Are you ready to go entirely digital?

[DarthVolod]

Ail said:

DarthVolod said:

I don't understand why people consider all digital an inevitability when it is, for all intents and purposes, an inferior distribution method as compared to physical. Lets look at pros and cons ...

Physical Pros:

-Has worked for the industry for decades

-Allows the buying and selling of used games which results in lower cost for consumers

-Thanks to used games, consumers can play titles that are decades old on their original systems which will last as long as the consumer cleans and cares for their systems/games

-No requirements for Internet connection in order to access game library

-Physical copies allow for collectability and building of game collections and not just a list of titles a player on an impersonal game library window.

-Prices and deals are common between the myriad of game retailers

-Long since abandoned and unsupported systems like Ataris and Dreamcasts ect. are still functional even though the companies that produced them have moved on ... what happens to digitial systems when companies are no longer their to support them? If your harddrive goes then so does your entire game collection ... unless you back it all up somehow which means more work for the consumer.

I can't think of any Cons to physical so lets move on to digital ...

Digital Pros:

-Umm ... it is faster kind of since you can buy games at home ... just have to wait for download though. It is not that going out and buying games is a pain or anything since most people are already outside working, buying other products, ect. Unless you are a shut-in, there is no real advantage. In the time it takes to download a 2-3 gig game, I could have already made it to my local 24/7 Walmart and be on the way back home with a game.

As for cons, you would see the loss of nearly all of the advantages on the pro physical list. There would probably still be deals on games like there is with Steam, but no used games means that games, overall, will be more expensive. Systems that are more than 5 years old will be worthless with all digitial (look how fast Microsoft dropped Xbox live for the original Xbox). The buying of new games will become a rarity for many as they will be costly and unreturnable or resellable. At any time, publishers can decide to pull their game from the market meaning that it can not be obtained again ... this already happens on XBLA and PSN even with classics like Doom ... which was thankfully put back on ... for now.

Even if some of the above issues are addressed, the lack of used games in itself is enough of a reason to throw out the idea of digital only. It works for music because physical was limiting for that medium since it forced people to buy entire albums for one or two songs. Movies and games, on the other hand, can not be cut up and sold in a similiar fashion. Services like Netflix and Onlive are popular, but I don't think anyone would like a world where these services are the only way to access games and movies ... just look at their crappy selection, monthly fees to access content, and requirements for Internet access.

I just don't see this digitial switch happening anytime in the near future, and, if it does, I think many, myself included, will see pirating as a far more convenient option for playing games as opposed to putting up with DRMs, high prices, and a wealth of other problems that come with digitial.

I hope/think that digital and physical media can coexist with eachother for the forseeable future. Even the mostly digitial music industry still produces physical albums. People just seem to support digitial just because it is new without thinking of the consequences. There is no advantage to digitial for game selling, but there are definately disadvantages to it.

That's a little biaised.

Digital offer more choices 

So you can go to your local Wallmart and get any title that was released in the last 5 years ? Because you will be able to do that with digital purchase at some point ( look at the music and book digital catalogs).

Digital allows publishers to change prices more easilly.

It's a lot harder for a publisher to change the price of a game that is being sold through retails that it is through digital medias. Compare how often you see sales on games initiated by publishers to the number of time you see Steam sales... The thing is with retail the publishers can not randomly lower its price when there me be thousands of retailers with full price games in their inventory...

The overall distribution costs for digital medias are lower.

Right now digital and retail games sell at the same price, mostly because of the resistance of retailers that do not want to compete with lower price digital copies. However if once again you look at the music and book market you know that at some point the price of digital games will become lower than the price of physical ones, the only question is when it will happen..

 

You are probably right about the bias. However ...

I can't go to Walmart and buy games from 5 years ago, but I can go to places like Gamestop or a bunch of local shops (got at least 6-7 in my area) that sell older games going all the way back to Atari. If not, there is always Amazon and Ebay combo. I will admit this process is slightly slower than digital, but you get a physical game (that can be resold or collected ect.) for your time. I will gladly wait the day or week or so of shipping in order to get a physical copy which has numerous advantages that I listed.

You mentioned that digital allows for more sales/price changes. Maybe that is true since I really don't use Steam so I can't really keep track of all the deals on that service. Despite this, I am quite satisfied with most of the deals that occur at retail currently. I can be reasonably confident of a price drop of 20-30 dollars for most games after 5-6 months, and before that there will be sever sales and temporary drops ... Call of Duty Modern Warfare has only been out for a few months and it is down to $40 now at my gamestop.

Lastly, I have no doubt that distribution costs are much cheaper and this is great for game publishers, but I don't see how it helps me, the consumer. I go from getting a physical product that I can own and resell to digitial which is a form of an extended rental which I can play but it is still a product that can not be shared, borrowed, or resold (legally at atleast). There is also the issue of backing up games/data since these companies won't support their products forever ... can be done by the consumer, but it is cumbersome and a lot of work that I would gladly pay more in order to avoid.

Unless games come down to about 5-10 dollars per game I just don't see the advantage of going for digital. Even for PC gamers it still makes more sense to buy physical. You are paying the same price, and you get more stuff (box art, instructions, other pack ins which can be resold or collected). The only clear case where digital is better is for now ancient games that have become free like Command and Conquer 1 and Elder scrolls Daggerfall. I will download these, but even then I still would like to have a physical copy of each for collector's sake.