Optical drives ruled the computer market last decade and helped everyone till the previous generation but do you need an optical drive for gaming or not is a question that still stands.
It played a significant role for PC, Consoles, and Home Video Devices such as CD and DVD Players but slowly, as the day passed, optical drivers faded away.
In this post, I have dived deeper into the subject of whether an optical drive is necessary or not for gaming. So fasten your seat as I explain to them.
Without wasting any time, let’s go deeper.
What Is An Optical Drive?
Optical Drive or ODD(Optical Disc Drive) is a disk drive that uses an electromagnetic laser to read and write data from or to a compact disc such as CDs, DVDs, and sometimes Blu-ray discs. It is mainly used to store & carry data from one place to another.
It is also known as CD-Rom, DVD-Rom and DVD-Writer.
The difference between the DVD-Rom and DVD-Write is that a DVD-Rom is only able to read data, and DVD-Writers are capable of reading data as well as writing data in a blank disc.
This is why every computer user uses optical drives not only for reading data from them but also storing as well.
Discs were a trendy medium for getting a piece of media files, software, game, movies, music and any kind of digital files before the internet took over.
Follow our easy step-by-step guide to play Nintendo Switch games on PC.
Do You Need An Optical Drive For Gaming?
No. At the current state of the gaming industry, you don’t need an optical drive for gaming. And the main reason for that is the games these days have started becoming larger in size. In simple terms, games are larger than single or multiple CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs.
The optical drive was useful when the games were smaller in size, but at present, a game can have the size of up to 100 Gigs, which is impossible to store in one or multiple discs from a business standpoint.
You can use 4 Blu-ray discs to hold a game of 100 Gigs but this would not be a good idea.
But storing game installation files in the disc is also not the main reason why optical drives are not as popular as they used to.
Multiple factors played roles in this situation.
Which you will learn in this post, so keep reading.
Does An Optical Drive Affect Gaming?
No. Optical drives don’t affect gaming in any way possible. However, it might play a role in decreasing the overall computer performance.
In this situation, If you have multiple optical drives running and if your Power Supply Unit cannot provide enough power for all of the hardware components in the PC, then it can decrease the performance. But the chances are super slim.
Follow our ultimate guide if you want to fix Steam game says running but isn’t.
Reasons Why Optical Drives Died
People stopped using optical drives for a few reasons.
The number one reason for that is optical drives started becoming less helpful to users.
Back in the day, the compact disc was created and was a level up from the VRC and the Cassette tapes. But innovations like USB Flash Drives and the Internet put the last nail in the coffin, which is why optical drives died.
Here Are The Main Reasons Why Optical Drives Died:
Internet
The Internet started making people feel that optical drives are, in a way, useless.
When optical drives were popular, people had to go to the stores to buy or rent games, movies and music.
With the Internet, people didn’t have to do that or change the physical location or wait in lines to get a product.
The Internet made everything from buying movies to music, software or games easily accessible, and everything was possible to get in just a few clicks and after seeing this people started to turn their faces from the disc system.
Unnecessary Cost
Many publishers started adopting the online medium and sold their products at the same price as a physical copy.
However, these publishers realized that if they sold their products online, along with the same price tag as the physical copy, they would make more profit and save the unnecessary cost of manufacturing DVDs, their packaging and the transportation system.
To cut corners and make more profit, not only the game publisher but also Xbox and Playstation started to ditch the optical drives from their consoles. Microsoft released Xbox Series S, and Sony released a Playstation 5 model called PS5 Digital Edition without any optical disc drive.
Flash Drive
After publishers ditched the CDs and DVDs, the Optical driver lost its place in the hands of Flash Drives or USB Pen Drives.
Flash drives attracted the mass for their reusability and provided what discs could not.
Flash drives had the upper hand because it is capable of storing data and deleting them again to store other data or files, which the discs failed to do.
Discs were only capable of storing data in one way, meaning that after you write a disc, you cannot remove those data to store different data, and this was a significant disadvantage against the flash drive.
Games
Games have changed the computer marketplace in every aspect.
Back in the day, It was customary to buy Game CDs or DVDs because everyone had a slow internet connection and gamers were smaller.
In the 2000s, games were in max 2 to 3 Gigs. In the 2010s, games were 10 to 20 Gigs. Even though this might sound like a lot, game publishers still released their games on multiple DVDs.
For example, Rockstar released GTA 5 Game for PC in 7 CD Pack, which was around 64 GB.
But, game files are slowly getting larger due to immense high-quality visuals or graphics textures.
You will understand if you compare the size of GTA 5 with a modern-day popular game like Call of Duty Warzone, which is 175 GB. This means if GTA 5 took 7 discs, the Warzone would need around 18 discs. This is why many publishers stopped releasing games on DVDs.
However, for the collector community, some games are also published on DVDs, but there is a catch.
These DVDs only contain the game activation code, and you will have to download the game.
The newly released Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remake 2022 game disc has 70MB of data.
Quickly check our epic post on can you play Steam games on Mac.
Why Downloading Games Are More Popular
Downloading games has become famous for a few reasons, and most gamers prefer to download the games instead of buying a physical copy because it gives more advantages for getting the game and its update for fixes.
I will mention a few of them below to help you understand. 
Here Are The Reasons Why Downloading Games Are More Popular:
Digital Downloads Are The Norm
Digital downloads have started becoming a daily part of life. Ten years ago, people used to download songs from the Internet, but presently, everyone streams the songs.
Nowadays, many hardware manufacturers don’t even provide the driver disc, and you have to download them.
All thanks to the high speed Internet and its easy accessibility, downloading from online is the new normal thing that everyone does.
Easy Installation
People had to wait in line from midnight to get the newest games when DVDs were a thing.
But now online games stores like Steam, Epic Games, Xbox and PlayStation have started a feature called preloading games, which allows you to preload the whole game one week prior its release, so when the game releases, you don’t have to wait for the download to finish.
Day One Patch
The day one patch is released on the same day as the game release. It is a free update that contains the fix for minor and major bugs, glitches or any design error.
Games encounter many problems throughout the entire month of release, and in this timeframe, a single game can have more than 10 online updates to fix the errors.
So even if you buy a physical game copy, you still need the Internet to get these updates. Gamers worldwide have been used to this type of situation.
Frequent Online Game & DLC Updates
Online games require constant updates to polish and fix minor game issues.
Some games had to be downloaded in order to play, To name a few Apex Legends, Fortnite, Valorant and Warzone and every other all free-to-play game.
These games have major season-changing updates in 2-3 months. If these games were only available as physical copies, then gamers had to buy them at least 3 times a year.
Like season-changing updates, many single-player games provide major updates called DLC. These DLCs can provide extra maps, stories, clothing, weapons and even a new game.
DLC means Downloadable Content. As the name suggests, downloading them is the only way to get them.
As you can see, the game publishers adopted the online medium because it was the best decision for the gamer and developers to have and provide immediate fixes and a smooth hassle gameplay experience.
Frequently Asked Question
Do Gaming Computers Need An Optical Drive?
No, Optical drives are not necessary for a gaming PC.
Why Do Gaming Laptops Not Have Optical Drives?
Due to their compact design, Laptops do not have optical drives.
How Long Do Video Game Discs Last?
A video game disc can last for more than 20 years. However, to do that, you have to take care and have to ensure that it does not have any types of scratch marks.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, Optical Drive is not an essential hardware component for gaming since almost every game publisher has moved to online stores and It is only used to get old personal data from the discs.
Personally, I don’t use any kind of optical drives for myself and the pen drives when I have to windows my system.
Let me know in the connect section if you are getting an optical drive or not.
