: Not an issue for me. The only MP games I play regularly (Halo and Mario Kart)
: are also games my friends have as well. And even if they didn't, having to
: bring over a disc (or even my system) for a LAN or whatever was never a
: hassle to me. Seriously, though, when did you ever feel the need to bring
: your whole collection over to a friend's house?

: Not an issue for me. All my stuff is U.S. standard. I don't import and have
: no plans to ever move away from the U.S. I imagine your situation is
: rather uncommon.

: I have muscular dystrophy. Just moving around is painful and exhausting much
: of the time. I still get up and down to switch discs. Takes me all of
: 30-40 seconds. It helps that all my stuff is centralized in my room. My
: consoles are only six feet from where I sit and my games are all on a rack
: within arm's reach. Still, I've gotten so accustomed to having to swap out
: games that it just never was a big deal to me. You gotta get up to eat,
: use the bathroom, or leave the house, so what's the big hassle over having
: to swap discs?

: About the only thing I do midnight launches for is Halo (Gears 2, BioShock
: Infinite, & Destiny are the only non-Halo games I preordered to get at
: the midnight launch). It's actually more expedient for me to drive to
: GameStop or Wal-mart than it is to download anything. I have good internet
: speed and yet it would take at least 4-5 hours to download a 50GB game,
: yet it takes me only 10 minutes to drive to the store.

: In short, nothing about digital has come across as being more easy or
: convenient than physical. Not only is the supposed convenience of digital
: illusory, it doesn't trump what you give up by switching. In U.S.
: jurisprudence at least, you don't own digital copies; they're treated as
: "licensed, not sold" and thus first-sale rights do not apply.
: Meanwhile, the law states that I actually own my physical copies and can
: dispose of them like I could any other durable good that I own. I can
: sell, lend, or gift them at my own discretion without the permission of
: the copyright holder; the only thing I can't do is create and distribute
: new copies. Basically, with digital you own nothing. You have no rights.
: You paid for a temporary license that could potentially be revoked for any
: reason or no reason at all at a moment's notice. Almost as if to
: demonstrate who owns what, there have been several occasions where
: individual titles and even entire libraries of content have been wiped
: from peoples hard drives or devices "for reasons." Furthermore,
: even if a copyright holder or publisher allows some limited forms of
: sharing of digital copies, they are doing so only as a courtesy. They have
: no legal obligation to allow you to do so and can rescind that privilege
: at their discretion. Digital copies are basically glorified rentals with
: an indeterminate due-back date.

: Additionally, physical has the edge with long-term availability in most
: cases. The accompanying second-hand market ensures that, at least in
: principle, most titles should remain readily available long after they
: have gone out of print. There have been many older games that were long
: out of print, yet either took a very long time to be released digitally or
: haven't been released digitally yet, but they could still be bought
: second-hand. There are still a great many old-school games from the 80s
: & 90s that have never been released either digitally or as part of a
: compilation for newer systems, yet with a quick search on Amazon or eBay
: and you can probably find those old treasures. Granted, prices and
: availability can vary considerably based on supply & demand (rarer
: games often cost more), but still, the option to buy the old game (and the
: necessary hardware if you no longer have it) is still on the table.

: With digital, once something is delisted from a digital storefront (the
: digital equivalent of going out of print) it is simply no longer
: avaialable for purchase until it gets relisted ( if it gets relisted).
: This has happened many times. After Nickelodeon bought all the rights to
: TMNT, every TMNT game offered digitally (including TMNT The Arcade Game on
: XBLA, which had never been offered outside the arcades before) was
: delisted from every digital storefront. Irem later had most if not all the
: R-Type games pulled from whatever services they were being offered on once
: they decided video games were no longer to be part of their business.
: Nintendo has lost the rights to distribute several games over the Virtual
: Console (including the aforementioned NES TMNT game) and have even
: delisted some of their own games for some inexplicable reason. If you lose
: your copies of those games for whatever reason (the file is corrupted, the
: hard drive fails) you may be unable to re-download them.

: Furthermore, I simply do not trust digital copies to last as long as physical
: copies. Properly maintained, a cartridge or optical disc will last you a
: lifetime. Meanwhile, hard drives don't last nearly as long. Based on some
: studies, there's serious doubts that the average console's HDD will last
: you 20+ years with regular use. Forget about games delisted when a system
: is still being supported. Once a console is no longer supported and its
: services are no longer around (and that's almost certainly going to
: include "cloud" support), good luck with being able to
: re-download any of your digital games. You're probably shit outta luck.
: But I can still go on Amazon or eBay or drive to 2nd & Charles or
: wherever and still be able to find copies of those games.

: We've already seen this with the original Xbox. Tell me, have you tried
: redownloading the Halo 2 map packs lately? I did several years ago because
: I was planning a LAN, but since support for the OXbox and its games was
: phased out my only alternative was to find a copy of the Multiplayer Map
: Pack disc. The Wii, 360, and PS3 won't be supported forever, either, and
: will likely end up like the OXbox by the end of this decade or early next
: decade. The same fate will befall the PS4, XBO, and Wii U, and one day
: their successors, and so on for as long as consoles remain a thing. My old
: 80s & 90s consoles and their games still work fine to this day. No
: worries about hard drive failures or lack of continued support from the
: manufacturer. I have a feeling that digital is going to make the future of
: retro gaming very hard, and only those who invested in physical will be
: able to partake in the second-hand market once currently-supported
: consoles are as old as the NES or SNES are now.

: So, I'm pretty much done with digital, and I never really invested heavily in
: it in the first place. I've maybe spent about $50-60 on digital copies in
: the past decade, vs. thousands on physical copies. The last digital titles
: I actually bought were Mega Man 10 and Perfect Dark HD, and that was 5-½
: years ago. The only digital copies I've obtained since then were free,
: either as part of some digital promo (which is how I got Pikmin 3 on the
: Wii U) or part of the free monthly games offered through PS+. But if I'm
: going to invest $60 on a title, it's going to be a physical copy. I'm just
: glad at least some indie games are starting to get physical releases,
: because I've avoided buying them because of my aversion to digital.

: My main concern is that there's actually demand for digital, because that
: affects me. Fortunately physical remains dominant on consoles (for
: retail-release titles, physical outsold digital in the U.S. last year by a
: nearly 18-to-1 ratio) and shows no signs of abating in its dominance, and
: thus an all-digital console simply can't succeed in the current market and
: may remain nonviable for a long, long time. But if, if , demand for
: physical gets low enough one day for consoles to simply go all-digital,
: I'm no longer supporting the gaming industry. I'll have lost part of
: something that has been a major part of my life, and I'll blame it
: squarely on those who invested in a product they don't even own and thus
: voluntarily forfeited their first-sale rights as well as any guaranteed
: prospects of enjoying their purchases for decades to come because they
: didn't want to get up to change discs or whatever.

: Sorry for the drawn-out rant, but, yes, this really is serious business to
: me. I've been playing video games for 30+ years and I view digital not as
: an option, but as a threat to a system of consumption that has remained
: unchanged since consoles have been a thing. I don't view "physical
: vs. digital" as a "to each their own" thing. From my point
: of view, if someone invests in digital, they're supporting a bad business
: model. Period. I view it the same way many view other ostensibly bad
: business practices like "on-disc DLC" or online passes. And the
: older I get, the more digital seems like a raw deal. Until such a point as
: the laws change and online services guaranteed to be around forever,
: there's absolutely nothing that will change my mind on the subject.

I just don't care about "First Sale Rights" I don't see games I buy like property, or an investment. I don't WANT to take those rights away, but I don't mind losing them in exchange for the benefits I just outlined.

An interesting case is the case of PT. It wouldn't exist in a world not built to support digital delivery games, but now it doesn't exist because of digital delivery games... quite the catch 22.