if you tend to use mods or expansion packs...BUT the price has to be right...I won't pay $50 at brick and mortar unless I've decided that new game is an immediate have-to-have-it...

I never buy digital full price though...didn't touch D2D until this $5 sale...

Also, Majesty is a recent purchase from Steam that didn't work too well...I went and found a physical copy at the secondhand bookstore and got it working to my satisfaction...same thing happened with Fallout: Tactics from gog.com, but I was able to get the digitally distributed version from gog.com working since after the download, gog.com doesn't run a client to load (and check?) the game...even in offline mode, Steam loads up which caused some problems with my tweaked Majesty...

I don't like the fact that Steam forces me to put everything on the same drive (where Steam is installed)...gog.com, D2D, Impulse let me install wherever I want...

But Steam updating my game files automatically is a nice touch...

But I still prefer physical media and always will...I cringe at the thought of having to download my entire Steam catalogue again...of course, I cringe at thinking about installing all my games from physical media...

usapatriot> Joy Division?

 

if its an online only game - steam

if its offline - retail copy

The reason being, the only reason i get on steam is to play with friends online.

If you dont have access to internet and want to play games, you have the physical copy to install.

 

Steam, good reliable service and great catalogue. Plus just easy.

 

A mix of D2D, Steam and Online bought boxes. So pretty much all of my games are bought online, even if I'm getting the physical copy. Stores most of the time rip you off.

 

I love Steam, and I've even re-purchased some of my retail games on Steam just to have them on my Steam account, like CoD4. I got it retail on release day, but last year I ended up buying it on Steam and selling my old disk and key to a friend.