| Fight-the-Streets said: I agree, that's why I'm frustrated to not see too many of those "mid-tier" games. And if I talk about "mid-tier" games I really talk about physical releases like Octopath Traveler and (most likely) Bravely Default. A physical release still puts a game on a higher pedestal, it is visible, it can be seen and touched in shops, it still has more marketing power and prestige than a download only game. I would like to see such "mid-tier" games with physical releases much more frequently and not only in the RPG sector and not only from Japanese developers. Sure, games like Octopath Traveler aren't multi-million sellers but Square Enix said they are happy with the sales and that they did make a profit with it. Probably, Bravely Default will also be profitable. I think there is a market for such "mid-tier" games on the Nintendo Switch but unfortunately, still too many developers/publishers are afraid of making a loss. But then again, how big of a loss can you really make with such a "mid-tier" game? It should be easy for at least a semi-big publisher to subsidies the loss and just be profitable with the next game. |
Physical releases don't really matter anymore. Half the gaming population downloads digitally these days, so there isn't much of a reason to think retail's more important than ever, especially since digital makes up half the revenue for the big 3. I mean, Hellblade never had a physical release, but many people hail it as one of the best games this generation. Besides, the PS4, Switch, and PC have plenty of these so-called "Mid-tier" games, or "III indies" to use current publisher lingo, and several of them come from big publishers like Sega and Activision.
