Steam Deck:

• Steam for most games because of ease of use on the Deck and what they provide to the Linux world
• GOG for old games with no achievments (I’d buy more from them if they were more Linux oriented, but I also understand they can’t do everything)

Playstation 5:

• physical except for a few exceptions as I want to be able to resell games I don’t like. I buy new physical games when I know I’m gonna love a game and used when I ain’t sure

I prefer buying digital games that are either DRM-free or have Steam’s DRM.

I tend to keep a backup of the games that I enjoy so that I can play them even if I end up losing a way to download them. For games with Steam DRM, I can just remove the DRM myself and use a Steam emulator if I ever lose access to Steam.

My main concern is getting games in a form that I can store locally for 20 years and then reasonably expect to boot up and play. A secondary concern (ever since I moved permanently to another country) is going digital whenever possible because shipping stuff long distances is expensive. I had hundreds of physical books that it pained me to give away, but it simply wasn’t economical to move them to my new home. I kept my physical games, CDs, and DVDs, because they’re mostly thin discs and air-filled plastic cases (often replaceable once paper inserts have been removed) and I was able to bring them over affordably.

Over the last few years I’d say I’ve slowed down on physical retro collecting and only bought a couple dozen retro console games. More often I sail the high seas looking for them because morally there’s no sane argument decades after release that paying $50-100 to a private collector or dealer today has any impact on the developer’s or publisher’s profits in terms of secondary or tertiary sales. The physical game media and packaging have ceased to be games and have become artifacts, almost independent of their content, like other vintage or antique items. Of course that doesn’t apply if the game has been rereleased in more or less its original form, in which case I either buy it (if the price is reasonable) or don’t play it at all (if the price is unreasonable). I actually have such a game in digital storage that I’ve been meaning to play for years, and I learned that it’s quite recently been put up in GOG, so now I’m morally obligated to buy it if I still want to play it, heh. Luckily for me the price seems fair.

And speaking of GOG, the majority of my recent game purchases have been split pretty evenly between GOG and itch.io; about 95%. I basically haven’t bought anything directly from Steam for more than a decade. I understand that many games there are actually DRM-free, but I’m not interested in trying to research every game before I make a purchase. If each game’s store page indicated its true DRM status clearly (not just “third-party DRM”), I’d consider buying through Steam again. As it is, whenever I learn about an interesting game that’s on Steam, I try to find it on itch.io or GOG, and if I can’t, I generally don’t buy it; I’ll buy it on Steam only if it looks really interesting and it’s dirt cheap.

Whenever I look at buying “leasing with no fixed term” anything with DRM, I assume that it will be taken away from me or otherwise rendered unusable unexpectedly at some point in the future through no fault of my own. It’s already happened to me a couple of times, and once bitten, twice shy. I know that everyone loves Gabe Newell, and he seems like a genuinely good guy, and he’s said that if Steam ever closed its doors that they’d unlock everything. However the simple fact is that in the majority of situations where that might happen, the call wouldn’t be up to Gaben, even for games published by Valve.

So yeah, I may put up with DRM in a completely offline context, but in any situation where my access terms can be changed remotely and unilaterally with a forced update, server shutdown, or removal, that’s a hard pass from me.

Depends on the platform:

• PC - digital is my only option
• Console - physical so I can loan/swap w/ friends

If I could trade digital games as easily as physical, I’d go digital every time.

I have no interest in any kind of physical media. GOG and Itch.io do not carry any of the games I’m interested in, so I only buy through Steam.

I like Steam, I just wish we were buying the games, not leasing them. Bullshit system and I hope it changes one day.

I only buy games on deep discounts—I spent only $100 over the course of the past 4 years to buy 14 games.

If I’m curious about a game but not sure if I’ll like it, I sail the high seas to try it before committing.

I prefer Steam because I like having achievements, gallery of screenshots (I take hundreds/thousands of them for games I enjoy), backlog with notifications when items go on sale, all the forum/groups/review stuff, etc. If I were to pick purely politically, I would definitely choose GOG though. I wouldn’t ever consider Key Cards as that’s just the worst of both worlds (physical vs digital). Physical rarely makes sense, but I’d consider it for some super unique releases, for example a box release with usb of Morrowind + OpenMW + bunch of modpacks preinstalled including stuff like Tamriel Rebuilt etc + some nice physical stuff in the box like artworks or huge worldmap to put on your wall. But I can’t imagine a release like this being even remotely close to legally possible (because it’s a huge salad of licensed properietary paid content and opensource free content under a variety of licenses).

Digital for the last 20 years.

I only buy digital, since I don’t like having a lot of “stuff” around. GOG is my goto, since I can just back them up to my server. I only tolerate Steam for special purchases that aren’t offered on GOG, probably ~2 games a year.

For older titles, depends on if I can find them at a good price. At one point I got a bundle of old Popcap titles for a lot cheaper on Steam than if I bought each individual game on physical disk.

Though, if it’s not being sold on any digital stores, I’ll see what the price might be like on eBay and if I deem it too expensive ( varies depending on how I feel about the franchise and a few other factors ), I’ll just not both getting a physical copy, if you catch my drift.

I don’t mind physical copies of games at all, for a good price. Especially for older titles. It’s why I bought Morrowind and Oblivion GOTY edition at a thrift shop. Prices were low and they’re games that are high enough quality for me to consider playing.

No comment on newer titles because this is the patient gamer community.

I’m with you on most of your priority list, but would swap perpetual digital with physical.
I would also point out that physical need to be fully on disc, otherwise they’re at best as good as game key cards (doesitplay.org is very useful there).

I think PC gaming is unfortunately the only “sustainable” option nowadays to allow for both native games and emulation to run today or in a decade. With how console manufacturers, especially Microsoft, have been aggressively pushing digital, there’s little hope of having any physical backcompat in consoles moving forward.

Digital everything. Books, games, movies, TV. I don’t want a bunch of physical stuff cluttering my space.

I do prefer things I can archive to my NAS whenever possible though. I make exceptions for gaming with Steam, but all my books, video, and music are locally stored, I don’t like streaming services as an indefinite solution.

Physical these days is mostly dead, so long-term I’ve been going for DRM-free digital. GOG, 7digital or ripping via Foobar2000 for music, ebooks.com plus Calibre, and MakeMKV for DVDs. Steam’s DRM, when not paired with other DRM, is lenient enough where I’m okay with using that when no other options are available.

I do still like physical for some things. I prefer physical for PS3 games versus digital because most games read straight from the disc, and install sizes a significantly smaller if you go that route. That generation of gaming really respected your hard drive. I don’t like buying a disc and then still having to install 100 GB to my hard drive – at that point, why bother?

And I like getting consoles and flashcarts physical, but not the games themselves. There’s nothing as cozy and nostalgic as playing 3DS games on the original hardware, but I don’t need all the cartriges. Everdrive with the Genesis Model 1 is also my preferred way of playing that console so I can experience the original music through the built-in headphone jack.

The exception to that is I’m a sucker for physical game media that has connectivity with other media. So I have a physical copy of Pokemon HeartGold with the Poke Walker, and too many DDR dance pads. I really want that GBA game Kojima made where the cart has a solar panel and you build up energy to defeat vampires by going outside.

Any format that ensures I can play it today or in 10 years. Most games I buy on Steam and when the GOG or pirated verson gets released - even if it’s years later - I get a backup.

Recently Last Epoch, which currently has a full offline mode, might not stay that way for long with the acquisition from whatstheyface, so I still play the Steam version but have a fit girl I know provided me with a nice fallback if I ever need it…

• Preferred: DRM-free download (e.g. GOG, JAST)
• Will consider: Steam (if not encumbered with evil crap like Denuvo, Enigma, Ubisoft/EA shitware, …) – rarely preferred in some cases (e.g. the game is stupidly big)

That’s it. Those are the only ways I buy games in practice in 2025. (The last time I bought a physical copy of a game was pre-COVID…)

I have a Steam Deck and an ancient (offline-only) Win7 computer that is surprisingly still usable. If I can’t run a game on one of those, it might as well not exist as far as I’m concerned.

I’m PC so been digital with it being the only option that is usually available.

If I was still playing on console I’d be going physical all the way assuming it’s not download codes.