2022: the last year of DVD?

[TheFrighter]

This pic of Croquetasesina...



...make me think thet is a lot of time that I don't buy a DVD for movies or videogames. Months, problably years.
I find less in the stores, the blu-ray discs are the most. For now.
At the beginning of the year WWE.com announcend that they stop to print DVDs of the events, only online. And so many movie distributors.
Probably the digital downloading will be the future, right now I'm sure the most videogames are purchased online.

But is a fine thing that games will not selling in a phisical copy? Files are easy eraseble.

What do you think about?

_

[Babar]

For the most part, I don't think there have been PC games on physical media for a long time (aside from specialty orders and such). Even most boxes just came with a key to redeem online (and even if they had a DVD, would have to be updated, or often only had the installer, which would download the game).

I have a number of games on physical media (had to get most of my floppy games replaced), but that era has long gone.

[Danvzare]

Yeah, Babar's right. PC games don't have physical releases anymore, except in a few rare cases.
Console games still do, but who knows for how long. (They'll probably always be there as a sort of collector's item though, so I guess we'll see.)

I still see tons of DVDs of movies and TV shows being sold in shops though. And in my opinion, they usually outnumber the Blu-Ray releases by a huge margin. So DVDs aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Which I personally find odd. I thought they would've been outright replaced by Blu-Ray by now.

[Gilbert]

One problem is that, PC sold nowadays usually don't even come with an optical drive, especially for laptops that are not upgradable by normal users, so they have to buy an external drive.
I, being one of these people who acquired a laptop recently, had to buy an external BDR drive, which, though I was surprised how cheap these things are nowadays (I was without a working PC at home for more than THREE YEARS as I wouldn't be free to try to recover my old desktop PC during these busy years), that it has to use TWO USB ports (because of power requirement when burning BDRs) may just scare people away.

So, yes, it's unfortunate that disc media has become obsolete and is more a kind of "collector's item" nowadays. It to some extend was caused by optical discs shifting from playable media to distribution media. In the past, you can run a game directly from the disc, or even if the game required installation, it usually just installed a tiny portion of essential stuff into your harddisk and would need the disc in the drive to access data or play the audio tracks. Now, games that come in discs only save you the time from downloading the files, since you usually need to waste A LOT OF harddisk space to install the whole thing anyway (and in case a game needs to have the disc in the drive to run it's usually just copy protection to verify that you have a legal copy), and the fact that modern games sometimes have 1st day bug fix enhancement DLC patch that's even larger than the size of the original whole game doesn't help. Retro rereleases of old games through services like GOG or STEAM also did away with the physical media the games already came in.

Consoles are also heading this way now. Originally, console games were designed to be played on the get-go, that you insert a cartridge/disc into the console and just play immediately. No installation is needed (apart maybe requiring some storage space on the console for save games, config files, etc.). But this has shifted too (though slower that PC) so you sometimes need to install A LOT OF stuff (if not the whole game) in the storage space of the console before playing (especially the "big titles"). Again, that DLC and upgrade patch had become a thing in the console world have rendered games in physical media becoming a moot point (in the past, if a console game was bugged, nothing could be done, unless you're offered a chance to exchange the whole game cartridge/disc).

[Danvzare]

To add to this.
I'm clearly in the minority here, but one of the main things I don't like about owning digital games. Is that at the end of the day, you could lose it and never get it back at a moment's notice. You could delete the game and the servers could get closed off, and then you'll never be able to play that game you bought, ever again. The most obvious example of this happening is the Nintendo Wii, but it's obvious that the PS3 will soon be on the chopping block (it already was not so long ago, before they delayed it due to backlash).
Meanwhile, you know you'll probably always be able to get a pirated copy again and again, since there's always someone who'll put it up.
When I feel as though I own a pirated copy, more than I own a legally purchased copy, then there's a problem. 

And don't get me started on the inability to sell off your digital games like you can with physical games. As well as the prices of digital games. Why do they seem to stay at the same price as when they released, and why is it considered normal to always wait until they go on sale? That's just messed up! 
But I digress.

The greatest thing about discs and cartridges in my opinion though, is that you'll always be able to play the game, so long as you look after the media it's stored on and can find a working console for it (for disc-based games, you don't even need a working console, since a working emulator will usually do the job just fine). The fact that people are still able to play their NES games to this day, is testament to that fact.
Sure, you won't have access to those "Day 1 Mega Patches" and all of those "DLC Season Passes", but that's your fault for buying a buggy and crappy game. I've got plenty of modern games which are great with no updates, patches, or DLC. A good example is the recent remake Tony Hawk's ProSkater 1+2. I played the game from start to finish without updating it (no internet at the place I was playing it at, don't ask). I didn't have a single problem, and the whole game was there and playable, which sounds quite surprising for a AAA Activision game in my opinion. Same goes with Kingdom Hearts III (didn't update that because I found a cool exploit that I didn't want to find out if they had patched or not).

Unfortunately it's obvious that consoles are going to go completely discless. (After all, they already have discless versions of the consoles.)
I suspect the next generation of consoles to be completely discless. Except Nintendo, who as usual, will be behind the times. But they'll get to it either the generation after that, or the generation after that.

[Ponch]

I'm very much a physical media kind of guy, which makes me a dinosaur, I suppose. 

[Danvzare]

I'm very much a physical media kind of guy, which makes me a dinosaur, I suppose. 

We're on a forum for a 20 year old game engine whose primary purpose is to make point and click adventure games.
We're all dinosaurs here.