Hiya TAY, and Happy New Year! Allow me to present the year’s first Open Forum. May 2022 bring you growth, happiness and good fortune.
2021 was a great year for video games, although we did suffer from a lot of covid-related delays. That’s kind of par for the course these days, and for the most part has lead to a situation where 2022 is shaping up to be a pretty damned good year.
More Delays
While things like FFXVI were delayed, we still have a bunch of great games to look forward to this year, like the impressive-looking Forspoken, Elden Ring, Sifu and many many more. I am very excited to pick up a few new releases this year… that is, a week or so after launch so I can gauge the initial reaction.
Lately, I have played a bunch of Shin Megami Tensei V and I have got to say that I have enjoyed my time with it. I am a little fatigued with it, I managed to catch Covid so I spent 10 days with not much else to do while I self quarantined. Don’t worry, I am fine! Luckily I was asymptomatic for the most part.
I hope to finish SMT V off in the next week or so, but I have also been playing a bunch of Halo Infinite multiplayer. It could definitely use some work, but the bones of Infinite’s multiplayer are there.
While talking about video games, I’d like to know what your stance is – do you prefer physical, or downloaded copies of games?
In my neck of the woods, it’s sometimes difficult to get the more esoteric games as a hard copy. Nintendo’s games in particular are pricey, so while I love a physical copy I have in the past few years softened my stance on digital copies of games. It’s just so much easier and more convenient to store a game on the system’s memory. I think Steam also has something to do with this mindset.
The Digital Vs Physical Argument – Convenience vs. Value
I always scratch my head at people who insist on buying hard copies of games and end up having to wait longer because of, say, a postal service error or availability issues. Hard copies can also be stolen or destroyed – just ask my dog who chewed up my DS copies of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and Final Fantasy V few years ago.
Then again, while buying physical games seems like a smoothbrain thing to do in some aspects, some games and editions thereof at worst retain some of their value, and at best go on to become sought-after collector’s pieces.
I don’t know if there is any truth to this idea, but digital copies just seems more environmentally friendly as well. Game cases and discs are made from not-very-eco-friendly seeming plastics, and especially with discs being so fragile, they do tend to get damaged and thrown away from time to time.
I think another reason I prefer digital copies is that frustration I experienced back in the 90’s when that PlayStation game I really wanted to play didn’t work. Or, with Final Fantasy 8, on the final cutscene before you were supposed to change discs the game would freeze. I could not progress on to the second disc!
There Are Some Things I Just Don’t Miss
When looking back, it’s often easy to remember the good things about the past, like some of the wonderful games we used to play in those times. Digitally downloading a game means I don’t have to wait for it and will not experience loss/theft/destruction of my game. It also seems more environmentally friendly, so I get to give myself a smug little pat on the back for that even if it isn’t true at all.
Let me know in the comments what you think – digital vs physical in 2022? Once again, Happy New Year!
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Comments
I don't really get many hard copies unless it's a gift or the hard copy is on sale. Digital is easier and that's pretty much it. Every now and then I get freaked out that idk PSN is down forever and I can't get to my games or something, but most the time I just hate switching out discs.