Digital Only Physical Games - Scott The Woz

hey y'all scott here you know the world's a much better place without things equity is the worst i don't want the responsibilities that come with owning a door but i sure do miss the perks of it so i bought just a doorknob to put on my shelf may not do much but it reminds me what it's like to have purpose why i like boxes i got nothing better to do but they are my only hobby i also love physical games inside them i'm half pissed physical video games are hard to make i mean i'm gonna do it this is the best i could do which is why they've always been and will always be special if you officially release a game on a video game console on a disk or cartridge it feels like you've made it they don't just let anybody do that sometimes we live in a digital age now it's become uncool to hold things but for those with a soul physical media is still out there and the digital age makes physical that much more special you're telling me when that game publisher could just spit this out on digital stores and call it a day they went to all the trouble of using plastic obviously digital is more convenient in the way of the future but i think physical has enough advantages over it where it makes it hard for it to completely take over especially with games with physical media you can sell that in stores more organically and i've done some research stores like that target enjoys the concept that they sell you a game console which you keep buying games for at target at least that's what i've gathered sure they sell digital codes in the stores but i don't really get it little game download cards like this don't even have the codes on the cards themselves they print them on your receipt so if you get a download card as a gift for somebody you have to include these both which is frankly just clunky paper use that's the only scenario these make sense in as gifts because if you have a gift card to a store and won a digital game why not just buy an eshop card for funs so that's another reason physical makes sense gifs it's way more fun to open this as a gift compared to this digital codes just aren't exciting couple that with the fact that going digital only means you're gonna fill up your console's storage capacity faster than if you have a sex wall downloading games takes a while it requires internet a lot of storage space and it's just not as fun it's an adventure to buy a physical game i fell in the way to the shop that's a story to tell downloading a game i still felt and that's just embarrassing however it is a lot more convenient and with consoles becoming faster at loading up titles it makes digital a lot more enticing back on the wii u can you tell why i didn't go all digital so digital has its advantages like a vasectomy but games are so large they take forever to download you kind of almost need a physical option these aren't like movies or music these things can be hundreds of gigabytes in size and are too complicated to stream as easily as other mediums plus digital games if they get yanked off online storefronts they're a gunner it's hard to preserve these things with physical these issues aren't nearly as prevalent or they're completely non-existent but man printing those physical games can cost a lot for a company especially compared to just putting it out digitally you have to be fairly confident the physical copy will sell well to worn release like this it usually boils down to the cost of printing the disk or manufacturing the cartridges so you don't want to take the risks of releasing a physical game but still want a presence at retail and satiate customers who want something physical nobody wins except for satan a cheap alternative to releasing physical games some companies have discovered is what i call a digital only physical game it comes in a box you get artwork the console branding the whole nine yards everything you'd expect from a physical release except the physical release instead of a disker cartridge you get a download code because i really needed 16 more characters in my life once you redeem the download code why do i own this this is pointless it's like the companies that are releasing these things are going oh well this is good enough people who want physical versions of our games they're too [ __ ] stupid to realize that we're taking these way out and besides all they want is the box anyways yeah maybe a dumb [ __ ] who ever really values packaging i get overjoyed when there's a random blank piece of paper included in the box but you see i may enjoy the box when there's nothing inside the box what's there to enjoy about the box god this is one of the stupidest trends of modern gaming and this isn't only like a three game deal or something i didn't see one game do this and start proclaiming the truth no look at all these it's more than three the first game i can recall doing this was ducktales remastered while it was digital only at launch capcom released this boxed version only on ps3 and it didn't even come with a disc you got an exclusive pin and a cardboard disk so why am i bitching this was a weird release considering this digital copy only box was exclusive to playstation 3. the game came out for 360 and wii u alongside that console so why they made this retail edition that didn't even come with a disc exclusive to one console is beyond me i won't say though at least putting a cardboard disc in here that's kind of cute the pin originally came on it though i think it would have made more sense if the digital code was printed on it that way i mean the game would be on a disk but i think what makes this really stand apart from the rest is the fact that it did get a physical disk release and they announced it a month after the game released digitally those are all platforms too and the boxers are basically the same as the original digital only copy i guess capcom wasn't optimistic about the game's potential sales and then immediately afterwards they went [ __ ] oops but if you weren't optimistic about the sales why even do the digital only physical to begin with like really if you were worried that the game wasn't going to sell well at retail why would you release a pointless box copy that has less value than a standard release oh man it comes with a pin nintendo did a similar thing with mario vs donkey kong tipping stars those bastards so this game released simultaneously on nintendo 3ds and wii u i remember many saying this was their big crossbuy experiment so you only had nintendo platforms so you have the luxury of buying super mario brothers 9 times over on the playstation console sony was offering loads of games you buy once and you can play on your ps3 ps4 vita free of charge sometimes they weren't even legacy titles but dammit i chose to buy clue clueland twice it was just odd that nintendo had two systems getting nes and snes games released on them at the same time both on storefronts called the nintendo eshop yep buying mario 3 on wii u meant you still had to buy mario 3 on 3ds this mario vs donkey kong game worked across both systems so nintendo tried this method where if you bought one version you'd get a download code for the other even though this was a modern idea it's still at that classic nintendo stank you'd expect to just buy it on wii u then go to your 3ds and be able to download it from the shop with your account but no they love these download codes so much they decide to celebrate them with a box copy over in europe digital only physical copies were released for both wii u and 3ds what a waste so these boxes just contain a download code for set system then after redeeming said download code you get a download code for the other system but why not just have both download codes in the box that way you could just release the 3ds case with the download codes or the wii u case with the download codes not both instead they released both wii u and 3ds versions of the digital only boxes where both basically contained the same two games even though the wii u case uses up much more plastic and space like not only is that always doing that to begin with but they did it in the most wasteful way imaginable it's weird because japan got physical versions of this game you get the disk or cartridge and the download code for the other console so japan was apparently the one market nintendo felt confident releasing a physical copy of this game in north america we only got the game digitally so they thought there was not a single american who wants to feel this thing and europe let's just assume they [ __ ] hate europe if they just didn't print physical copies in general i wouldn't understand but they went to the trouble of printing discs and cartridges in japan but europe they felt confident enough to use game boxes print cover art create all these download codes slip ship them out on trucks take up shelf space in stores but not print the game on cartridges too far during this generation hot trend was the episodic releases of games spearheaded by telltale he just put out the first episode of a game then finish it throughout the year of course they wanted a retail presence so usually around the time the first episodes of their game released a physical copy came out as well he's confused me at the time they didn't say episode one or anything it was just yeah the game the full series i'd see these in the store and think isn't this game ongoing isn't it not finished yet but in fine print it's clarified this is a season pass disc while it is a physical game the disc only includes the first episode and grants you access to download the rest of the episodes as they become available i think what annoys me about releases like this is what's the point of a physical release when you have to download so much of it like yeah it's still on a disk but barely is a disk really worth it at that point you have to download four fifths of the rest of the game that's a lot of hard drive space that's gonna be taken up by this game and you still have to get up to put the disc in at that point it's taking up that much storage space why not just download the whole game i almost feel like the download code in the box would have made more sense for games like these at least for when they're not finished yet but no they did releases like this to almost fool people walking through a game stop into going wow a new batman game and they buy this not reading the fact that it's only one fifth of the game or if it's after the game finished only one fifth of the game is on the disc and they have to download the rest because with digital only physical games you have to make sure the consumer knows what they're getting into what if they don't have internet but love buying laura croft in the temple of osiris there's gotta be somebody out there why did square enix decide okay this game is good enough to get a box but not a disk of course lots of business decisions go into this kind of stuff there's gotta be more explanations other than we didn't want to invest in printing disks for this game because while that is a fair reason it's pretty expensive to do that seeing the hundreds of games that get physical releases that truly don't deserve anything more than a face made about them even by square enix themselves why does something like this worn a disc but this doesn't is there some kind of totem pole of deservedness where the temple of osiris reaches the box and artwork but nothing else tier you obviously believe this game would sell in a retail environment by releasing this so why do this they like to make these releases more enticing with bonuses a poster pin all that but that makes me question it even more you're willing to do all this but not print a disk the sonic mania collectors edition jesus [ __ ] i measured this thing is in fact huge comes with a sonic statue a fake genesis cartridge with a gold ring inside a metallic card and a download code you gotta be kidding me all of this and no disc no game card no case this is a big collector's edition and it wasn't like exclusive to sega's online shop or anything not exclusive to a single platform like ducktales no i saw xbox one versions of these things rotting in best buys that is a problem you wouldn't have if you just did a regular release now sonic mania did get a physical version one year later which kind of makes this release a whole lot stupider and it's a nice collector's edition but being digital only it's just so dumb you could make the argument it's to make collectors double dip we're gonna put up the collector's edition and include only a download code then we'll do a physical release afterwards i see a lot of studios do this the physical release happens after the digital one's been out a while get everybody to buy the digital then the physical releases and even if the collectors bought the digital version they just can't help themselves there needs to be a hotline for this kind of thing that's fair it's a smart business practice might not be the most ethical in the world but hey i fall for it every time and i know exactly what they're doing which doesn't mean i fall for it just means i'm a [ __ ] pretty much with all these i see no point to them i feel like they raise more questions than answers especially the mini xbox one download code boxes little key ring-sized plastic boxes containing nothing but a download code and will eventually be the main source of ocean pollution they are the cutest possible way to kill a seal but i've saved the most notorious example for last ladies and gentlemen the horror it's a joke book that's really morbid the nintendo switch is the leader of [ __ ] in this category due to having such proprietary game cartridges releasing bigger games physically on switch is a challenge for developers and publishers these little guys cost more to produce than just a regular blu-ray disc and that cost increases if the game's file size is bigger i mean they got 1 gigabyte cards 2 gigabytes 4 8 16 32 is pretty much the max and that is incredibly pricey the problem is game sizes right now how much is that in square feet a lot of games just straight up won't fit on a switch cartridge even the biggest possible ones so that's why many games are just flat out digital only on the system even games that would normally have a retail presence but some publishers just can't help themselves enter capcom mega man legacy collection one and two were both releasing a nintendo switch on the same day both as separate releases they both got physical copies for other platforms surely the switch will succumb to a similar fit i'm still pissed capcom decided to bundle both games together for a physical release but in doing that only legacy collection one was on the cart dude he had to download what made it worse is that this little fact almost forcing the plus of this giant banner at the top saying don't buy me this was the box art that was showing off when the bundle was first announced but thankfully the official release got rid of it only containing this little blurb on the bottom it's still pretty lame it's just you can't tell me both of these games wouldn't fit on a single cartridge they're mega man games low calorie now legacy collection one is under 400 megabytes in size with two being around 3.2 gigabytes so they obviously would have fit both on a 4 gigabyte cartridge but why do that when you can cheap out with the one gig also thanks capcom for forcing me to download the bigger game at least with releases like this where some of the game has to be downloaded you can make the argument well at least this way i'm saving some space yeah at this point you might as well just download both games they might have also not put them both on the same cartridge considering they are technically two separate games nintendo updated the switch later down the line to allow physical games to include multiple games in one so when you insert the card all the games pop up on the home screen so if this released later i'm sure they would have done that but back in 2018 if they wanted both on the card combining the two of them into one it would have required gasp developing a game select menu i would have loved if they combined the two releases called it mega man ultimate legacy collection but no this is stupider let's do that at least mega man didn't get the resident evil treatment okay first off resident evil revelations collection calling a pair of games a collection is kind of weird to me oh yeah we got tons of games revelations revelations 2 but this follows the same trend the first games on the card second game you have to download of course it's the bigger one 26 [ __ ] gigabytes come on capcom if you're gonna do this at least have revelations 2 be the one on the card this game alone doesn't fit on a switch without a micro sd card if revelations 1 was the download that's at least only around 12 gigabytes there was a bone here oh man this box looked great we do have the giant white banner disclaimer i understand this for retail but maybe just a sticker would do this is always here even after i buy it good to know both of these games the game included on the game card are games that have already gotten physical releases on nintendo platforms before the games that are digital only download codes have never been on a nintendo platform prior let alone physically if they were gonna do this i probably would prefer if they said you know what mega man legacy collection one already released on 3ds physically let's give legacy collection two some time to shine if we have to pick one for the card and you know why not just release these games separately they pulled the exact same stick for other games in each of these series mega man x legacy collection one plus two oh what a surprise resident evil origins collection resident evil zero the prequels on the card with resident evil remake being the download so i guess instead of doing the first game like with the other releases this time they did the first game resident evil triple pack resident evil 4 5 and 6 and only 4 is on the card at least the card doesn't say resident evil triple pack that would have annoyed me if 4 was still the only one on there at that point wouldn't have been nice to have reversible cover art for just resident evil 4 instead i get box art that looks like i'm packing chips for lunch the download codes do last a while though most of which last roughly 800 years give or take that's good anything less than 600 it would have flipped you got the games that required download like only your portions on the card ali noir was like this and i just said not just download the whole thing if i'm gonna have to download a good chunk of it why bother with a card i don't save a ton of space on my system and i still have to grab the game and put it in my switch model combat 11 did this too without the download we can only play basic versus battles however that's kind of the main attraction and this is a game that released on ps4 and xbox one the exact day i think the download requirement concessions are tolerable but then they re-released mortal kombat 11 with the dlc included and got rid of the game card like what why not just have the game card from the original release plus the download codes for the dlc now i need to have 32 gigabytes of free space do my nintendo switch did a similar thing like with the original mk11 release you had to download a portion of the game but it was the online multiplayer which just makes perfect sense not everybody was buying doom for the multiplayer and but a lot of what makes these physical releases worth it is the fact these games are being basically preserved when they're put out like this doom's online multiplayer is obviously internet based so it's not going to be a lie forever regardless if it's included on the cartridge or not so putting the single player there and having the multiplayer downloadable makes total sense releasing a box version of fortnite does not which one should i get apex legends why buy for free when buying for 30 is an option these games are too popular for them to not release them at retail but by being basically just online multiplayer and a free download there's no point to putting them on a card so they stuff these games fresh with download codes for some in-game purchases i guess that's an incentive but if these purchases are enticing you you're probably already playing the game extensively i feel like these releases appeal to people that have never played the games before so what does legendary weapon skin mean to them overwatch got this treatment coming with a three-month switch online membership wow what is that like four dollars then we got wolfenstein youngblood in call of juarez i just didn't want to [ __ ] do a card for some reason they both have different headers which i will reiterate these headers make me feel like a [ __ ] idiot oh wait there's no game card young blood i kind of get this is a stand-alone expansion to wolfenstein 2 a game that already required a download on switch albeit coming mostly on a game card so this probably wasn't going to sell as well as that plus it's 21 gigabytes i'm not defending them doing this release i think i'm just doing a standard digital one and nothing more would be perfectly fine gala juarez requires four gigabytes but you know it's bad when even nintendo does it mario kart live home circuit comes in this giant box no game card not even download code it tells you hey just look it up fire emblem shadow dragon in the blade of light they gave it this amazing collector's edition only to have a download code this could have used a physical release i get mario kart to some extent that game uses wi-fi to connect the toy card to your switch it might not function years down the line anyways but fire emblem that may sound like a broken record but you're willing to do all of this but not this it's expensive i understand why not every game gets a physical release but i just don't understand why some releases are treated like this especially when the packaging is huge and they include all these other goodies or if the game is small enough to fit on a cartridge and the strange thing is this doesn't work for other mediums i bought hot dog buns and they just came with a rain check for buns see that just sounds [ __ ] [Music] loony you

Channel: Scott The Woz

Views: 2,112,709

Keywords: Nintendo Switch, Digital vs Physical, Digital Edition, Digital Games, Physical Games, Game Collection, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PS3, PS4, PS5, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox 360, Season Pass, DLC, Wii Shop Channel, Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Xbox Game Store, Microsoft, Sony, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, Fire Emblem Switch, Mario Kart Live, Collector's Edition, Download Code

Id: moj2wnzvQjY

Length: 18min 31sec (1111 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DisposablePanda]

Anyone try the download code he put up?

[u/Desperate_Win7702]

scott swer att 3:34 😳😳😳😳

[u/bt1234yt]

Don’t be shocked if you see this moment in a future Out-of-Context compilation or on one of those OOC STW gimmick accounts.

[u/AstroCookieGalaxy]

Well, I got another speedrun in. While I am proud of myself, I’m just wondering though, how long until u/BottTheWoz is fully operational?

[u/[deleted]]

Everyone’s least favorite oxymoron

[u/your_mind_aches]

I totally get Scott's point and he is 100% right that this is a dumb trend but. Also I kind of don't understand why he hates it that much because getting the box has always sounded like one of the biggest parts of collecting a game for him. 😭

I guess it comes with being a PC gamer in a developing country with super fast Internet. Digital is just SO much cheaper in addition to being more convenient. I still have my shelf of games from childhood that I cherish but it feels like more of a hassle to get stuff loaded from it and putting stuff back than just clicking play on my PC.

[u/crfnalti]

Woah

[u/PowerOfL]

Amazing episode, I love how I'm never able to predict what the next scott episode is

[u/Admirable_Elk_965]

Not going to lie I didn’t even know these existed until he made this video.