Is there any point in buying a hard copy of a game anymore? [closed]

I just bought PS4 and Final Fantasy XV. I haven’t gamed since PS2.

I pop the disc in and it’s demanding that I download damn near 30GB of data before I can even start the game!

What’s the point of the disc? 30GB sounds like as much data as the blu-ray can hold itself?

Are all PS4 games like this? Can you get by without high-speed internet?

Once the game has installed you can start the game and play version 1.00 that is on the disk while the 30gb of additional data is downloading.

It is not mandatory to have an internet connection to play this game, or most single player games, with some exceptions such as the Destiny series.

Also worth noting is that Final Fantasy 15 has been out for about 1 year, the 30gb of data you are downloading represents improvements and additional content that has been provided post launch to improve and expand the game. In the days of PS2 this kind of post launch support was impossible, once the game shipped that was it, warts and all.

In short, nothing is stopping you from playing now, directly from the disk, and you have a vastly improved and expanded experience available if you choose to download the free, 30gb worth of patches.

I personally think this is an improvement to the way things were in the PS2 era although it does lead to games occasionally being shipped in a sub-standard state and relying on day one patches to fix any issues. The most notable example of this was Assassin's Creed: Unity which was border line unplayable at launch and required several large patches in the following weeks.

Some points in favour of discs:

• You only need to download the patches, not the actual game (it will still take up just as much space on the drive, though, the PS4 copies the content from the disc to the hard drive for speed reasons); you can also play the game while the patch downloads, allowing you to start playing earlier
• Discs maintain some resale value at shops that sell pre-owned games; you cannot re-sell a digital game

However, you do then have to store the physical disc...