not going to pick a part the whole post, but steam for the PC says hello. You are assuming that pricing will stay the samne with DD, Why would it? It is a cheaper distribution method that cuts out a whole share of someones profit (retailers) leaving more room for price adjustments.

You are right about the higher profit margins and if Bethsheda makes more off of my $10 digital purchase than that of a $60 retail purchase more power to them. Fun fact about steam is that MSRP of PC games(from $50-$60) has gone up as Steam has become more successful. Im comparing pricing on XBL and how people will take that model over the Steam model because I feel that the majority of game companies are owned by people that want to squeeze as much money as they can out of the consumer. Look at XBL games, the majority see one weeklong %50 off sale in its lifetime but never a price drop. Look at the greatest/platinum hits in stores for XB/PS3 the MSRP of those games are ussually $30. This is how the DD structure, especially on consoles will be. Dont like the price, save up or go fuck yourself. Theres no competition for recieving your digital goods for your Xbox/Sony products like there is in the pc market. As companies make their own DD managers for their games(Steam-Valve, Origin-EA, Battle.Net-Activision/Blizzard) the pricing structures will be more like XBL. Look at Starcraft 2. Other than a week long price drop to $30 over this christmas season there has been no real sales for it because there is no other way for anyone to own it. This can work for a game like Starcraft due to the huge community, but Starcraft will never sell 1/5 of what Starcraft 1 did.

As stated in numerous used games threads boxes, manuals and resale are features of a product. When people lose that feature the value of the item goes down. Can a company make more money by selling a game at $30-$40 on DD as opposed to a $60 retail, I dont know but its the fact that the majority of gamers arent wise to content liscensing/DD. I know plenty of more "casual' gamers that feel burned by the way XBLA games work for a number of reasons because they dont fully understand the DD concept. As people wise up to it the value of content liscenses or the willingness to pay "full price" is going to drop dramatically. As games sell less and companies stay hard headed about their prices IPs, studios and new ideas will die and the gaming market will shrink. I hope I am wrong, I really do.

The only games i see on steam for 59.99 are console ports(Skyrim i'm waiting). I choose not to buy them either. I wait for steam sales. There will be compititon, not on the same service, but you better bet that people will be comparing game prices across itunes, android market place, xbox live and psn. If PSN and xboxlive get to expenses people will switch to android and itunes or steam. There is plenty of compition right now. Apple/MS/Nintendo/sony/valve/direct2drive/onlive. They are all competing for the same dollars. Also i think pc games only got more expensive because of dev cost. But as for myself I spend the least amount of money on games since i switched to steam. I wait till their christmas sale and buy a years worth of games at great prices. I usually do not pay over 10 dollars for a game. And the games like starcraft would of been like that in retail also. how long did the first price take for starcraft 1 in retail stores? I dont remember it happening until after the first expansion packs came out.

Edit: And to add on the compition part, consoles can be hacked to give access to another market also.

Well, I ordered the console version of Skyrim for approx $33 back in November....November 14, on Amazon as a matter of fact.

Like I said, Steam isn't the be all, end all when it comes to the cheapest prices.

Some people seem to have this incorrect misconception that it always is.

Edit...Funny thing is, I haven't even Opened Skyrim yet.....BATTLEFIELD 3 is the game that doesn't get ejected from my PS3.  :)

I never said it was. All i said was that DD does not mean the prices will stay the same. Steam is the best example as they have sales all of the times, there games drop in prices and they offer value. Other services can do the same. Battlefield 3 is another game i'm waiting for to hit steam. I may get it on consoles at somepoint, but I prefer my games as dd as its easier to manage and store all my game sthat way.

I agree. They are. I just see them drop faster in price and they are easier to find on sale. I may find a game on sale i want at a store, but steam just tells me, and they have regular sales i know to watch for. i know retail can compete but dd is a very justifiable alternative and will only get bettter from here on out.

I bought RAGE on Amazon for $19.11....and that was on December 16.

Amazon isn't Brick & Mortar, but hey....it still beat Steam.

That game's in it's plastic too....

I really need to put BF3 down.  lol