The continuing decline in availability of physical media

Caracus2k

Caracus2k

Caracus2k

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With that certain large high street store now saying they will no longer do trade ins for physical console games anymore are we seeing an acceleration of the trend away from actually being able to have a tangible form of media in your hand.....?

Microsoft tried it with the Xbox one.. did they just jump the gun?

The days of actually being able to buy and install a PC game from a disk (or a few disks) are long gone....you might be able to buy a box with a code in it however!

Steam and co dominate

Music and film streaming dominate.... buying optical discs is the niche preserve of audio/ video purists who can't stand the compression on streaming and people paying pennies for old copies of films in charity shops and boot fairs.... other than that a few Vinyl fans....

Does this need some form of regulation?

It's a bit sad when you realise the ability to (legally) power up that old game is likely to be at the whim of the publishers, who don't always have a stellar record for supporting the availability of older titles.

Ditto for watching that favourite old film or listening to some music that's not on any of the streaming platforms.

Anyone else have nostalgia for the earlier / pre mass availability of broadband days?
 
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I haven't bought any physical media for years. The only exception was a book where the author signed it. I still haven't read the book :) I stream everything else and only download games.
 
At least as far as PC gaming is concerned, physical assets are simply not needed any more.

I recently binned all of my 90s and 00s PC gaming physical media because a) I don't have a CD drive and b) they don't work on modern operating systems anyway. I still have my Xbox 360 games, but as soon as my 360 gives the RROD likely I'll get rid of those CDs too as by that point they are just pretty paper weights.

Most of the 00s PC physical media came with licenses that were activated on digital launchers anyway (e.g. Half Life 2 is on my Steam library despite it being a CD purchase).

I haven't bought a music CD in over 10 years (my last purchase was Dec 2013).
 
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Caracus2k said:
Does this need some form of regulation?
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Regulate what? Staying in the past? Physical media is simply not needed, the world is moving the other way and given physical media is a whole load of useless plastic I can't see it returning.

Just to add you may like the vinyl scene if you want to be nostalgic about large disks.
 
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I still buy the odd cd from music magpie and similar ,i bought Led Zeppelin mothership for £3.50 for example ,cheaper than a download i can rip to flac and there's a bit of art work ,plus my Roomster has a cd in it
edit /still come across 4 or 5 for a quid at charity shops but never seem to find the ones i want
 
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I think the last music CD/PC DVD Game I bought was in back in 2005/6. I've never been big into movies, so it's probably 20+ years since I bought a DVD. I've also never owned a blu-ray player.
 
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I actually don't know what to do with all my DVDs...

Just taking up room in the limited storage space I have.

Seems wrong to sling em!
 
Yea, all my physical media is in the loft, much to the annoyance of my partner who wants me to throw it. Haven't used any of it for many years and I'm perfectly happy with the lack of clutter from digital media.
 
Caracus2k said:
If you're not buying a standalone product does there need to be something around how long a product should remain somewhat usable especially where its use is entirely reliant on a service provided by the manuufacturer/ publisher etc.
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I think this is a really valid point. I bought a yoto player for my little one and was disappointed to see it only stores the last 20 books, in spite of having a physical card. So all the card does is tell the player what URL to go to....and any book out of the 20 is gone forever come the inevitable switch off of the service.
 
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From what I can tell at least with film there is still a market for actual physical media although it may not be routinely selling millions of copies of loads of titles, and whilst some of the big companies are cutting back there seems to be an increase in the number of small companies that might be doing a run of 5-10k disks, or a run of say 2k "Special edition" or LE's then if they sell well.
I have seen a couple of people involved in such companies state quite simply "buy it whilst it's available, don't assume it'll be in print for years" and giving quite good warnings on when they're going OOP, or stocks at the distributor are running low.

I suspect the main reason retailers are dropping physical game sales is probably they can't compete with the likes of amazon, and they probably make considerably more as a percentage on other related items that take the same space.
 
Werewolf said:
From what I can tell at least with film there is still a market for actual physical media although it may not be routinely selling millions of copies of loads of titles, and whilst some of the big companies are cutting back there seems to be an increase in the number of small companies that might be doing a run of 5-10k disks, or a run of say 2k "Special edition" or LE's then if they sell well.
I have seen a couple of people involved in such companies state quite simply "buy it whilst it's available, don't assume it'll be in print for years" and giving quite good warnings on when they're going OOP, or stocks at the distributor are running low.

I suspect the main reason retailers are dropping physical game sales is probably they can't compete with the likes of amazon, and they probably make considerably more as a percentage on other related items that take the same space.
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Per unit of disk must be creeping up too.
 
I think it’s a shame, I still buy physical media. I’m not someone who tends to buy games at release and I’m more than happy to pick up console titles after someone has already played through it at a discount.

Doesn’t bother me too much though as these days I seem to mainly buy old games, and they are all physical.

Music I stream, occasionally I buy physical if it’s something I’m really interested in. Same for films.
 
I love physical media… but the issue is that the version on physical media is not normally the final version of the game.. ot may not even be a version of the game that works correctly.

Too many publishers release games in buggy states and then fix it with patches.. then there’s the DLCs, season tickets for updates etc etc.

You either have to wait for the game of year edition that may never come out or you put your disc in and wait for while for all the updates to download, that’s if they still available.
 
slinxy said:
I love physical media… but the issue is that the version on physical media is not normally the final version of the game.. ot may not even be a version of the game that works correctly.

Too many publishers release games in buggy states and then fix it with patches.. then there’s the DLCs, season tickets for updates etc etc.

You either have to wait for the game of year edition that may never come out or you put your disc in and wait for while for all the updates to download, that’s if they still available.
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Sometimes it’s good to have the earliest/an early release. Far Cry became unbeatable after one of its updates.

Physical media forces developers to actually finish a product before release.

I miss the days when games worked offline.
 
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