this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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Like many people, I've been thinking about physical media lately, and how our entertainment items -- movies, albums, books -- used to be things that sat on a shelf that someone else could see and say, "Hey I like this thing on your shelf."

PC games were one of those things, once. I have a few. And I've scrounged them up from their various moving boxes and parents' houses to see if they still work.

Does anyone here still play a game from an optical drive? A game where your regularly-played copy isn't the Steam version?

For me, Morrowind was the last game that I was still playing on a disc. I have newer games on discs, but just played those once or twice and then put them back on the shelf. But I was still playing Morrowind from a CD up until 2023, when it went on sale on Steam for $1, so I bought it. I almost didn't get it, since I liked the fact that I was still playing a game on a CD.

I plan on taking inventory of which games still work and what it takes to install them today.

What were (are?) some of your favorites?

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[–] the16bitgamer@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I get a lot of old oc games on disc from thrift stores all the time.

However once I confirm they work I back them up and continue to use them in a disc emulator.

Technically last week realistically a very long time ago.

[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Very cool. I've never backed mine up; I should do that. What game was it last week?

[–] the16bitgamer@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

Disc rot is a thing, so backing up a bin/cue for CDs or ISO for dvd is always a good idea (if it hasn’t been backed up already)

Monopoly 1998 was what I played last week. Nothing ran it except my XP laptop