Do you tend to buy a physical game or download it?

Physical always. DD are a ripoff price wise as they should be cheaper as no physical production costs but then the retailers would refuse to stock games apparently so thats why retail is cheaper.

If you know where to look you can get almost any new PC game for either £18 or £25 if you pre-order. Thats pretty cheap considering the DD price & as others have said having the manual/box to look at is cool.

DD for me is only ever going to happen when physical media is no longer produced.
 
I mainly buy physical but have bought a few smaller downloadable steam games. The main reason being that my connection is stupidly slow, and also I like being able to just install a game from the disc whenever i want to.
 
Both, which ever is cheapest, I do like downloaded games thou as they don't need the dvd in the drive and no disc to get lost or damaged.
But the price of some new games can be like £10 to £20 more than the retail boxed product so until that changes, I'll be sticking with which ever is cheapest :).
 
I go for downloads, a recent fomat of my machine taught me how easy it was to get everything back off steam, would have taken hours with cds
 
Steam has some good offers on the weekends, just check it every week and eventually a game you may have wanted pops up for 25-40% cheaper.
 
Prefer Physical, however if somewhere such as Steam has a deal that can't be resisted I'll head there.

There are also a couple of download only Expansions I buy from Gamersgate.
 
derkaderka said:
I WANT your internet connection , I mean IF it downloads faster than copying files from a CD thats AWESOME !
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You jest. This is perfectly reasonable depending on decent BB connection and in particular updating to latest patches which Steam automatically does. Manually this is far slower.
 
I prefer to buy stuff on steam, albeit with a list of checks it has to pass first: 1. is it cheaper retail? (if yes, buy the disc, 2. does a physical copy come with cool stuff? (if yes, but the disc), etc.

Digital distribution still needs to compete better on price before i can fully switch to it
 
Jimbo Mahoney said:
I'm interested to hear people's opinions on this.

I myself still tend to buy physical games and physical CDs, as opposed to downloading games from Steam etc. or MP3s.

I only download a game if it's on sale and is therefore cheaper than a physical copy.

When downloadable games are 25% cheaper (or better) than physical, I'll probably switch.

What about you?
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I like to have the box and the manual, they look good in my DVD holder and like to read the manual while the game is installing/when I'm bored.

I'm also on 512k internet so buying and downloading games through e.g. Steam is out of the question really.
 
Depends on the game. Some are too complex to keep alt tabbing between manuals and extensive pdf manuals.

Saying that, I haven't seen a game yet on Steam that isn't at least £10 dearer than the local shops or online shops, or no more than £2-3 less than local shops even on Steam's half price weekend deals.
 
I love physical copies of games, but if I can get it downloaded direct from the designers then I would prefer to do that.
 
As allready mentioned, allready discussed here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17972196

Since I posted that thread, I have seen even more of the light and would rather Digital download using a deecent delivery platform like STEAM or Impulse any day now, just easier and being 30 with a family and all, it looks **** having your games on a shelf in the back room, it is the family home, not my bedroom :)

I am however reluctant to purchase from sites such as Direct 2 Drive / Gamersgate etc.

STEAM/Impulse offer an incentive over retail, auto install, auto patching etc.

Also, not requiring serial numbers when installing is a bonus as I am Lazy and what with newer games being on DVD9 discs anyway, they take an age to install. With my soon to be 50MB internet, digital distribution is the way to go.

Xappy said:
if I can get it downloaded direct from the designers then I would prefer to do that.
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That is also true for myself.

I wish more developers did this to be fair.
 
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if its on sale as a download then I'll buy it if its at the right price. otherwsie I'll buy the physical copy, working in a games shop I get an alright discount which is abused as much as possible
 
kEn_sct said:
i much prefer downloads. and no disk 2 lose ore box to cary about.
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Yeah, what a burden that is, I always take my box with me where-EVER


Physical. Always. I've never seen anything to make me even give Steam a try unless you count shockingly high prices.
 
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