64% prefer discs to digital


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Not surprised. Digital mediums are constantly under the risk of being lost, limited, or merely leased to those purchasing it depending on the service it was pruchased from. For example, Steam. I lost my steam account, and therefore lost over a hundred dollars worth of games due to that (my account was locked for only what I can see as inactivity). Lost HL2, Counterstrike, Portals, CS:S, etc. Physical > Digital any day.

Why didn't you simply request a password change? It's just as likely to lose a disc as it is to lose that information, IMO.

Also, I'm almost positive Valve does not lock accounts due to inactivity.

Edit: Yup, they don't.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519

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i never buy games on disc for the PC anymore, always on steam. im an impatient bugger and hate waiting for the game to be delivered. also having to put the disc in the drive every time i wanna play rather than just double clicking it in steam is such a farse. :laugh:

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Why didn't you simply request a password change? It's just as likely to lose a disc as it is to lose that information, IMO.

Also, I'm almost positive Valve does not lock accounts due to inactivity.

Edit: Yup, they don't.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519

So why was it locked? I never did anything on it other than play games, and it was inactive for several years until this year I wanted to reactivate it. But, logged and got "This Steam account has been disabled". There is no e-mail regarding this and I am guilty of none of the things listed as a reason for this happening. Unless something happened during the account's inactivity, which would make no sense.

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So why was it locked? I never did anything on it other than play games, and it was inactive for several years until this year I wanted to reactivate it. But, logged and got "This Steam account has been disabled". There is no e-mail regarding this and I am guilty of none of the things listed as a reason for this happening. Unless something happened during the account's inactivity, which would make no sense.

Perhaps you were phished. Didn't you just e-mail them about it?

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Perhaps you were phished. Didn't you just e-mail them about it?

Considering it may have been handled over three years or so ago, I doubt that I could resolve the issue.

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Considering it may have been handled over three years or so ago, I doubt that I could resolve the issue.

Why not? They should keep records. Just contact them.

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Why not? They should keep records. Just contact them.

Not many people keep three years worth of records. Besides, I already looked into it and made a newer account so it would be pointless. Just an example of how digital media is not really always yours.

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You can't claim that when you haven't even tried sorting it out. and they probably do keep records at least that long.Especially considering the business they're in.

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Sounds like you really didn't care, Emn1ty.

Trust me, I tried to sort it out. Didn't go very far, honestly. But then again, it isn't always Valve that is running things. Who's to say this would be fixable with another service? Anything can happen, and when you don't actually own something you purchased you aren't in control of what they do with it nor do you have control over your own material. You merely purchase the rights to use it with the condition that you must have some way to verify that you have purchased it (in the case of Steam it is an internet connection and steam account). Others may be stricter. Honestly all the stuff I purchased for my 360 I expect to lose (when the new console come out), but that is why I don't really buy too many games on it other than the ones that are download only. I only have three downloaded games (two of which are original x-box titles).

You may think I didn't try to get it back, but I researched the issue and sent e-mails. Niether got me anywhere. Perhaps its because of how long I didn't use my Steam account (several years, I think the last time I used it was in high school, 3-4 years ago). Tried to use it this year, disabled. Checked the steam community forums, sent e-mails to customer support. Nothing.

The worst parts of this issue:

- "Steam Support does not automatically contact the owners of disabled accounts in most circumstances."

- "Per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, we will disable your account and any games contained in it if we find any of the above activity on your account. Your account will not be reactivated."

- "In the event that a hijacked Steam account is banned by the Valve Anti-Cheat System, Steam Support can not remove the ban."

So even if I fight it, they have no obligation to tell me why it happened nor to reactivate my old account. I doubt it was a hijack seeing as my login info was the same.

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You may think I didn't try to get it back, but I researched the issue and sent e-mails. Niether got me anywhere. Perhaps its because of how long I didn't use my Steam account (several years, I think the last time I used it was in high school, 3-4 years ago). Tried to use it this year, disabled. Checked the steam community forums, sent e-mails to customer support. Nothing.

Well, what did the e-mails say? You made it seem like you never sent any e-mails.

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64% only ???

IT's not a lot considering digital content is something relatively new for a lot of customers.

This % will go down with time i can see this going under 50% in the next 10 years easily.

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Well, what did the e-mails say? You made it seem like you never sent any e-mails.

They were merely a listing of the same reasons on the website and that I could not have my account reactivated if it is disabled for any of those above reasons.

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My DSL connection is only 768KB, so I can't really download anything and I only like physical media, just because my internet connection sucks.

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768KB is a pretty decent DSL connection.

now 768Kb would be more than enough for downloadbale games anyway, it'd just take one night to download instead of of a few hours or less.

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The last game that I bought a physical disc for was Crysis back in early 2008. Since then, I have always bought from STEAM. I wish I could register some of my old games that are now available on STEAM... but someone has to pay for the bandwidth. I wish I could register Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty 2, etc with it :(

The only thing I miss about physical copies is the cool-looking boxes or cases that you could collect.

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They were merely a listing of the same reasons on the website and that I could not have my account reactivated if it is disabled for any of those above reasons.

I've never heard of Valve not responding to inquiries for why an account was locked if you can prove it is indeed your account. For example, some people have sent Valve the number of the credit card they used to purchase games and their accounts were immediately unlocked. But if it's not a big deal to you, obviously it doesn't matter anymore.

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I've never heard of Valve not responding to inquiries for why an account was locked if you can prove it is indeed your account. For example, some people have sent Valve the number of the credit card they used to purchase games and their accounts were immediately unlocked. But if it's not a big deal to you, obviously it doesn't matter anymore.

I wanted to recover games that I had purchased in the store. The credit card from three years ago were my parents and they no longer exist. Does that help? Hard to prove something when you don't have the means to. It was a bad situation but still serves to show that digital doesn't always mean its really yours.

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I wanted to recover games that I had purchased in the store. The credit card from three years ago were my parents and they no longer exist. Does that help? Hard to prove something when you don't have the means to. It was a bad situation but still serves to show that digital doesn't always mean its really yours.

Physical copies can be lost, stolen or broken as well, though. There are drawbacks to most formats.

Knowing the credit card numbers would help regardless of whether or not they're still in use as it'll show it truly is your account, and if it was phished it belongs to you. But again, if you already have a new account and you're fine without it, no biggie (Y)

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Physical copies can be lost, stolen or broken as well, though. There are drawbacks to most formats.

Knowing the credit card numbers would help regardless of whether or not they're still in use as it'll show it truly is your account, and if it was phished it belongs to you. But again, if you already have a new account and you're fine without it, no biggie (Y)

It was just far too much of a hastle to get a few games back. I could either just not play them and make a new account or go scrounging through my mom's financial records to find her two year old credit card numbers and other random information Valve might demand to verify the account that I lost at some random point for some random reason in the last three years. I'm over it, personally. In regards to the drawbacks, the main difference is that any drawbacks of a disk are in your own control. The drawbacks of digital media aren't. They are under the control of the service/distributor.

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