this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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Do you still play any PC games on a physical disc? Or, when did you last do that? (feddit.online)
submitted 2 days ago by tuckerm@feddit.online to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
64 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

I think it might be Star Craft for me.

[–] Hexarei@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago

My last physical media was the PC version of Titanfall, played in 2022 or so via USB disc drive. was surprised to find the entire game actually on the disc. Was pretty cool.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The last time I played a PC game on a physical disc? Can I cheat a little bit here? I found a self burned CD from old early 2008 or earlier days. There were a few RPG Maker 2000 games on it, which I downloaded from internet cafes, such as Vampires Dawn (back then, when only a German version was available for the first game in series). And I played a few of them last year with an open source RPG Maker player called EasyRPG, but with RetroArch.

So yes, I played PC games in 2024 from a physical disc. But I leave it to you, if you count that. :D

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[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Now I want to install a game to a disk and run it from the disk drive, my dad’s old desktop has a drive. I wonder if it can burn dvds.

Maybe I could install stardew valley to the disk.

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[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

The last game that I remember that needed a disc to play was Battlefield 1942 and I made a virtual drive with an ISO so I didn't need to put the stupid disc in every time and listen to it spin up. Current PC doesn't have a drive at all.

While I think a lot of the old box art was neat and all, I don't miss the physical requirements that took up space and all the manual updates and whatnot. Absolutely love steam's digital store and if that ever shits the bed and there isn't an alternate I will just stop PC gaming because the effort to manage all that stuff isn't worth it any more. Music and movies are the same, the physical media was nice for its time but I don't need to interact with it to use it anymore.

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

I dusted off my old xbox 360 a month ago and played a few games on it. Aside from that, not for quite a few years now.

[–] Thoath@leminal.space 1 points 2 days ago

Back in my day :33 we had to download the world's most prolific marriage ender from 7 different disks over probably the course of 3+ days (wow)

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not sure what the last one was, but the last couple PC games I bought physical copies of could be installed from the disc, but also had Steam keys in the box and then didn't require the disc to play.

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

The most recent ones I've bought were only a Steam key in the box, and the DVD simply had a Steam installer on it. Nice that some have both, I haven't actually seen one of those.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Street Sweeper Simulator 2011

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I have my own archive of games, lots of games actually.

I don't even usually play them though, but my rule of thumb is that if it requires an account, I won't play it, or even archive it.

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