Back in my day, we didn’t have the luxury of being able to get online to download games straight onto our consoles without ever leaving the house. I can’t even count the number of toy stores and electronics specialists that were set up where I lived, with their walls  lined with video game cartridges and accessories. Have you ever heard the expression, “like a kid in a candy store?” Well, that feeling always came from a video game store for me.

You’d think that with the changing times, all these establishments would have disappeared by now. I mean, why worry about a physical cartridge or disc when you can just keep a bunch of games on your machine of choice? And the Wii U’s and 3DS’s Virtual Consoles are obviously big winners, making those hard-to-find games from my childhood available to everybody once again.

OOT CartYet retail games are still alive and kicking. Recently, Nintendo not only announced a sequel to its hugely popular digital Wii U title, NES Remix, but it was also revealed that Japan would be getting a retail package containing both Famicom Remix titles on a disc. This really surprised me. I personally thought NES Remix was a perfect way to spend a few minutes in between daily happenings – rather than sitting down for an hours-long session – which is one of the main advantages of digital distribution. So why take these two relatively small games and release them in stores?

The thing about digital distribution is that a lot of the time, convenience comes at the cost of missing out on that feeling of tearing into something that you’ve waited so long to get your hands on, something that you can physically bring to a friend’s house and say, “Hey, check this out, this is the best thing ever!” It’s that certain specific excitement of waiting on the edge of your seat for the next generation of game consoles, but feeling that excitement for every individual game. For some people, it’s even about collecting older games, the original versions in their pure, unmodified forms.

OOT VCGregory Suvorov, owner of Worlds Game Store in Salt Lake City, Utah, deals with vintage video games on a daily basis, and he sees why even brand-new gamers still desire physical copies of their games. “It’s a collector’s market,” he said. “The relics are where it all started, and [gamers] are always going to want to find the originals. They want something to put on their shelves.”

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve opening presents at Christmas with my brother. I’ll never forget the year we got the classic GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64; he was especially excited. It was years – years – before we finally put our controllers down to give that game a break. Now, I’m sure we would have enjoyed the game itself just as much if it had been a digital download, but part of what makes these memories so special to me is actually being able to remember our reactions as we opened that present together, seeing the title on the box and losing our minds over it. Even 16 years later, my brother and I still reminisce about that day, which wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful if we had just seen the title lost in a big list of other titles on a screen.

NES Cleaning Kit Security is a concern when it comes to digital distribution, as well. While you may have to track down an older console to play physical games if backwards compatibility isn’t readily available in the newest machine, you’ll always be able to find something on which to play those games. With digital downloads, “If the network goes down, then there goes all of your stuff,” Suvorov said.

This has personally happened to me on more than one occasion, so I know firsthand what Suvorov is talking about. Digital downloads are convenient, to be sure, but what happens in the future when you want to play your retro games, or go back to find games you may have missed out on when you were younger? Chances are that digital titles won’t be available anymore, but I can guarantee that you’ll be able to track down retail games and the consoles on which to play them. There’s a sense of security there, a sense of comfort I suppose, in being able to physically own a game (or any form of media, for that matter). You may need to get some extra equipment to play the old stuff, but those old consoles will always be available from mom-and-pop stores like Worlds Games.

Security concerns aside, there’s also an authenticity that physical games provide that you just can’t experience digitally. If you’re my age, then I think it’s a safe bet to assume that you remember blowing into your NES cartridges to get them to work after they had gotten a bit dusty. That’s not just some big Internet joke – It’s what every NES owner did. If you were to go up to someone in his/her late 20s/early 30s and even vaguely reference blowing into an NES cartridge, I promise you’d see a smile creep onto that person’s face. It’s gone from being an annoyance to something endearing, something that reminds you of your childhood and fond times past. Back then, the experience went beyond merely playing the game – It started the second you picked up the box.

I have quite a few digital games, and I really do find them incredibly convenient; it’s really nice to not have to worry about carrying a lot of things around with me. But from my point of view, physical, retail games will always be king. They last longer, they’re more memorable, and they just add so much to the excitement of getting something new. While I love the Virtual Console, and I’m really glad new gamers get to play some of the classics of my youth, I’ll always treasure the collection of games I have sitting in drawers and lining my shelves. Each one is another irreplaceable memory of time spent with family and friends, and I wouldn’t trade that for any amount of store credit.