There are two ways to look at physical media. Some see it as needless clutter; useless relics taking up shelf space and collecting the airborne remnants of your dearly departed skin cells. Others, however, see rows and rows of boxes and books with a sense of pride -- proof that they have incredibly good taste when it comes to spending free time. According to the NPD, those two parties are rapidly becoming equal when it comes to gaming, with 21.3 million "full-game" PC titles downloaded (legally) in 2009 and 23.5 million boxed copies sold. That's awfully close, and ignores all the PSN and XBLA titles that are currently making our console hard drives cry for mercy. Should brick and mortar software stores be nervous? Not according to
GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines, whose franchises are decidedly ceramic and paste-based: "The world won't be all digital tomorrow... In this business, users still want physical content." And he's right, you know. We'd say it'll be more like 18 - 24 months.
posted July 23rd 2010 12:56AM
Title is very misleading, to me it should say PC games. Saying just games is very general and could mean games for any/all systems. If you throw in 360, Wii, DS, etc. I am sure it's not nearly equal.
I am all in favor of boxes. I don't like the ideas of all my games chewing up valuable disc space on my console. Besides, who knows when your hard disc on your console is going to give out?
Ok, how about this:
Maybe bandwidth is a problem. Maybe people want to trade.
Maybe people want to trade a boxed game for a download...
You can buy a game in a case and/or you take your hard drive to GameStop, where you can buy and fast-load a title.
GameStop, are you listening?
'nuff said.
People like boxes and also like to buy cheap used games and like to bring games over their friends house, or lend or trade games with other people.
Can you do any of that with digital, or are these companies pushing for digital distribution to save a ton of money on material and distribution costs, but not really offer that much in return??
I see pride! I see power! I see a badass who won't take digital distribution from nobody!
I believe in digital distribution for every other media except video games. Unless you have a with a large capacity (aka the PS3) it's really not worth it. Plus a lot of ISPs are started to cap data usage.
I'm still pretty leery of an all-digital content distribution system, especially the DRM server issues. I read a story almost every month about how a specific DRM or game server is planning a shutdown with no recourse to the game 'owner.'
I also do not like the fact that my digital download has absolutely zero resale value, yet I am still expected to pay a substantially similar price for digital as physical.
I'll jump on the digital bandwagon when we have an 'Open-ID' like DRM system (or no DRM at all), and the ability to backup to and play from physical media so that my content is not tied to a specific machine. There also needs to be a significant discount for digital media over the physical media.
We can go to Digital but some things need to be sorted out first
1 DRM get rid of it or all must use the same DRM format. No internet activations to play games once downloaded thats it.
2 Price no way in hell will anyone pay the same price for digital as physical get the picture. Taking 5 or 10 dollars off a 50-80 price tag wont cut it.
3 Backup I must be able to back up the content so if the system breaks I can still play the game with another system.
4 I must be able to play the game from now til when I dont want to anymore no shutting down servers in 5 - 10 years unless you will provide another way to play the game on the system.
5 Allow user to create there own disc from digital download if wanted like can be done with music and video.
No pulling a Microsoft and shutting down servers or pulling an EA and requiring a game to phone home to before being allowed to play.
When platform holders start realizing that digitally distributed games should never be the same prices as disc based media, then I'll go digital. It's as simple as that.
Until they wake up to the fact that I can't loan, trade, or sell my copy of the game, I cant transfer games among accounts and if I lose my account or get banned I'm screwed, I'm not getting a box, game art, a manual, or a physical disc, I have to wait hours to download a multi-gigabyte file, I have to buy a larger hard drive just to store all of these games, and the publishers aren't having to pay for production, distribution, or retail which is a savings that I deserve to be seeing a cut of, then I'm never, ever, ever going to waste my money buying fucking digital. EVER.
I haven't bought any games by download, but I have bought utilities that way. I prefer to buy the disk. Take Unreal Tournament (1 and 2004). When I need to rebuild my computer, I just put the disk in the drive. The cd key is in the jewel case. With Power Desk, which I bought electronically, I have to find the file, which could be on any number of old hard drives, then I have to find the license key, which means checking all of my free e-mail accounts. Did I give them my Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail address, or did I use the one I get from my ISP, and was it my current ISP, or the last one?
Yeah, I'll stick with physical media, particularly if they're the same price.
Until you have the ability and right to resell your DLC on the used market when you are done with it, I'm a huge fan of little boxes.