One drawback with purchasing games and movies as downloads is that these lack the physical packaging that come with the same titles purchased in the shops. To determine whether consumers actually care about the disc packaging, the Content Delivery and Storage Association and the Entertainment Association conducted a study and found that 89% of DVD owners and 88% of game disc owners store their discs in the original cases and that just 6% of DVD owners and 5% of game disc owners discard or recycle the packaging. The remainder store their games in plastic sleeves and save the original cases.
Going by the study, the main reason many keep the packaging is to pass it on when they sell, trade or give away the disc when they no longer want to own the title. When they no longer want a title, 45% of DVD owners and 24% of game disc owners give it away, 27% of DVD owners and 54% of game disc owners sell or trade it and 20% of DVD owners and 17% of game disc owners store it. 26% of DVD owners and 11% of video game owners own some unopened titles.
Just 2% of DVD owners and 4% of game disc owners recycle or discard the title when they no longer want it. However, while some may find it hard to believe that people will throw away unwanted DVD or video game discs, when it comes to games and movies purchased as downloads, many of these titles cannot be sold, traded or even given away due to DRM restrictions that prevent these from being played on other equipment, leaving the owners with no option but to destroy most of their unwanted titles they purchased as downloads. This likely explains why many consumers still prefer to buy video games and DVDs on physical media.
According to the President and CEO of EMA, Bo Andersen, consumers who purchase packaged home entertainment see the cases as part of the product and not something to be thrown out. Besides protection, the cases usually carry artwork which consumer's associate the title by. The study also found that the average household DVD collection has 114 DVDs and the average video game collection has 48 titles.
