It's not hard copies of games that I care about at all, since I'm not much of a collector and there's really no practical reason for hard copies of anything anymore. I just want to be able to play my game 20 years from now if I feel like it. I don't want to find out that company Y ended the contract with company X and now I can't play my game/watch my movie/whatever anymore. Or that company Y either went belly up or was bought out and shifted in a new direction, which is what is going to happen here.
You stated there's really no practical reason and then followed by a very practical reason!! I feel the same way. If I want to play a Coleco game, I don't have to log into any remote servers to get it started. 20 years from now, if I want to get nostalgic and play WoW, I won't be able to because servers will be down. (wait what am I saying, you know people will never stop playing that addictive game! But I hooe you get the point heh)
Unless the next generation of consoles has some kind of lockout mechanism for used games, which is something I'm worried about, I often don't want to pay $60 for a title. If we move to an all-digital model, we gamers will lose the freedom to buy a second-hand game for cheap. On the flipside, I personally don't sell back my games, but many do and it's how they afford to keep gaming - not possible with digital games. Even Gamestop who I both love and hate will go the way of the music store and the dodo... extinct.
Also, I don't mean to say that digital games are 100% bad. My good friend just recently had his house broken into and they took all his game consoles. DLC he should be able to get back easily (luckily, they didnt steal any physical games). You can't foresee some f*cker coming into your house while you're gone and taking your stuff. Lost all my GC games the same way while letting my boss's son borrow them a few years ago. And DLC won't suffer from bit rot like Coleco carts eventually will.
I just hope we can maintain a world where both physical and digital coexist. Once media is totally gone, we're screwed.