Streaming and downloading weren’t easily accessible 20 years ago.
Video rental stores and DVD sales dominated the market, and the idea of streaming wasn’t yet a concept.
However, as time went on, music became more readily available, with the rise of iTunes and the iPod, and sharing websites like Napster and Limewire.
Soon enough the digital world was in a transition period. Movies were moving online and as consumers started to gain easier options, the concept of renting a video or buying a CD started to seem like hard work.
“I do subscribe to the idea you don’t own it if you don’t hold it,” said Rod Dorniann an employee at Video Game Trader, on the importance of physical media.
That feeling of importance seems to be consensus among those who collect physical media.
It was a slow transitional period, Netflix delivered DVDs for people for several years in the early 2000s, eventually moving to just streaming.
Much like music and movies, video games are now falling victim to being “digitized.” However, despite the world moving forward, there are still those who cling on to physical things and preserve media.
Video Game Trader — located in the southwest Calgary neighbourhood of Acadia — specializes in games, DVDs and even vinyl records and is becoming a social hub for those who aren’t satisfied by the click of a download button.
Owner Jeff McNair recalls the time Playstation 2 content got removed from his own digital library, after he had paid for them. If he had owned a hard copy of those games, that wouldn’t have happened.
“You know, digital games are disappearing, content can be taken away,” he said.
“There’s a clear line, if you look at Xbox games, you can see our used copies stopped coming in because of Game Pass.”
Game Pass is an online based subscription service, that allows PC and Xbox console games under a rotating library. Games are accessible to subscribers and can be shared among users.
Even though digital gaming is in the majority, Dorniann and McNair feel there will always be a market for those who crave owning physical copies of games, and that it eventually will come back around.
“Look at record stores, they died and came back, it just depends on the direction it goes in.” said Dorniann.
A surprise resurgence in video game interest happened during the pandemic. Once the virus hit, stores that sold physical media thought it would be the end of their industry. However, with players having so much time on their hands, and a craving for the days before the pandemic, game values instead shot up and the market was rekindled.
“It was so odd, suddenly values were spiking; everyone was flirting with (physical) video games again,” said Doriniann.
Despite there being a clear demographic for retro games there are those who also believe digital games and media are the future.
SAIT student Harris Dzindic believes it’s important to know where games began, but thinks PC and downloads are the future for games.
“I don’t think it’s important to keep them in physical format, but I think game preservation is very important,” said Dzindic.
Dzindic himself he has already transitioned onto PC games and thinks the digital age began years ago.
“Digital games have already taken over, PC is very dominant now, and consoles have moved onto a digital format.”
Even though majority of the younger generations lean towards PC gaming, even they notice that console gaming has shifted in the same direction, with digital downloads.
For other generations, it has become more about the aesthetic of a case, rather than having a game inside.
“I’d say it’s mostly for collectors, who like the aesthetic,” said Dzindic.
With the world ever changing digitally, you will find people who embrace the past or look to the future. At the end of the day there will a market for all types of gamers.
