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Machiavellian on 21 June 2013
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badgenome said:
Machiavellian said:

Its nobody fault, its the way the market is today. Publishers do not release to retail because its worth their while, they release to retail because thats where the market is.  Like I stated before, Publishers are a business.  Decisions are made to insure they stay in business and what you suggest would put them out of business.  I am sure when the market shift with more purchases from digital sales, you will see publishers start to make more bold decisions but until tha day, they need to accept the market for what it is but plan for tomorrow.

Actually, if MS gave you the abiliy to Sell, Gift and share your game, exactly how were they bending you over?  I am curious on that one because if I did not know better the only realy problem with MS system was the 24 hour check in.  

... that is the exact same thing. It is worth their while because there are so many customers to be reached at retail.

Minecraft, GTA IV: Episodes from Liberty City, State of Decay... any number of games of all sizes and scopes and levels of production value have all done incredibly well launching on digital only and only coming to retail later if at all. There is plenty enough of a market there that, if retail were really eating them alive, publishers could and would cut it out. A substantial number of noteworthy games going exclusively digital would only increase the rate of growth of the digital audience, but that isn't really happening because as much as some in the industry bitch about it, retail is still profitable enough on balance to continue bothering with it.

... that is the exact same thing. It is worth their while because there are so many customers to be reached at retail.

No they are not the same.  Worth their while would mean they have a choice which they do not because it wold be stupid and cost them their business.  Either way, it sematics

Yes, there are games that have done well launching digital only but then again look at their scale.  You cannot name me any game where the investement is in the millions launching digital only.  Just saying, this game has done well on digital without knowing the investement put into those games is not making a correct compasion.  When you can sell 250 thousand and make a profit that means the development of that game was very small so the market for it can exist on a smaller scale.  As the cost of the game increase so is the need for a much larger customer base.  No publisher is going to put that kind of investment and not seek the larger cusumer base to insure they break even or make a profit.  The market will change when consumer buying habits change.  We already saw what happen when a company wants to strong arm customers into the future.