Current Events > Anyone who prefers both physical and streaming/digital?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Digital being the same but for games or reading material?

I don't know. Physical still has some drawbacks, even if abandoning it is a mistake.

But it just seems like the best choices is physical for the top favorites and digitial/streaming for everything else.

Local/DRM-free digital ownership is the best of both worlds.

Tv shows and movies. If I really like something physical

Games its physical if I can get it easily vs digital for stuff thats hard to get.

I still like buying tv shows physically.

I only like buying games physically if it is actually on the disc or cartridge, but i am starting to buy digital more these days.

I go with Crunchyroll, Netflix and Disney plus. But if prices keep increasing a lot every year or two, I will end up dropping one.

I don't read much anymore, but I always buy physical if I do.

I made my thoughts known on this topic which is what I'm sure inspired this one. Long story short, with movies/shows I don't stream. Physical only. Books and music are physical only. Gaming I embraced digitally.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/81068017

For movies and shows, its gotta be physical. The only way I would accept digital would be if I could download it easily to my computer and make my own discs. And if the prices were a LOT more reasonable.

For video games, I buy physical when I can, even though its silly since every game gets updates and patches. Ill buy digital if its literally the only option but I wont be happy about it

Books and graphic novels / comics, I can go either way.

Music Im fine doing all digital.

In general yeah, I do both, and I like having the option to do both.

When it comes to video games I get whatever I find cheaper at the moment I am getting the game. I'm just happy to actually have a choice if we can get that.

If its a game I am not sure I would like and so I don't want to commit to something I can be stuck with I definitely get these physical. That game lost soul aside? Yeah, I am grateful to have bought the physical for this game. The game ended up stinking, and since I bought it from best buy's online store I was able to send it back for a full refund. My best friend in comparison bought it digital, and now he is stuck with a full-priced turd that he can do nothing with. *We joke about it, but he admits that deep down yeah.......really wish he too went physical for that one just to have that option to take that shit back.*

My favorite games I love having the physical, but for anything else I'll just get it digital.

I already told myself that the day that every single video game console is digital only that I'll become a retro-only gamer.

For reading I am 100 percent digital. I don't have the space for things I would like to own physical (the one piece manga. That is a lot of volumes). I do get the one piece blu-rays though since those 23 episode collection batches take up less space compared to if I was buying the manga.

Music I........admit that I don't actually buy a lot of it. If I do have a music CD, its because it came in whatever limited or collector's edition video game I got. I'll take the CDs and rip them to my PC, then I copy the MP3s or flacs over to my phone too. (Stuff like river city girls, bloodstained curse of the moon 1 and 2+the actual game), final fantasy 7 remake's goliath of a soundtrack and whatnot.

TV shows and movies nothing has changed for me after all these years.....I buy my absolute favorites on DVD and blu-ray, but I stream everything else.

Now the comics I don't regularly do digital, but before some changes I read Phoebe & Her Unicorn, both through Go Comics and the published versions which some volumes have book exclusive content.

Only media I purchase physically still are books. I held out on CDs for a long time but the last few years before I jumped ship to Spotify I was really just buying the CDs on Amazon, downloading the digital Autorip version and then never even opening the CD case.

I have a blu-ray player that I bought maybe nine years ago to watch Outlaw Star on BD and I haven't even unpacked it since moving.

Games I usually buy physical if they are single player games, digital for multiplayer games.

I collect steelbooks of my absolute favorite movies. Everything else on streaming is fine.

Physical games awlays but I like digital movies that I can store. Ive moved enough to have an option until I have internet again.

for games, I'm not really picky about it. I mostly play on PC which is digital only (for me, I don't have a disc drive and tbh idk if stores even sell physical PC games anymore). For console it's 50/50, whichever version is cheaper so usually physical when I get good deals on ebay or thrift store finds

for movies and shows, I have a pretty big DVD and blu-ray collection. For everything else, I have a combo of Pluto TV, antenna TV (there are some good channels, dont judge me), and my sister's HBO and Hulu accounts.
I do usually get a month of Netflix around halloween time and also whenever new Stranger Things seasons are released. So this year I'll have 3 months total of Netflix when most years its just one month

for books, it has to be physical. I have a barnes and noble nook, but I really prefer holding real books

and finally for music, combo of CDs, vinyl, and mp3s. I have a crappy record player so I don't use it too often even tho I have something like 75 vinyl records

Remux

I definitely prefer physical for both games and books. Movies and TV shows Im perfectly content to stream to watch, but if I like them enough that I want to own a copy I also go for physical if possible.

edit: I still buy CDs for music as well

I've definitely awoken to the convenience of e-books.

i.e. not having to worry about physically preserving paper

Both. Physical has some advantages like being useful at the moment instead of depens for a electric source but digital have more capacity and you can zoom the screen and read at night.

I prefer digital.

Hexenherz posted...

Only media I purchase physically still are books. I held out on CDs for a long time but the last few years before I jumped ship to Spotify I was really just buying the CDs on Amazon, downloading the digital Autorip version and then never even opening the CD ca

People may copy their CD first and listen to the copy and it might be as insurance against a CD getting ruined.

It depends on what it is for me.

For games, there is zero quality difference, so I prefer digital if I trust the platform (like Steam) to not fuck me over at some point. But I started buying Switch 2 games physically because I don't trust Nintendo for shit and worry that with their Switch 2 shenanigans I might lose access to my digital Switch 1 games for dumping my Fire Emblem: Three Houses cart so I can play it with save states (because my pet peeve with FE is the randomized level-ups).

For movies and TV shows, physical all the way, because Blu-Ray rips are much higher quality than digital purchases or digital streams simply due to how large uncompressed Blu-Ray rips are. Plus, you get the Special Features this way if you care about those, and you typically don't otherwise. I store the rips on my NAS and use Jellyfin / Emby / Plex to sling my media around (or outside of) my network, so it's like running my own private Netflix. Though I will confess I re-upped to Netflix a few months ago for Happy Gilmore 2, then watched Wednesday season 2, then Dark, and I'm almost done with Peaky Blinders now. So while I hate subscriptions, I do them sometimes. At least for me, I don't watch enough to where streaming would save me money, I basically force myself to watch one episode a day, and some days I don't watch at all.

For music, it depends. I absolutely refuse to pay for lossy music, period full stop. But if I can pay for FLAC files from the artist's Bandcamp page and avoid the hassle of ripping, I'll probably do that. But I'm a "discography" guy. If I discover a new band I like, I tend to want to buy all their shit, so even at $9.99 a pop, that can get expensive very quickly, so lately I've been debating subscribing to Apple Music or something as it's cheaper than Spotify with much better audio quality.

For books, it depends. I primarily read eBooks, and I'm now buying those from Kobo going forward where possible since Amazon's policy change where they removed the Download & Transfer via USB option so I can't download them to my computer anymore. For audiobooks, I have historically used Audible because owning the Kindle version meant I could get the Audible version for $7-12 usually instead of the $40-45 audiobooks normally sell for, since I don't pay for a subscription. Going forward, I don't know what I will do, as lots of things are Audible and Kindle exclusive. For Indie authors, sometimes I can ask them for an EPUB on Discord for example.

I literally can't read physical books, as I was born legally blind, but over the last few years, I've started collecting some hardcovers of some things I love, like all the Sun Eater special editions, and I'm getting the Broken Binding Malazan books despite not being the biggest Malazan fan. I bought the Broken Binding Dandelion Dynasty Midnight Purple set without even having read them, as those are gorgeous lmao. So physical books are literally just colelctors items for me, and to support authors I like.