When I buy a physical game, I know I have options.
- I can shop around and often find it cheaper.
- I can buy used.
- I can lend it to someone.
- I can trade it.
- And if I'm done with it, I can sell it and potentially recover some or even all of what I paid.
And let's be real — I'm sure one day I'm going to have to convince my wife that buying another game is a perfectly reasonable financial decision. 😂 At least with a physical copy I can say:
That argument gets a little harder when my $70 is permanently sitting inside my PlayStation account. 😂
When I spend $70 on a digital game, that money feels gone. I can't put the game on eBay later. I can't trade it toward something else. I can't sell part of my collection if I need the money.
And I understand why digital is so popular. I used to think differently about money too. When I was younger, convenience mattered more to me. Click BUY → download → play. But eventually I started thinking:
That's one of the biggest reasons I've been buying more physical games lately — and I've actually found a lot of them cheaper than the digital versions.
I'm not against digital games. I'm against taking the choice away.
If the PS6 eventually becomes digital-only while Xbox still gives me the option to buy physical games, that could genuinely be enough to make me switch. Because at this point in my life, I want my purchases to make financial sense.