Digital vs physical media which do you prefer?

[GrimCo]

Mix.

TTRPGs, usually i pick up core rule books in physical format cause i like having them on the shelf. Some of them have nice art. But for actual use, i prefer pdfs with bookmarks. Even then, my go to is usually online srd. FE i own only core rulebook for PF1, but with the use of PFSRD i used to create characters with options from all the books.

On portable hard drive, i have extensive pdf collection for most of the games i played over the years. And being from the Balkans, lots of them were acquired on the high seas, but fair number of them are purchased legally.

Books nowdays i tend to buy digital. I'll read them once and that's it. I donated boxes of barely used books ( softcover novels, mostly fantasy and sf, read once and never again) to my local library. Although i have solid collection of nice books i keep on the shelves but those are books that either have sentimental value or real monetary value. Comics, all physical. Can't read them on kindle. I still use my old Kindle 3G keyboard.

Music wise, i like to collect vinyl records. Have lots of them passed from grandpa and dad plus the stuff i bought. And i do play them at home. On the go, spotify it is.

Movies/ series i watch on streaming platforms. Not into collecting.

Games i buy very rarely and at most play them once for the story and move on. GOG mostly.

 

[trappedslider]

I used to pay for Xbox Live's Gold service for the free monthly games, though since they've stopped, I plan to drop it when the next renewal cycle comes around. (A friend tried to persuade me to sign up for their subscription service, but it doesn't seem cost-effective.)

I feel that game pass is worth it a number of free games that you can play either on PC or on the console.

 

[JEB]

I feel that game pass is worth it a number of free games that you can play either on PC or on the console.

Right, I'm sure it's cost-effective for someone who games a lot, especially someone who plays major multiplayer games on console - like the friend who recommended I get it. But I'm fairly casual - most of my gaming is indie or retro titles - so I doubt I'd get much value out of it.

 

[trappedslider]

Right, I'm sure it's cost-effective for someone who games a lot, especially someone who plays major multiplayer games on console - like the friend who recommended I get it. But I'm fairly casual - most of my gaming is indie or retro titles - so I doubt I'd get much value out of it.

It also has a lot of single player games, but if all you're doing is stuff from pervious generations then yeah it won't be worth it for you. I've been playing starfield and RE2 remake just due to it being on game pass. Strangely, I haven't checked out what PC centric games it has beyond Age of empires.

 

[GreyLord]

I own almost no purely digital media beyond some legal forms, my photos and self-created gaming stuff- characters, campaign info, etc. And of course, anything internal to an app.

All my other gaming stuff and nearly 100% of my music & movies are on physical formats. Pretty much everything I own is a THING, and it can’t be taken from me by some corporate decision.

Part of my preference is because I HAVE lost access to things due to the inevitable march of changing technology. Some poetry of mine, written in the 1980s, was printed out when I upgraded my computer. But the printouts got destroyed.

A chord book for an alternative guitar tuning was written on a Palm Tungsten. I got it removed and placed on a CD-ROM. I can’t find the CD, and the Palm is past doing another data recovery.

My spreadsheets and written documents for the best campaign I ever ran are inaccessible because Microsoft stopped supporting the programs they were created in, which cannot be run on any computer I own. There was no translation program available for importing them into the replacement programs, either.

What program were they written in?

Microsoft office is pretty powerful these days and can open many document types that were previously unopenable.

Libre office may actually even be more powerful for some formats.

There are also occasionally some web areas that can open old formats and transfer them to better files.

 

[MoonSong]

Thats probably more the pickle folks here have is subscription vs individual purchase. If you pay for it, download it to your device, thats akin to physical media in terms of ownership. If you pay a sub for access, need internet, and lose access when sub is cancelled, thats likely what is meant by digital here.

This. I have some digital purchases, but as long as they are at most individually stamped pdfs or independent files, they are as good as if they came in a disc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What program were they written in?

Microsoft office is pretty powerful these days and can open many document types that were previously unopenable.

Libre office may actually even be more powerful for some formats.

There are also occasionally some web areas that can open old formats and transfer them to better files.

It was in whatever word processing and spreadsheet programs Microsoft was selling pre-Office. They simply didn’t create a conversion for the Apple side; Office can’t open them.
(Some was also in PageMaker.)

While I’m annoyed that I can’t access the reams of printable material I created for that campaign, it’s the spreadsheet that hurts the most. I can remember the characters and scenarios I created, but it took a lot of work making a HERO character sheet that automatically calculated & tracked ALL of the numbers (assuming you entered your data correctly, of course).

 

[jdrakeh]

It was in whatever word processing and spreadsheet programs Microsoft was selling pre-Office. They simply didn’t create a conversion for the Apple side; Office can’t open them.

Multiplan? Jesus dude. That was discontinued in the mid-80s.

[Edit: If you can track down version 5.0 or older of Excel (the program that replaced Multiplan), it'll open Multiplan spreadsheets.]

 

[trappedslider]

It was in whatever word processing and spreadsheet programs Microsoft was selling pre-Office. They simply didn’t create a conversion for the Apple side; Office can’t open them.
(Some was also in PageMaker.)

While I’m annoyed that I can’t access the reams of printable material I created for that campaign, it’s the spreadsheet that hurts the most. I can remember the characters and scenarios I created, but it took a lot of work making a HERO character sheet that automatically calculated & tracked ALL of the numbers (assuming you entered your data correctly, of course).

https://www.vertopal.com/en/convert/mp-to-xls

ta-da!

 

[Meech17]

It's a mix for me. For books, whether it's a novel or an RPG book I really prefer to read a physical book. I work in front of a computer all day, and I play video games at a computer, and I consume most of my media through the computer. I like having a hobby that I can go sit on the couch and do. Or to take with me in the car to read while I'm waiting for the dog at the groomer or something. I like the tactile feel of paper in my hands too. With that said, I do really appreciate these companies that offer combo deals. Like I just bought the Creature Codex from Kobold Press and got both the soft cover and the PDF. There is a big use advantage of PDF RPG books. Hyperlinked table of contents for instance. I also like to DM from my tablet, and I've found that I can cut and paste chunks of the books into a slideshow and swipe through it at the table. Paste the stat block from the Goblin, and I'm good there, but if I want to make a Goblin Shaman, I can go cut out the individual spells I think they should have and paste those in there too.

With music and movies I used to be really into collecting them physically. In my teenaged years I just pirated everything, but once I entered adulthood, and got an adult job I started actually paying for media. I have a big binder full of CDs. Probably around 150 or so, and I can't tell you the last time I touched it. It's so much easier to pay Google $13/mo and have my entire collection of music plus any other song I may want to listen to right at my fingertips. On top of that I regularly use the radio function to discover new music. I do know that I'm at their mercy now, and at any time they could tell me to pound sand and double or triple the price, or limit my ability to listen to music.. And as crazy as it sounds the convenience is worth the risk to me.

If there's a movie I really like I do try to buy it physically. Streaming services are fickle, and I've been in the position where I want to watch a movie that used to be on Netflix, only to find out it's on Amazon Prime instead and I'm up a creek.