Do You Make Physical Copies of the Downloads You Buy?

[Nz17]

A lot of the game releases and re-releases these days are digital-only, that being a download of the game with no corporeal embodiment. Do you make physical copies of the freeware you get & the downloads you buy, e.g. burning them to a disk or copying them to a USB drive? Do you make them 1:1 (one game per disk)? Do you write names on the disks or do you go full-out with a proper printed label glued to them? And for the ultimate dedication, do you also print out a game box or case inserts?

[SAV2880]

Gotta be honest, I've never really thought to make physical backups of it. Now, that's not to say that I shouldn't do this, my Steam library would probably be hundreds of gigs at this point, but that might be the extent of it.

Are you thinking Cover-Project type stuff?

[Tanooki]

I do it. For certain cases where the item comes in a form that can get plopped onto a bootable disc where it installs naturally I'll do it, and the rest go on a portable USB hard drive we've got. I don't believe in long term digital rental platforms except when the game price is like free(mium) to $5 in most cases, exceptions I can see around $10. I don't feel it's fair in the least bit to have someone pony up full cash value on a lie wrapped in a bullshit story so you feel safe. There are no digital downloads, they're long term rentals, and when your choice of console is dead and gone, and the network owners want to drop the game for whatever reason (age, loss of license, force you to rebuy on newer hardware to be greedy) that sickens me as it's not right. I know even on physical media I buy the 'license' I get that, but at least I have control to use that license now, 5 years or 25 years from now. Good luck on having Fez or Retro City Rampage being honored in 2025.

[JSoup]

Depends on what it is.
Never done it with PC games or even anything I've bought. Never saw a need.
I've got a number of Japanese GB/C ROMs for particularly hard to find games that I've gone out of my way to have backups of in case something happens.
A few of them I've even hosted for download just to get them out there.

[Daria]

No. But what I'd love to do is get an SNES game copier and do exactly this with my ROM collection and a ton of floppy disks. I envision it turning out like a homebrew Super FDS collection. :P

[dgdgagdae]

I copy my GOG purchases to an external hard drive, just in case.

[Niku-Sama]

No. But what I'd love to do is get an SNES game copier and do exactly this with my ROM collection and a ton of floppy disks. I envision it turning out like a homebrew Super FDS collection. :P

whats stopping you?

[Jorpho]

I think the last game I did this with was GTA III, a number of years ago. It would be pretty hopeless to try to do it now; I have too many downloads bought, and not really enough storage space for them all – certainly, using DVD-Rs would be hopeless.

Besides, I'd be worried that my downloads would be missing the latest patches and updates.

[The Adventurer]

I've got all my DRM-Free Gog purchases in a folder on an external Hard Drive. Mostly for easy access when I want them.

I've also got every DRM-Free comic book I've ever bought backed up.

Its mostly an unnecessary precaution, as the likelihood of these sites going out of business before my Hard Drive fails is quite low... but it still brings some peace of mind.