...a lot of physical media today just consists of the launcher on a CD...
Well on PC yeah, not on console. I mainly use consoles as an example cuz like most of you, I've been digital-only on PC for the longest time. And even before stuff like Steam and GOG, I made use of "community demos" so I was already used to keeping a library of digital games long before digital games took off. The only experience I've had installing games from blu-ray discs was on PS4 and XB1, so those are my primary examples. And back when those systems came out, installing games from the discs was
much faster than downloading games for me (I was still on Comcast at the time). Of course the day 0 patches have only gotten bigger and more common since then, so yeah you make a good point. Was never usually a problem for me though cuz I almost never play games at or even near launch. Usually months or years would go by before I touched a game, and by then they already had a ton of patches. So yeah, easier quicker downloads by that point.
I wish when games got updated that new discs would be pressed with the updated code on them. Would be nice to have a much more up-to-date physical copy, like say if you bought a game a few years after launch. Back in the cartridge days, the only way to update a game was to put out a new cartridge. If someone wanted an updated version of a game, they had to buy it all over again. Like
Donkey Kong Country 2, which had a v1.1 release at some point after v1.0. I hated v1.1 cuz there were a lot of little small changes that made the game much harder. I couldn't beat v1.1 but I beat v1.0 no problem. Sadly I only own the v1.1 cartridge, so I had to use a friend's v1.0 cartridge (and when I grabbed the ROM for emulation use, I made sure it was v1.0). Or how about
Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where a later cartridge version changed red blood to green (among other changes)?
On Switch, developers have been known to not pay for the largest Switch cartridges (which were 32GB) and instead use the smaller-capacity ones, put just
some of the game on there, and make you have to download the rest. That means the cartridges aren't really offline and standalone (ignoring game updates that would need to be downloaded anyways). 30 years from now when Switch online services are no longer running, you'll stick that cartridge in your Switch and won't be able to play jack sh1t, cuz the whole game isn't on there, and you can't download the rest of it. Of course by then you should be using a modded console and sourcing your games from the community anyways.
Since you reminded me about it, it really used to piss me off when you buy a physical copy of a game, only to discover there is just a download code in the box, or the disc doesn't really have sh1t on it. At that point, why even bother with a physical copy? Also whatever happened to digital versions of games being cheaper than physical versions because they didn't have to print manuals, discs, boxes, etc? Most of the time I find the opposite to be true, where the physical copies are cheaper. Almost all my PS4 games are physical copies, and I paid no more than $10 for each of them (except one) brand-new. But on the PSN Store all those games were full f*cking price, and when they've gone on sale, I've never seem them as cheap as $10.
Really my biggest issue with disc games was the DRM, I always downloaded the nocd crack for all of my games as soon as possible. But that made updating a problem, because to update you needed to restore the original exe, then wait for the nocd to come for the updated version if it ever came, as less popular games usually didn't get a nocd beyond v1.00.
Yupz, I remember those days
very well, and I don't miss them at all. All my games were using No-CD/No-DVD cracks. Those things were lifesavers at LANParties though (install the game on everyone's systems using the same disc/set of discs). And yeah I made backups of the original exes so I could restore them to patch the games, and then yeah we had to wait for new No-CD/DVD cracks to cover the patched versions of those games. On consoles where you install games from physical media, it always annoyed the f*ck outta me that to play those games I still had to stick the discs in the drive (well, unless you modded your console). Of course it was for DRM purposes, but it's an inconvenience to the user. That's all DRM ever is anyways.
