0D0 said:
| RaptorChrist said:
When a $60 game sells in a store, the store gets a $10 cut of the sale. When a digital sale is made, those extra $10 go back to the developer. Why don't game companies offer a discount for digital purchases (as an incentive to sell more digital copies)? In some cases, digital is actually more expensive than physical (I've noticed that oftentimes when a game gets a price cut, the digital version stays the same).
I suspect that maybe stores like Wal-Mart and Target are pressuring the big three to maintain equal pricing, otherwise they would perhaps refuse to sell their brand in stores anymore. Is that really the reason? Or is there more to it than that?
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First, yes, I guess the big three don't want to sideline Walmart, Amazon and others like this.
Second, price is not the sum of all costs, price is whatever the market value the product. People just go and pay full price on digital regardless, so, that's the value of a new game. No matter how it's delivered to you, its value is $60 and people just pay. Of course, we can't forget the cuts that come later on. Full price is almost never forever (unless we're talking about Nintendo, lol). (I hope I don't get banned for that small joke but I can't resist -- no console wars: peace and love).
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I get what you're saying. As a consumer, I would rather have physical media at this point in time, but there are many advantages to digital from the perspectives of the console makers.
1. As I said before, no middle man (so that means an extra $10 or so per copy sold)
2. Digital games can't be traded in, and thus there is a smaller market for used games.
3. Building up a digital library of games can cause a gamer to become more loyal to a given brand, as they would likely want to continue using the service that houses all of their digital games from one generation going into the next (a big reason why Steam has little competition in the PC marketplace).
Given all that, I would think that there would be the occasional game that can be purchased for a cheaper price on the digital front, but that never seems to be the case. I know Nintendo offers triple points on digital games, but that's the extent of it. Nintendo especially, with the high cost of their game cards, I imagine would make an extra $15 or more per copy of game sold on the digital marketplace versus a physical copy sold in stores. They could sell their $60 games for $50 on the digital front and each sale would still make them more money than the physical counterpart.
