badgenome said:
I really get the sense you aren't reading my posts before responding. I am not suggesting your only option should be digital. I am suggesting that they sell digital copies more cheaply than physical copies. They represent a worse value, so selling them for the same price is ludicrous. You want to know why digital hasn't taken off on consoles? That's why. But it's not entirely true that going digital only is seen as a negative. No one complains that XBLA or PSN games are strictly digital. It's just accepted that those games can't maintain a retail presence. The Xbone was seen as anti-consumer because it was pushing digital. It was seen as anti-consumer because it maintained a retail presence while making physical copies restricted in much the same way as digital ones, something that had no tangible benefit to the consumer but a whole lot of benefit to Microsoft. It's called loss aversion, and if Sony hadn't offered a comparable device without those restrictions, the backlash would have been nowhere near what it was because you wouldn't have had much of an option. If you want to play those games, you would have had to deal with this bullshit. So most people would have grumbled but gotten on with their gaming in this newly restricted form. I'm tired of going round and round and saying the same things over and over again, so I think this will be my last word on it. If used game sales are so awful for the industry, then the industry needs to combat them in a way that doesn't degrade the consumer experience. It's as simple as that. You can call consumers entitled, but they are no more entitled than an industry which tends to spend more money than it can afford to spend on a given game and then blames the consumer when they didn't want it, largely because most AAA games look suspiciously similar to every other AAA game. This homogenization and poor budgeting is the real threat. If the industry shifted to digital tomorrow, the cost savings would be eaten up in no time flat if budgets continue to explode as they have done and if game makers don't start trying to broaden the audience instead of narrowing it to people who want to play some permutation of Battlefield of Duty or Gears of Uncharted. Step 1: Get budgets under control. Step 2: Diversify the offerings. Step 3: Profit. |
It seems you are not reading my post. I stated earlier that retail agreements are the reason that publishers cannot sell digital games cheaper than retail. What make you think Gamestop would just sit back and smile if publishers undercut the price of their games online compared to what they sell at retail. Maybe you should do some research on the issue before stating something can be done. Selling a product is much more complex then just deciding to go your on. There are contracts in place where agreements have been set on this very issue and its not something publishers can just break and do their own thing.
It’s pretty clear that the digital market must first balance or exceed retail before any company will risk upsetting their retail agreements. I have stated that Digital is where everything is going and it will get hear faster than you probably expect but it’s not today and it probably will not be for a few years. MS tried to hasten the process and you only have to see the net response to see that the market is not ready. What you will see are different business models as stated. More MMO, DLC, F2P, Episode, Micro transaction. What you will also see is big box games take even less risk. They will be built on a formula because it cost a lot to make and publishers will reduce risk but sticking with what sell. More risky projects will be subjected to the indie field as they are less risky and the investment is small.
You are right that you re going round and round and we would continue to go this route because no matter what I say or you say, we will not change other other position. You have not proven your point to me and I have not proven mind to you so we can pretty much end this thread on to agree to disagree.
