28th July 2011, 12:33 PM
For me it depends. If the game in the store comes with some big booklet full of story details, I get the store copy. Steam's copies very often fail to include such a thing in any way. When it comes to Valve, I just get the Steam copies of their games. The only "manuals" those games come with is a little card with key assignments anyway.
Beyond that, there's all sorts of matters to consider. Around Christmas I stop buying games for a while for two obvious reasons, and let's face it, gifts are still "solid", not a single family member would buy a "virtual" Steam store gift even if they knew what that was, so when I get PC games from some family, they're going to be the disk based ones. There's also the matter of copyright protection. Some games have restrictive copyright on the disk version, but not on the non-disk ones. Some have restrictive copyright protection on the disk that is STILL in the Steam version, on top of needing Steam. Some have nothing on the disk. All else aside, the superior version varies depending on how they handle it.
There's also other matters. There's the choice of online services. There are a handful of games where the online network the game links into depends on whether you get the disk or Steam version (Windows Live vs Steam). There's the ridiculous nature of pre-order "exclusive" content, which has reached such a point that a person has to buy 6 different copies of the same game, at launch, from different stores, just to be sure it's complete. That sort of thing is death to a gaming perfectionist. At any rate, if someone even cares a little about pre-order bonuses, then they have to decide what store, and thus what bonus, they'll get.
There's also other considerations. ABF's point about having a permanent copy for a much quicker reinstall, even during times where the net connection is down, or if the online store you bought it from fails, is a good one. More stores are popping up now. There's no way to say which ones will stick around and which ones will fold like MySpace, but one thing's for sure. During a company collapse, the last thing they concern themselves with are maintaining promises to former customers. No matter what Valve claims, does anyone honestly believe they'll be capable of dedicating who knows how many man-hours releasing patch after patch for every last game on their network to remove copyright protection? What about EA and their service? What about Microsoft and their's? What about Apple and their's? No company is indestructible. Now, some may not care what the future brings. Maybe they play a game for a few months and figure "eh, who cares what happens now? I got my fun, all things are fleeting". Others however like to build collections, like myself, and so a single player game that's not going to be around but for a few years gets important (especially considering that my game library is so large at this point that it'll take as many years just to get around to those games, heck I'm not even caught up with my PS1 game collection).
I think all these considerations are worth... considering... and as a result an optical drive is still useful. There's also the matter of a number of old games I have that require the disk to be in the drive.
That's just for games. How are you watching movies? Sure there's some online services like Netflix, but on a laptop, as in, portable? That's just not going to cut it, unless you have the money to spend on the ridiculous data plans for tethering a webernet phone on top of the Netflix fee. Mostly, we're watching DVDs and Blurays. For that, you gotta have a disk drive. The only alternative is using a home computer with a drive to rip the video and stuff as many as can fit on the limited space of the average laptop hard disk as you can, opting out of games considering the space a DVD can take up.
Then there's music. Now granted, space songs take up is so small that CDs get treated like DRM-less games and basically just leave the case one time to get ripped before being put on a shelf for all eternity thereafter. There's also the matter of music sold on online stores. That's great, but CDs, as I said, are DRM-less, so it's a lot easier to work with them making them still pretty appealing. I know that's what I do. Anyway, all that said, when on the go with a laptop, what happens when you pick up that one CD either at the store or sold after a concert or put together by some game remixer at a convention? Do you wait until you get home, do you ask someone else who hopefully has a piece of outdated technology? Or, do you NOT buy a Mac and have an optical drive to use yourself?
The fact is, physical media is always going to be around, because software has to exist on something. There's no singularity coming to save us. Heck, things are about to get more physical with 3D printing. Considering just how long it took just to get floppy drives off of things, it'll take a while. It'll never go completely direct download, though it'll play a big part.
Beyond that, there's all sorts of matters to consider. Around Christmas I stop buying games for a while for two obvious reasons, and let's face it, gifts are still "solid", not a single family member would buy a "virtual" Steam store gift even if they knew what that was, so when I get PC games from some family, they're going to be the disk based ones. There's also the matter of copyright protection. Some games have restrictive copyright on the disk version, but not on the non-disk ones. Some have restrictive copyright protection on the disk that is STILL in the Steam version, on top of needing Steam. Some have nothing on the disk. All else aside, the superior version varies depending on how they handle it.
There's also other matters. There's the choice of online services. There are a handful of games where the online network the game links into depends on whether you get the disk or Steam version (Windows Live vs Steam). There's the ridiculous nature of pre-order "exclusive" content, which has reached such a point that a person has to buy 6 different copies of the same game, at launch, from different stores, just to be sure it's complete. That sort of thing is death to a gaming perfectionist. At any rate, if someone even cares a little about pre-order bonuses, then they have to decide what store, and thus what bonus, they'll get.
There's also other considerations. ABF's point about having a permanent copy for a much quicker reinstall, even during times where the net connection is down, or if the online store you bought it from fails, is a good one. More stores are popping up now. There's no way to say which ones will stick around and which ones will fold like MySpace, but one thing's for sure. During a company collapse, the last thing they concern themselves with are maintaining promises to former customers. No matter what Valve claims, does anyone honestly believe they'll be capable of dedicating who knows how many man-hours releasing patch after patch for every last game on their network to remove copyright protection? What about EA and their service? What about Microsoft and their's? What about Apple and their's? No company is indestructible. Now, some may not care what the future brings. Maybe they play a game for a few months and figure "eh, who cares what happens now? I got my fun, all things are fleeting". Others however like to build collections, like myself, and so a single player game that's not going to be around but for a few years gets important (especially considering that my game library is so large at this point that it'll take as many years just to get around to those games, heck I'm not even caught up with my PS1 game collection).
I think all these considerations are worth... considering... and as a result an optical drive is still useful. There's also the matter of a number of old games I have that require the disk to be in the drive.
That's just for games. How are you watching movies? Sure there's some online services like Netflix, but on a laptop, as in, portable? That's just not going to cut it, unless you have the money to spend on the ridiculous data plans for tethering a webernet phone on top of the Netflix fee. Mostly, we're watching DVDs and Blurays. For that, you gotta have a disk drive. The only alternative is using a home computer with a drive to rip the video and stuff as many as can fit on the limited space of the average laptop hard disk as you can, opting out of games considering the space a DVD can take up.
Then there's music. Now granted, space songs take up is so small that CDs get treated like DRM-less games and basically just leave the case one time to get ripped before being put on a shelf for all eternity thereafter. There's also the matter of music sold on online stores. That's great, but CDs, as I said, are DRM-less, so it's a lot easier to work with them making them still pretty appealing. I know that's what I do. Anyway, all that said, when on the go with a laptop, what happens when you pick up that one CD either at the store or sold after a concert or put together by some game remixer at a convention? Do you wait until you get home, do you ask someone else who hopefully has a piece of outdated technology? Or, do you NOT buy a Mac and have an optical drive to use yourself?
The fact is, physical media is always going to be around, because software has to exist on something. There's no singularity coming to save us. Heck, things are about to get more physical with 3D printing. Considering just how long it took just to get floppy drives off of things, it'll take a while. It'll never go completely direct download, though it'll play a big part.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)