It's always a good idea to stay away from walled gardens. Android, ios, playstation, xbox, etc. If you don't control what you pay for, you don't own it and it can be taken away at any moment.
Exactly why I buy physical media whenever possible for the stuff I want to make sure I have control over, and download archival copies of any digital-only content I've purchased. One of these days I need to get around to building a Jellyfin server, as a third backup, so I can rip my movie collection and not have to worry about digging through binders of discs if I want to watch something that's off the wall or that's been bowdlerized by streaming services' censors.
I gave up on physical media except for the occasional old TV series on DVD. Takes up more space than external harddrives and for games the physical discs are just dummies with an online code anyway.
At least on PC I still control the computer and can run cracks/emulators to backup Steam games, or buy a DRM-free versions on GOG.
I'm more of a DIY nut when it comes to ripping content, because I'd rather not have to hunt through a bajillion torrents to try and find a clean copy that doesn't have some kind of funky subtitles or jacked audio, but I get what you're saying. I'm lucky enough to have the storage space to keep my physical discs for stuff like movies and TV, but I haven't bought a boxed copy of a PC game in years. If possible I try to buy from GoG, although keeping ones downloaded backups up to date in this age of perpetual patches is a bit of a pain in the ass.
I always hated ripping stuff myself because I could never decide on a good ratio between file size and quality. So I just stuck with what scene groups released. Rips from final blurays/dvds were usually good enough. Although I haven't bothered torrenting anything in many years. There just isn't enough worth keeping these days.
keeping ones downloaded backups up to date in this age of perpetual patches is a bit of a pain in the ass.
Yea that's fucking annoying. IIRC GoG displays a green dot on games in your library that had an update after you downloaded it. On steam the only way I found to see which of your games got updated is going through the "recently updated" page. At least they now go back more than a couple of weeks.
It's always a good idea to stay away from walled gardens. Android, ios, playstation, xbox, etc. If you don't control what you pay for, you don't own it and it can be taken away at any moment.
Exactly why I buy physical media whenever possible for the stuff I want to make sure I have control over, and download archival copies of any digital-only content I've purchased. One of these days I need to get around to building a Jellyfin server, as a third backup, so I can rip my movie collection and not have to worry about digging through binders of discs if I want to watch something that's off the wall or that's been bowdlerized by streaming services' censors.
I gave up on physical media except for the occasional old TV series on DVD. Takes up more space than external harddrives and for games the physical discs are just dummies with an online code anyway.
At least on PC I still control the computer and can run cracks/emulators to backup Steam games, or buy a DRM-free versions on GOG.
I'm more of a DIY nut when it comes to ripping content, because I'd rather not have to hunt through a bajillion torrents to try and find a clean copy that doesn't have some kind of funky subtitles or jacked audio, but I get what you're saying. I'm lucky enough to have the storage space to keep my physical discs for stuff like movies and TV, but I haven't bought a boxed copy of a PC game in years. If possible I try to buy from GoG, although keeping ones downloaded backups up to date in this age of perpetual patches is a bit of a pain in the ass.
I always hated ripping stuff myself because I could never decide on a good ratio between file size and quality. So I just stuck with what scene groups released. Rips from final blurays/dvds were usually good enough. Although I haven't bothered torrenting anything in many years. There just isn't enough worth keeping these days.
Yea that's fucking annoying. IIRC GoG displays a green dot on games in your library that had an update after you downloaded it. On steam the only way I found to see which of your games got updated is going through the "recently updated" page. At least they now go back more than a couple of weeks.