The Great Debate: Physical vs Digital Gaming

When it comes to gaming, one question often arises: is physical media still relevant in today's digital age? The answer, however, is not as simple as a yes or no. In this article, we'll delve into the world of gaming and explore the pros and cons of both physical and digital media.

The Case Against Physical Media

One of the main arguments against physical media is that it's essentially just leasing a license that was settled in court not too long ago. When those servers go down, you lose your game point for physical media. In contrast, when that happens, you're also going to be losing access to crucial updates for those physical games. If you're really concerned with preserving your gaming experience for all time, this key point that used to go to physical media now belongs to piracy. However, since the current gen systems haven't been jailbroken yet, we're going to cut that conversation off here.

On the other hand, there is one huge W that physical media still retains: transferable licenses. You can lend your friend a game without account sharing Shenanigans and you can even sell your games outright to partially cover the cost of your next no-life addiction. If you're trying to minmax your gaming and if time means nothing to you because hey, it's your hobby anyway, this is the clear winning strategy. You find a deal on a used game, finish it in a week or two, then sell it directly to the next consumer – not back to GameStop. If you can time it right, you can usually get your money back or even make a few bucks here and there.

The Impact of Subscriptions

Let's take a look at how subscriptions factor into the equation. We'll match up our cheapest overall category of historic low used prices against the historic low digital prices but this time let's include 2 years of PlayStation Plus extra that adds $270 for the subscription, but we get 24 out of our 67 games for free giving us a net savings of $1,136. That makes the price difference between the lowest all-used and All Digital just $37 for the entire library. Once you factor in the $50 discount for a digital console, all of a sudden you're ahead by going disc-free and you've got two years of online play, extra features, and access to hundreds of additional games. However, you'll have to keep paying for PSN forever, and even if you do, some of those games might get taken away at some point.

Conclusion: Gauging Value is Complicated

Gauging value for these things can be really complicated and that ignores the fact that depending on how you do the math and which games you look at, the numbers can bear out very differently. If we used median values for our initial analysis, it might have only taken us half a dozen games to make up the cost of our disc drive rather than the original 29.8. That's why we focused on the overall trends that make it easier to make generalized tips for you.

So, what's the takeaway? The best deals are on a per-game basis and if you want the cheapest version of your complete library, it's probably going to involve a mix of used and digital games. And that, in our opinion, is the most irrefutable argument against the removal of the optical drive because what it costs you is not only measured in dollars, but also in flexibility with this console. I don't get to choose anymore what kind of game I'm going to buy; that's why David who wrote this video is going to be doing a second exclusive over on LG Game G/floatplane, going through the spreadsheet in a bit more detail and admitting he was wrong about the PS5 Pro's lack of a disc drive. He said he didn't think it was that big of a deal; he wrote this video and then immediately went out and bought a disc drive for his console.

The Verdict: Physical Media Still Reigns

As we conclude our investigation, it becomes clear that physical media still has its advantages. Whether you're looking to preserve your gaming experience for all time or simply want the flexibility to choose how you play, physical media is still the way to go. And with the right strategy, you can get the best of both worlds: access to a vast library of games and the freedom to play them however you like.

But what about our sponsor Vessie? Are you ready to step into Fall well, Vessie's new Courtside Classics bring a vintage tennis shoe style to their collection that is perfect for unpredictable fall days – whether it's rain or chilly winds or a walk at the pumpkin patch. That looks cute but ends up being muddy; Vessie says they're waterproof and will keep your feet comfy and dry. Our team loves Vessie because they're super versatile, and you can rock them all season long. So don't wait – grab your pair today, and if you use our link in the description, you'll get a discount!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enMicrosoft just sent us their brand new Xbox time to make a whole video on all the big changes well it's an Xbox series X all right with no disc drive and some cost optimizations and it's white okay very funny but there is legitimately more to this story the new model will also save you $50 that is if you're willing to commit your soul to the digital only future and give up playing dis based games probably forever should you take the deal I mean on the one hand $50 that's a lot of money to save but on the other hand the conventional wisdom says that physical games are much cheaper than digital ones especially in the long run does that make diskless consoles like this a bad deal how many games would you need to buy before you wipe out that $50 savings that is the question we set out to answer and it turns out it's kind of complicated or well really complicated the good news is we did the complicated part for you and when you're done watching this 11 and a half minute video you will be equipped with some very practical tips that will save you money and you'll also be equipped with this message from our sponsor ovhcloud they're a leader in providing cloud computing and hosting services and coming up on November 28th our very own Luke lafrenier is going to be at ovh Cloud Summit as a guest speaker it's going to be streamed live live on their twitch and xplatform so don't miss out and click the link in the video description to learn more we began our price comparison journey by adding the top rated and top selling PlayStation 5 titles to a spreadsheet then culling any of the games that didn't have a physical release that left us with a healthy mix of 67 games we've stuck with the PS 5 this time around because the crossplatform licensing on Xbox is a bit more complicated so leave a like if you want to see a deeper dive that includes the Xbox and the PC also about twice as many people have ps5s than current gen Xboxes so PS5 step two was to populate our spreadsheet with both digital and physical pricing now some individual prices may have changed since October 15th but the overall story shouldn't giving us the answer to our first question right away how many non-used games would you need need to buy right now to break even on the $50 that you spent on a dis Drive version 29.8 which I got to say is a lot more than I expected I mean sure if you bought our entire sample Library here it's clear you'd come out way ahead with physical games but let's be real that's way more than most people are going to be buying over the entire lifespan of a console so digital wins brother we are only at the first nest of this rabbit Warren to go deeper we need to add these columns tracking historical sale pricing where digital extends its lead not only is it cheaper for a gamer with an average size library but it's even cheaper overall and not by a narrow margin we're talking a savings of $419 per game for the patient gamer that's $281 for our complete Library but before you physical media enthusiasts finish typing that comment we're not done yet so backspace backspace couple more times there you go let's break this down Tech tip by Tech tip although we've been focused on digital versus physical so far the most important metric is really current price versus sale price which was a difference of $ 13 to $20 per game or $900 to $1,300 for the entire Library so that right there is Tech tip number one be patient seriously if you take one thing from this video that's it using some of the same tools that we used like PS deals or camel camel camel you can not only view historical sale prices but in many cases you can even predict future sales both the timing and even the pricing I mean look at this it's like clockwork these days especially for digital you can also follow social accounts that are dedicated to keeping you informed on Regional sales we're going to have links to some of those tools as well as the consoles we're talking about down below now of course I understand you can't always be a patient gamer you want to jump into that new release while all your friends are playing it but especially for single player games guys you can save as much as $5 to $10 simply by waiting a week or two and picking up a secondhand copy ah yes the ace up the sleeve for team physical used games these are going to change the math in a big way but first let's talk about where to get them that's tip number too it turns out that if you want something right now your local GameStop might not be as bad as we expected on average pricing on used games at GameStop and Amazon is remarkably close and that's before you include promotional offers we did find that used prices on Amazon could be significantly lower sometimes but the availability was pretty inconsistent of course if you're patient and willing to emerge from your gamer Den once in a while buying on Facebook Marketplace is King for finding the best deals on YouTube games our spreadsheet makes that clear already and we haven't even tried to lowball anyone yet so so much for everything else I said physical for the win video over or is it the whole convenience argument against Marketplace that's a real argument picking up all your games in one shot really is a lot easier than meeting up with 67 strangers on the internet but if we're going to talk about convenience in our equation then it kind of reopens the door for digital doesn't it Click Click Boom you got a new game to play your time has a value and I'm not just talking about driving to and from the store cuz the discs we're buying these days are pressed weeks in advance of launch meaning that even on day one there are almost always crucial patches that turn your disc into little more than a shiny license key that takes up space on your shelf we downloaded three whole games in the time that it took to install and update one game via disk though of course your internet speed is obviously a big variable there making matters worse though let's say you bought six games one at a time as you build up your game library and you bought them from the store at a median us hourly wage you just added at least $ 12 to $15 in time and transportation to your cost now the full picture is obviously going to vary from person to person you can clearly order a physical game online as well but what we can say is that with waiting around factored in digital absolutely obliterates physical but we're not done yet what about game preservation buying digitally is just leasing a license that was literally settled in court not that long ago and when those servers go down you lose your game point for physical then well yeah but Counterpoint when that happens you're also going to be losing access to crucial updates for those physical games so if you're really concerned with preserving your gaming experience for all time this key point that used to go to physical media now belongs to piracy but since the current gen systems haven't been jailbroken yet we're going to cut that conversation off here changing gears though there is one huge W that physical still retains transferable licenses you can lend your friend a game without account sharing Shenanigans and you can even sell your games outright to partially cover the cost of your next no life Addiction in fact if you're trying to minmax your gaming and if time means nothing to you because hey it's your hobby anyway this is the clear winning strategy you find a deal on a used game you finish it in a week or two then you sell it directly to the next Consumer not back to GameStop if you can time it right you can usually get your money back or even make a few bucks here and there now if that kind of flow sounds exhausting to you don't worry you're perfectly normal but if it's your jam power to you and I get it as for me I think the most interesting finding from our investigation is probably how subscriptions Factor into the equation let's match up our cheapest overall category of historic low used prices against the historic low digital prices but this time let's include 2 years of PlayStation Plus extra that adds $270 for the subscription but we get 24 out of our 67 games for free giving us a net Savings of $1 136 that makes the price difference between the lowest allused and All Digital just $37 for the entire Library so once you factor in the $50 discount for a digital console all of a sudden you're ahead $13 by going disc free and you've got two years of online play extra features and access to hundreds of additional games of course you're going to have to keep paying for PSN forever and even if you do some of those games might get taken away at some point are we going to have a conclusion here gauging value for these things as you can see can be reallying complicated and that ignores the fact that depending how you do the math and which games you look at the numbers can bear out very differently if we used median values for our initial analysis for example it might have only taken us half a dozen games to make up the cost of our disc drive rather than the original 29.8 which is why we focused on the overall trends that make it easier to make generalized tips for you so here's one more in the real world the best deals are on a per game basis and if you want the cheapest version of our complete Library it's probably no definitely going to involve a mix of used and digital games that right there I think is the conclusion because that is the most irrefutable argument against the removal of the optical drive because what it costs you is not only measured in dollars it's measured in flexibility with this console I don't get to choose anymore what kind of game I'm going to buy that is why David who wrote this video is going to be doing a second exclusive over on lmg g/ floatplane going through the spreadsheet in a bit more detail and admitting he was wrong about the PS5 Pro's lack of a disc drive he said he didn't think it was that big of a deal he wrote this video and then immediately went out and bought a disc drive for his I look forward to watching that and I look forward to telling you guys about our sponsor vessie are are you ready to step into fall well vess's new Courtside Classics bring a vintage tennis shoe style to their collection that is perfect for unpredictable fall days whether it's rain or Chilly Winds or a walk at the pumpkin patch that looks cute but ends up being muddy vessie it's going to be there for you they say their shoes are so waterproof you can Splash through puddles without a second thought they feature a padded tongue and collar plus a lightweight design that makes you feel like you are walking on clouds whether you're crunching through leaves on a scenic hike or enjoying a cozy evening in the city vessie keeps your feet comfy and dry our team loves vessis because they're super versatile and you can rock them all season long so don't wait grab your pair today and if you use our Link in the description you'll automatically get 15% off your first purchase if you like saving a buck on your video games why don't you check out our video about five mods that Nintendo wishes were illegal seriously go watch it now before their lawyers try to take it down which isn't a challenge Big RedMicrosoft just sent us their brand new Xbox time to make a whole video on all the big changes well it's an Xbox series X all right with no disc drive and some cost optimizations and it's white okay very funny but there is legitimately more to this story the new model will also save you $50 that is if you're willing to commit your soul to the digital only future and give up playing dis based games probably forever should you take the deal I mean on the one hand $50 that's a lot of money to save but on the other hand the conventional wisdom says that physical games are much cheaper than digital ones especially in the long run does that make diskless consoles like this a bad deal how many games would you need to buy before you wipe out that $50 savings that is the question we set out to answer and it turns out it's kind of complicated or well really complicated the good news is we did the complicated part for you and when you're done watching this 11 and a half minute video you will be equipped with some very practical tips that will save you money and you'll also be equipped with this message from our sponsor ovhcloud they're a leader in providing cloud computing and hosting services and coming up on November 28th our very own Luke lafrenier is going to be at ovh Cloud Summit as a guest speaker it's going to be streamed live live on their twitch and xplatform so don't miss out and click the link in the video description to learn more we began our price comparison journey by adding the top rated and top selling PlayStation 5 titles to a spreadsheet then culling any of the games that didn't have a physical release that left us with a healthy mix of 67 games we've stuck with the PS 5 this time around because the crossplatform licensing on Xbox is a bit more complicated so leave a like if you want to see a deeper dive that includes the Xbox and the PC also about twice as many people have ps5s than current gen Xboxes so PS5 step two was to populate our spreadsheet with both digital and physical pricing now some individual prices may have changed since October 15th but the overall story shouldn't giving us the answer to our first question right away how many non-used games would you need need to buy right now to break even on the $50 that you spent on a dis Drive version 29.8 which I got to say is a lot more than I expected I mean sure if you bought our entire sample Library here it's clear you'd come out way ahead with physical games but let's be real that's way more than most people are going to be buying over the entire lifespan of a console so digital wins brother we are only at the first nest of this rabbit Warren to go deeper we need to add these columns tracking historical sale pricing where digital extends its lead not only is it cheaper for a gamer with an average size library but it's even cheaper overall and not by a narrow margin we're talking a savings of $419 per game for the patient gamer that's $281 for our complete Library but before you physical media enthusiasts finish typing that comment we're not done yet so backspace backspace couple more times there you go let's break this down Tech tip by Tech tip although we've been focused on digital versus physical so far the most important metric is really current price versus sale price which was a difference of $ 13 to $20 per game or $900 to $1,300 for the entire Library so that right there is Tech tip number one be patient seriously if you take one thing from this video that's it using some of the same tools that we used like PS deals or camel camel camel you can not only view historical sale prices but in many cases you can even predict future sales both the timing and even the pricing I mean look at this it's like clockwork these days especially for digital you can also follow social accounts that are dedicated to keeping you informed on Regional sales we're going to have links to some of those tools as well as the consoles we're talking about down below now of course I understand you can't always be a patient gamer you want to jump into that new release while all your friends are playing it but especially for single player games guys you can save as much as $5 to $10 simply by waiting a week or two and picking up a secondhand copy ah yes the ace up the sleeve for team physical used games these are going to change the math in a big way but first let's talk about where to get them that's tip number too it turns out that if you want something right now your local GameStop might not be as bad as we expected on average pricing on used games at GameStop and Amazon is remarkably close and that's before you include promotional offers we did find that used prices on Amazon could be significantly lower sometimes but the availability was pretty inconsistent of course if you're patient and willing to emerge from your gamer Den once in a while buying on Facebook Marketplace is King for finding the best deals on YouTube games our spreadsheet makes that clear already and we haven't even tried to lowball anyone yet so so much for everything else I said physical for the win video over or is it the whole convenience argument against Marketplace that's a real argument picking up all your games in one shot really is a lot easier than meeting up with 67 strangers on the internet but if we're going to talk about convenience in our equation then it kind of reopens the door for digital doesn't it Click Click Boom you got a new game to play your time has a value and I'm not just talking about driving to and from the store cuz the discs we're buying these days are pressed weeks in advance of launch meaning that even on day one there are almost always crucial patches that turn your disc into little more than a shiny license key that takes up space on your shelf we downloaded three whole games in the time that it took to install and update one game via disk though of course your internet speed is obviously a big variable there making matters worse though let's say you bought six games one at a time as you build up your game library and you bought them from the store at a median us hourly wage you just added at least $ 12 to $15 in time and transportation to your cost now the full picture is obviously going to vary from person to person you can clearly order a physical game online as well but what we can say is that with waiting around factored in digital absolutely obliterates physical but we're not done yet what about game preservation buying digitally is just leasing a license that was literally settled in court not that long ago and when those servers go down you lose your game point for physical then well yeah but Counterpoint when that happens you're also going to be losing access to crucial updates for those physical games so if you're really concerned with preserving your gaming experience for all time this key point that used to go to physical media now belongs to piracy but since the current gen systems haven't been jailbroken yet we're going to cut that conversation off here changing gears though there is one huge W that physical still retains transferable licenses you can lend your friend a game without account sharing Shenanigans and you can even sell your games outright to partially cover the cost of your next no life Addiction in fact if you're trying to minmax your gaming and if time means nothing to you because hey it's your hobby anyway this is the clear winning strategy you find a deal on a used game you finish it in a week or two then you sell it directly to the next Consumer not back to GameStop if you can time it right you can usually get your money back or even make a few bucks here and there now if that kind of flow sounds exhausting to you don't worry you're perfectly normal but if it's your jam power to you and I get it as for me I think the most interesting finding from our investigation is probably how subscriptions Factor into the equation let's match up our cheapest overall category of historic low used prices against the historic low digital prices but this time let's include 2 years of PlayStation Plus extra that adds $270 for the subscription but we get 24 out of our 67 games for free giving us a net Savings of $1 136 that makes the price difference between the lowest allused and All Digital just $37 for the entire Library so once you factor in the $50 discount for a digital console all of a sudden you're ahead $13 by going disc free and you've got two years of online play extra features and access to hundreds of additional games of course you're going to have to keep paying for PSN forever and even if you do some of those games might get taken away at some point are we going to have a conclusion here gauging value for these things as you can see can be reallying complicated and that ignores the fact that depending how you do the math and which games you look at the numbers can bear out very differently if we used median values for our initial analysis for example it might have only taken us half a dozen games to make up the cost of our disc drive rather than the original 29.8 which is why we focused on the overall trends that make it easier to make generalized tips for you so here's one more in the real world the best deals are on a per game basis and if you want the cheapest version of our complete Library it's probably no definitely going to involve a mix of used and digital games that right there I think is the conclusion because that is the most irrefutable argument against the removal of the optical drive because what it costs you is not only measured in dollars it's measured in flexibility with this console I don't get to choose anymore what kind of game I'm going to buy that is why David who wrote this video is going to be doing a second exclusive over on lmg g/ floatplane going through the spreadsheet in a bit more detail and admitting he was wrong about the PS5 Pro's lack of a disc drive he said he didn't think it was that big of a deal he wrote this video and then immediately went out and bought a disc drive for his I look forward to watching that and I look forward to telling you guys about our sponsor vessie are are you ready to step into fall well vess's new Courtside Classics bring a vintage tennis shoe style to their collection that is perfect for unpredictable fall days whether it's rain or Chilly Winds or a walk at the pumpkin patch that looks cute but ends up being muddy vessie it's going to be there for you they say their shoes are so waterproof you can Splash through puddles without a second thought they feature a padded tongue and collar plus a lightweight design that makes you feel like you are walking on clouds whether you're crunching through leaves on a scenic hike or enjoying a cozy evening in the city vessie keeps your feet comfy and dry our team loves vessis because they're super versatile and you can rock them all season long so don't wait grab your pair today and if you use our Link in the description you'll automatically get 15% off your first purchase if you like saving a buck on your video games why don't you check out our video about five mods that Nintendo wishes were illegal seriously go watch it now before their lawyers try to take it down which isn't a challenge Big Red\n"