Why I prefer physical copies of games

The digital revolution continues around us all. We’ve seen gaming laptops that come without disc drives and have heard whispers of consoles doing the same. I’m not on board, though. I like my physical copies of games. I like going to my GameStop, conversing with the awesome employee’s I’m lucky to have, and putting the box up on a shelf for my collection.

Now, I understand that not everyone is on board with collecting their games. Many they don’t have the space for them. It’s possible that they don’t have the money either. That’s perfectly fine, because they can always just trade-in their games (keep your smark comments about trade-in prices to yourself, please) when they’re done and move to the next game. Do you know what you can’t do that with? Digital games.

My love of physical games goes deeper than that, though. In order to explain it, let me tell you something that bothers me greatly. Two things, actually.

My copy of Halo 3 has been stained by the sun. Instead of the traditional green lettering for the “Xbox 360” logo on the box’s spine, it’s teal. Sure, this might look cool and mesh with the Halo font, but it doesn’t mesh with every other box on my shelf. It drives me crazy; almost as crazy as the fact that my disc for BioShock is the Platinum Hits disc despite the fact that I have the original box art.

Excuse me, I’m having a slight aneurism just thinking about it.

Of course, there’s always the good old “if you lose your internet connection you can still play disc based games” argument that can be applied here, but if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m not exactly using this angle here. So instead, I’ll close with the following: the new game smell.

Some of you already know exactly what I’m talking about. For those that don’t allow me to explain: when you crack open the wrap of a new game and open the box for the first time, you’re invited to this intoxicating, enchanted land of wonders. You have a brand new game and it smells wonderful. That scent, that glorious scent, represents an unknown future filled with discovery, excitement, action, and adventure. Maybe it’s a smell that represents a moment you’ve been waiting for since the game’s announcement. Perhaps it represents the excitement of taking a chance off of a friend’s recommendation.

Or perhaps it’s just the way the box smells when it was wrapped up. Either way, it’s a smell I absolutely adore and one I can’t experience in a digital download game. They don’t have a smell; they simply just exist.

So you see, kids. I’m an absolutely compulsive crazy gamer who may