The Digital Age

Historically, publishers have had to put a lot of thought into how many copies of a game they were going to produce. If they didn’t make enough copies to meet demand, they would effectively be leaving money on the table. If they produced too many copies, however, they were effectively throwing money away. Acclaim Entertainment found themselves with 500,000 unsold copies of Double Dragon III in 1990 because they had misread the market, and Capcom found themselves in a similar position following the release of Super Street Fighter II in 1994. Large companies can afford to make occasional mistakes, but most publishers have to err on the side of caution. After Atelier Ryza exceeded sales expectations in 2019, the price of the game shot through the roof. The digital version of the game could still be purchased for the original price, of course, but physical copies demanded a premium since they were hard to come by. While there are rare examples where a publisher fails to generate enough download codes for their digital games, the laws of supply and demand don’t typically apply to digital goods. Generally speaking, publishers can’t “run out” of digital games. Games can still be pulled from digital storefronts for arbitrary reasons, but they can never truly sell out in the same way that physical games do.

Some digital storefronts have “cross-buy” features that let you play your purchased games on other platforms at no additional cost. Beginning in 2012, customers who purchased select PlayStation 3 games would get the PlayStation Vita version for free! In some cases, you could even share save files between the different versions! This concept was later expanded to include PS4 and PS5 games. Microsoft launched a similar initiative in 2016. With “Xbox Play Anywhere,” you can potentially share games between Windows 10, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S – providing the platforms are attached to the same account, of course. Cross-buy initiatives would not be feasible without digital media, and it would be cost prohibitive for publishers to give you more than one physical copy of a game when you buy it. It should be noted that cross-buy options aren’t available for every game, and some platforms don’t support it at all. If you want Shovel Knight on the Wii U and the 3DS, you have to buy two copies of the game. If you want the game on the PlayStation 4 and Vita, however, you only have to buy the game once.

When you purchase a game from a digital storefront, you’ll be able to play the game as soon as it has finished downloading. In some cases, you can pre-purchase games ahead of time and have them ready to go by midnight on the release date. If you’re buying a physical copy of the game, you have a completely different set of options. You could potentially go to a store and buy the game in person. If you’re lucky, your local game store might even hold a midnight launch event. You’ll still have to stand in line and interact with people in the real world, so this option is less-than-ideal for some people. Midnight launches are not especially common in a post-COVID world, so a digital purchase might be the only way you can play the game on launch date before regular business hours. You also have the option of ordering a game online, of course. If you’re really lucky, you might end up with the game before the official launch date. From my experience, it’s more likely that your game will arrive much later than expected. Government lockdowns certainly haven’t helped in this regard, and some of the games I ordered in 2020 were held up for months. An increasing number of games require you to download massive day-one updates anyway, so your physical copy might not even work out of the box.

One of the most obvious benefits of digital games is the overall convenience factor. When you have a digital library, you can effortlessly switch between games with the press of a button. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it’s really handy if you’re the type of person who typically has five or six games going at any given time. I like to play games to completion before moving onto the next adventure, but some people prefer to divide their time across multiple games. A lot of people also like to keep certain games “in rotation” after they’ve completed them. Games like Animal Crossing might warrant your attention every day, for example, while something like Tetris can be ideal whenever you have a few minutes to spare. If you have games in your library that are a part of your daily routine, having a digital copy might be the way to go. Nobody is going to throw their back out switching games, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to save a little time.

The convenience of digital media becomes readily apparent whenever you have to move. This isn’t a huge deal for a lot of people, mind you. If you’re the type of person who places a console under a television and leaves it there forever, then you won’t fully understand how much of a hassle it is to be a gamer on the go. If you have to travel a lot for work, you probably won’t want to haul around a trove of games wherever you go. Likewise, if you have a lake house or spend a lot of time at your girlfriend’s place, it’s not always convenient to move your entire collection from one location to another. If you have a Nintendo Switch and a couple of games, it’s not a big deal to keep everything together. If you like to keep your games in their original cases, however, it’s simply not practical to move an entire library of games. Whenever I have to go somewhere, I usually try to predict what games I’ll like to play and hope that I don’t get the urge to play something else. It’s not an ideal solution, but I’m not keen on the idea of putting all of my games in a case that can potentially be misplaced or stolen. Speaking of which…

Ohana means family, and family means that nobody gets left behind or forgotten. Unfortunately, the Ohana principle doesn’t apply to physical goods. Most people can appreciate how annoying it is to misplace something. I try to be careful with my collection and I literally keep an inventory of the games I own. Nevertheless, I’ve somehow managed to lose a couple of games over the years. This is human nature. The average American spends 2.5 days each year looking for lost items, and consumers have spent untold billions on replacement phone chargers. There’s a reason why I don’t walk around with thousands of dollars of cash in my wallet. I obviously wouldn’t want my money to be stolen, and I certainly wouldn’t want to lose my wallet somehow. You don’t have to worry about losing a digital game under your bed, and you typically won’t have to worry about your digital library falling into the wrong hands. Even if your video game system is stolen or misplaced, you’ll usually be able to recover the game’s you’ve purchased. This will likely involve a conversation with a customer service rep, but it’s nice to know that you’ll be able to recover your games in a “worst case” scenario.

I’m fortunate enough to have enough room for my game collection. I have dedicated shelves set aside for my video games, and I can always buy more shelves if the situation calls for it. I can essentially display my games however I want to. It’s easy to take things for granted, but there are people who literally don’t have enough space for physical media. Space is a huge premium in certain parts of the world, and a lot of people couldn’t find a place for a collection even if they wanted to. This problem is sometimes self-imposed, of course. Some people have an aversion to clutter and simply don’t want physical media to be displayed out in the open. These issues can be exasperated for anyone who’s stuck in a toxic relationship. Sadly, there are people with so little agency over their own lives that they’re literally not allowed to display their games. Depending on where you live – and who you live with – you might not even have the option of having a collection of physical games. These problems usually don’t apply to digital libraries, since they don’t take up valuable physical space.

The rise of digital storefronts in recent years has created a new avenue for publishers to sell their games. They no longer have to rely on the brick-and-mortar business model, and the profit margin for digital goods is often higher than it is for physical products. For obvious reasons, publishers are more than happy to eliminate the production costs for their games. Because of this, an increasing number of games aren’t being released on physical media at all. This phenomena has defined the PC gaming scene for years, since publishers have always been weary of releasing games on a format that their customers couldn’t support. (It was common for PC games to be shipped on multiple CDs in the early 2000s since a lot of PC gamers still didn’t have DVD drives.) Publishers of PC games jumped at the opportunity to release games in a digital format, and the overwhelming majority of PC games aren’t given physical releases. This is happening more an more on the console side of things as well. It’s perfectly understandable, from a business perspective. There are economic risks associated with releasing their games on physical media, and smaller publishers might not be willing to roll the dice. On the flip side, some publishers are so large that they don’t care about potentially losing sales by ignoring the physical market. In all likelihood, there will be games you’re interested in that are only available as digital downloads. I’m extremely annoyed that Mega Man 9 has never been released on a physical format, but I had to buy the game digitally if I want to play it. As time goes on, more and more games will be given the “digital only” treatment. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to end up with a collection of digital games.

I’ve been collecting video games since childhood, and I’ve found many amazing deals over the years. I’ve stumbled upon rare games in bargain bins and in second-hand stores, and I’ve also gotten lucky with online auctions. A lot of the games in my collection were way cheaper than they should have been, and I’m sure many of you have similar stories. While it’s certainly possible to find physical games for cheaper than their digital counterparts, digital sales are easier to find. You don’t have to go hunting in order to find cheap games during the Steam Summer Sale, and you’ll get great deals just for showing up! I actually enjoy seeking out cheap games in the wild, but the fact of the matter is that it requires way less effort to find cheap games on digital storefronts. You can buy cheap games on Humble Bundle without even having to get dressed! Physical games tend to hold their value for a lot longer than digital games, but anyone with access to a search engine can likely find digital download keys that are being sold for way below the MSRP. Depending on where you live, you can often buy digital goods without being taxed.

A lot of the games in my collection were bought second-hand. I try to seek out games that are in good condition, but I often have to wade through a sea of garbage. The market is flooded with damaged games. If you spend any amount of time in used game stores, you’ll be inundated with torn labels and scratched discs. You’d be surprised at how many people were compelled to scribble on their games with Sharpies, and I’ve come across games that looked like they had been dragged through mud. It’s pretty easy to clean games if you know what you’re doing, but there are some issues that cannot be fixed. Electronic components deteriorate over time, and that means that your games can eventually stop working even if you treat them with respect. Most game cartridges can potentially last for centuries, and your biggest concern will be replacing the occasional battery. Optical media is not as durable, unfortunately. CDs and DVDs are susceptible to chemical deterioration, and this can cause discs to become unreadable. Disc rot poses a real challenge for archivists and collectors alike, and it’s never a good feeling to know that your games could be rendered useless through no fault of your own. You don’t have to worry about your games being damaged when you buy them digitally. Even if your hard drive becomes corrupted, you can typically redownload your games and start fresh.