So I'm Joining the Digital Revolution...

Joined Oct 2004
9K Posts | 1+
Los Angeles, CA
...mostly. :lol

I've decided that it's time to get rid of the clutter and get my life to be as digital as possible, which includes games. Now, it won't be completely digital because unfortunately some media just hasn't caught up. But there are 3 areas where I will be trying to convert as much as possible.

Music
This is probably the biggest area where I'll be converting. iTunes has been DRM-free for a good while now and the masters that they get seem to get great reviews so the quality is among, if not, the best. Although, not all music has digital versions. Those rarities or box sets that you can't get anywhere else except off the shelf will still be bought and then ripped to my PC. Otherwise, this is where I'll be acquiring my music collection.

Games
As far as modern games go, Steam and GOG are my stores of choice. I don't trade in games and I always go back and play something from the old days. So this is a huge no brainer. The big problem is acquiring those classic games of consoles long gone. Fortunately, emulators have matured extremely well and what I'll do is buy a cartridge or CD and then acquire a ROM to play on my PC. That way I can store my physical copies.

Paperwork
I'm tired of getting tons of receipts and mail that just end up in the trash. I always sign up for email receipts whenever it's offered and paperless billing. Anything that's semi-important I'll scan and upload to evernote. Supper important paperwork will remain hard copies.


I sort of do movies but there's no DRM-free release out there so I'll continue to buy blu-rays when they go on sale. I then get digital copies for a dollar each on VUDU. That way I can stream.

Anybody else do this or thinking of doing this?
 
I realized that somehow I have gotten caught up in it as I seem to be listening to Pandora every day. I have recently found myself purchasing TV episodes on VuDu and unconsciously thinking I have a library. I am one who has been fighting this when it comes to games. But then I find myself, without thinking, purchasing games for my Ouya. I've even found myself purchasing games for my vita, PS3, and the 3DS.

I will never give up my game carts as I like gaming too much on that medium. Retro cart based systems and portables I will always keep. When it comes to my CD, DVD, Blu-ray based gaming, I have a different feeling. I have never trusted those type gaming systems, moving parts I guess. I have already determined in my mind that I will sell, get rid of, any of them that fail, games and all. After a system gets so old, I can't see myself investing in another old player just to have it give out shortly thereafter. So I do see some sense in what you are saying.

I may resist the "digital revolution" at some points, but I am finding myself caught up in some of it. I am not up to trusting "clouds" with any personal information ........ just yet.
 
I love and hate the digital revolution. I have a kindle paperwhite and a kindle fire and do like to read and watch videos on them but I can't completely give up the idea of something tangible, collectable, and if the notion hits resellable.

Electronics / technology / entertainment is my largest expense outside of mortgage and utilities and I just wouldn't feel right without something to show for it. Example - My steam account has almost 240 games ... if I decided I was done with steam I probably wouldn't get a dime back from it. Those same 240 games on some sort of physical medium would still sell for at least something and with time could potentially be worth more than originally paid.

The best thing about digital is that when I go somewhere I have access to virtually everything. Every blu ray I buy has a digital copy or I don't buy it, one kindle can hold thousands of books, steam works on my laptop, Netflix, amazon prime, etc. works on pretty much anything with an internet connection, so really a huge percentage of my library is available wherever I want / need it.

I'm excited to see what happens when more and more adopt - if cartridges, discs, etc. get more rare and more valuable or if the demand overshadows the rarity and values plummet.

Another point worth considering.... look at the resurgence of vinyl records. Trendy towns have record shops every mile or so and a lot of new stuff comes out on vinyl. I find this intriguing however my parents early adopted cds (dad swears he paid $1000 for his cd player back in 1983 as a divorce present to himself) so I grew up with cassettes and cds, never really caught the vinyl bug or I probably would collect that stuff too.
 
I'm a bit of an audiophile. I'm a headphone enthusiast, so vinyl is definitely something I also buy. I prefer to buy those on Amazon since most now come with auto-rip. Which is a free mp3 version of the record you just bought. Brilliant! I also love Google Music because I can upload my music collection that I ripped myself and listen to it wherever I have a connection.

I forgot about books and yeah, that's another area where I'm going digital. My girlfriend and I have some old books and rather than handle them to read, we pick up the digital version. For me, I look at it as a preservation tool. I plan on having children and it would be nice to just hand my collection to them without loading them up with a bunch of physical goods that they might not have a place to keep them in.
 
I forgot about books too. I have two ereader Kindles, one Pandigital, and a Nook. I keep certain books on each, my way of categorizing them. For example, one of my Kindles has all Doc Savage books on it. None of them are backlit, gives me the illusion of the real thing. Still trying to hold on.
 
I have a mix of media; both physical and digital. I have sold off some DVDs, CDs, and games. My girlfriend and I use Netflix pretty often. I do have quite a few games on steam.

As far as music, I really prefer having both physical and digital copies; CDs for my car and mp3s for home use.
 
We use Netflix too. We also use Youtube. I have been watching old episodes of Wild Wild West with Robert Conrad in the last few weeks. Been watching the series in order that it originally broadcast. Youtube has a lot of stuff like that. Not having a smart TV my Roku has been worth every penny. I haven't gotten rid of my DVDs, but I have slowed down purchasing them a whole lot. I am thinking that I only, maybe, pick a few last year. Might have been less than six. And I weigh the decision a lot more than I used to. And I have started renting new releases through VuDu, which I never use to do.
 
Nooooo! I will never support digital games for several reasons. What if ten years down the road when the servers are gone, your console breaks? You can buy a new console, but you won't be able to redownload those titles. To me, it's not like music. I can't just backup an Xbox game to my Dropbox and forget about it. I feel like they use it as a way to get more money out of users, with DLC and freemium content and whatnot. I feel like it's just a fad that they're all cashing in on, and it isn't future-proof at all. Having an all-digital collection could end up being disastrous down the road.

This is why I haven't played Destiny. It can never be a classic, because one day it won't be available to play.
 
Not sure if you saw my reasoning for games in my first post, but I play on PC. I don't know if I'll be picking up consoles any time soon.

Anyways, on PC games are far more resistant to being obsolete. There are still games from the '90's that work on today's systems. And if they don't usually someone creates an emulator to get them working again. If I upgrade my computer, I just use the same hard drive and continue with my gaming. And because of this, I can actually back up my games to dropbox, although I won't because the amount of games I have is way too much to upload. So I back them up on a external HD.

With the exception of a small PS1 collection I've acquired through PSN, I won't go digital on consoles.

Oh, and it's not a fad. It hasn't been a fad for many years. Digital is here and growing. Eventually, it will be the way things are. In the end, it's much better for the environment. Less physical crap being thrown out, lost or broken.
 
I'm still kind of resistant to it. I like to buy hard copies of most things, except books. I rip my CDs to digital format but I always had to redo it every time I changed computers since it wasn't on the cloud or anything before. But I think now there's a way I can do that, so I could get rid of my physical copies at some point.

Games I mostly buy physical just because downloaded versions take up a lot of space still. At least on consoles. I have a few digital games but those are usually games that are only available in that format to begin with.

Movies I still buy buy occasionally, but they have to be really awesome. Otherwise we just watch them on Netflix.
 
I just downloaded Guilty Gear XX Acore Plus R from PSN earily this afternoon on to my Vita. It was only $3.00. Does this make me a bad person? :-\
I do try to resist this digital age, but things like this makes it difficult. My heart would rather have the hard copy when it comes to games. I will need to look for the hard copy of this game if only just to ease my conscience. Did this even come out for the Vita in hard copy?
 
retro junkie said:
I just downloaded Guilty Gear XX Acore Plus R from PSN earily this afternoon on to my Vita. It was only $3.00.

It begins!! Muahahahaha!!

But seriously, you're not a bad person. Not exactly sure what would make you even think that. You're giving the developers money. You bought it legitimately. There's nothing to feel bad about.

Humble Bundle just came out with a Square Enix sale. $6 got me the new Thief, Deus Ex, Supreme Commander 2, the latest Hitman, plus more games that they'll announce next Tuesday. Not to mention, that the money goes to charity as well as the developers.

Digital can be a very good thing.