Digital vs. Retail: What is the future of gaming?

[Rudy]

Digital only will be a disaster unless it's half price. The push for digital media just doesn't make sense to me given the lack of trade in options and lack of sales you can find for hard copies.

[JeffHCross]

The push for digital media just doesn't make sense to me given the lack of trade in options and lack of sales you can find for hard copies.Digital makes no sense for the consumer. The companies haven't figured that out yet, or, have chosen to willfully ignore it. Because, in all likelihood, it does make their bottom line a tad better.

[JBHuskers]

Digital only will be a disaster unless it's half price. The push for digital media just doesn't make sense to me given the lack of trade in options and lack of sales you can find for hard copies.

I definitely wasn't inferring a digital only title for $60. I was inferring that it's a bare bones title in year one for $20-$30 that includes online play and dynasty mode.

[Rudy]

Digital makes no sense for the consumer. The companies haven't figured that out yet, or, have chosen to willfully ignore it. Because, in all likelihood, it does make their bottom line a tad better.

Totally agree. It makes a lot of sense for the company as they cut out the middle man and distribution costs. I just fail to see how I gain anything out of it. Even the storage costs for downloads on the Vita due to flash memory are an additional negative.

[JeffHCross]

I just fail to see how I gain anything out of it. Even the storage costs for downloads on the Vita due to flash memory are an additional negative.The value add of digital that I see is, being honest, PSN and XBL titles wouldn't exist without a digital distribution method. Indie games wouldn't have risen like they have.

But, you're probably really talking about digital vs retail. When a title is available at both, I agree, there's no advantage to the digital copy.

[gschwendt]

I'd rather have digital personally... don't have to swap discs in & out. Don't have to take them with you if you travel. You don't have to worry about "storing" them... just delete it and redownload it later. You don't have to worry about the disc drive going out (though obviously more strain on the HDD, but those are more easily replaced).

If EA hadn't sent me NCAA, I would have bought it from PSN, even with the Amazon deal.

[morsdraconis]

I'd rather have digital personally... don't have to swap discs in & out. Don't have to take them with you if you travel. You don't have to worry about "storing" them... just delete it and redownload it later. You don't have to worry about the disc drive going out (though obviously more strain on the HDD, but those are more easily replaced).

this x :infinity:

People need to get with the 21st century already. Physical media is the thing of the past. There's absolutely no reason to not buy everything digital and as long as companies don't freak out about security and pirating, it'll continue to be the easiest way EVER to get your entertainment.

[Rudy]

Totally disagree. Physical media is not a thing of the past and is still the preferred choice. Safer to store unless you get into cloud storage imo. Change isn't always for the better and I believe this is one example.

[jaymo76]

Totally disagree. Physical media is not a thing of the past and is still the preferred choice. Safer to store unless you get into cloud storage imo. Change isn't always for the better and I believe this is one example.

What I like about having a copy... I go to the store and buy it get home and start playing. The whole process takes like 30 minutes. If I download, based on my speeds I am looking at 3-6 hours on average beofe I can play.

[gschwendt]

What I like about having a copy... I go to the store and buy it get home and start playing. The whole process takes like 30 minutes. If I download, based on my speeds I am looking at 3-6 hours on average beofe I can play.

Right, but if you're talking about a new release, if Sony/Microsoft did it right, you'd download 99% prerelease, then come launch day you'd only have like 5mb left to download.

[SmoothPancakes]

What I like about having a copy... I go to the store and buy it get home and start playing. The whole process takes like 30 minutes. If I download, based on my speeds I am looking at 3-6 hours on average beofe I can play.

Whereas for me, download would be easier. Microsoft updates Xbox Live at 6am. Downloading the early release for NCAA took an hour and 45 minutes, so figure two hours or so for a full game. I could start downloading that at 6am. To wait for the physical game to get shipped to me, I won't get it until after 1pm at the absolute earliest if UPS puts the package on the early route, otherwise it won't be until after 4pm if it's put in the regular route, later in the day, route. Having the full game downloaded and playing by 8 or 9am, versus sitting around all day waiting until 4 or 5pm for UPS to drop off the game. I'll take the digital copy.

I'm already 100% digital for computer games. The last game I bought a physical copy of was Empire: Total War in 2009. Everything since then, 100% digital, with 90% coming through Steam. I don't have to deal with a bunch of goddamn cases sitting around or trying to find space to put them, I don't have to keep switching discs, I don't have to carry all those discs around. For PC, I can play 60 different games at the click of a mouse, regardless of where I am. I no longer have to lug around 60 different discs.

Same thing with 360. I'm running out of room because of all these goddamn 360 cases. I don't buy 360 games on a whim. If I buy a game for 360, it's because I want that game and know I am going to play it. The only games I have ever sold, traded in or gotten rid of, have been almost all sports games. Only two regular games have I traded in, which were both games I had bought used not long after I first got my 360, and they turned out to be much less fun than I was led to believe. So if I buy a game, I know I am going to keep it and play it. I still have the original Assassin's Creed. I still have COD 4 and COD: World at War. I still have Civilization Revolution. I still have The Godfather I and II. The issue I'm running into is finding the space to store all these goddamn 360 cases, as well as having to get up and walk over to my 360 just to simply change a disc. We no longer have to get up and walk to the TV to change the channel, I/we shouldn't have to still get up and walk to the 360 or PS3 to change a damn disc.

[SmoothPancakes]

Right, but if you're talking about a new release, if Sony/Microsoft did it right, you'd download 99% prerelease, then come launch day you'd only have like 5mb left to download.

Just like how Steam does it. Download essentially the entire game prerelease, then just have a very small single file or folder or whatever that you have to download the day of release to actually allow you to play the game.

[JeffHCross]

The key is that, right now, our bandwidth and infrastructure aren't to the point where digital will work for everyone. So, for some, brick and mortar is still going to be the answer. G is right that pre-release downloads are the way to go (this is also how all modern MMOs deliver expansions), but even that system doesn't work for everyone. Some are still on DSL. Some are still on satellite internet with 150 MB caps.

I agree with mors, conceptually, that digital is the way the future will go. But until Amazon, Wal-Mart, and other retailers get involved, I have no interest in a digital-only world. Fixed price digital games are not the way forward; the consumer just loses there in the long run. Steam is an exception to almost every "problem" with the digital world. If everyone was like Steam, I wouldn't have a problem with digital. But they're not.

[jaymo76]

Right, but if you're talking about a new release, if Sony/Microsoft did it right, you'd download 99% prerelease, then come launch day you'd only have like 5mb left to download.

I would be fine with that type of system, but like JeffH says, infrastrucuture wise we are not there yet. As an example, with regards to bandwidth, at my job if someone is streaming music or entire internet slows down.

[Rudy]

Like Jeff said, if they expect me to pay the full $60 for a digital release they are crazy. I trade in all my games when I'm done with them. Everything. This way I get some of my initial investment back. If I like the game and want to replay it I pick it up dirt cheap down the road on Kijiji/Craig's List or Amazon Market place. Those are the only games I tend to keep around - games I got for less than $20 and still plan on playing.

Example: Uncharted 3 releases and I wait less than two weeks and find a sale for $40. I buy it and when finished it I sell it used for $40. Cost me NOTHING to play it! If I wanted to pick it up again (I don't) the game is on sale for like $20 now.

Under the current crappy download system I would have had to pay $60 for this game if I wanted to play it the first 6 months. It's garbage. MS and Sony don't offer sale prices on digital for a long time and I can't get any money back when I'm done. That system makes NO sense. I do have a cap on my downloads for DSL as well. I have no problem getting my lazy ass off my chair to swap out a disc. C'mon guys. Are we that lazy in society that this is actually a selling point?

Unless they started offering digital games at half price I will be more than happy to keep picking up the physical AAA titles.

[morsdraconis]

Under the current crappy download system I would have had to pay $60 for this game if I wanted to play it the first 6 months. It's garbage. MS and Sony don't offer sale prices on digital for a long time and I can't get any money back when I'm done. That system makes NO sense..

Well, the problem is, you're basing your experience off of M$ and $ony's setups. With Steam, 95% of the time, the game, brand new, can be pre-purchased for 10-25% off a few days or a few weeks before release.

Or, in the case of games like Sleeping Dogs and Dark Souls, they can be purchased brand new for $40.

[JeffHCross]

Well, the problem is, you're basing your experience off of M$ and $ony's setups. With Steam, 95% of the time, the game, brand new, can be pre-purchased for 10-25% off a few days or a few weeks before release.Actually ... I'd contend that basing it off Steam is your problem. Steam's the exception to the digital rule right now. Look at the fire Amazon et al are coming under for the fact that the publishers are setting the e-book prices, not the stores. If publishers set the digital price for video games (which, AFAIK, they do on Sony and M$, if not Sony and M$ themselves), there is zero incentive for a sale. $60 digitals that don't reduce in price, ever, are going to be the norm. IF the retailers (and competition) don't get involved.

Steam is an example of how well done digital can be. M$ and Sony are examples of what is more likely, at least in the near term.

[cdj]

CVG interviews Patrick Soderlund, the executive vice president of EA Games, about the future of entertainment (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/364064/interviews/eas-soderlund-adapt-or-become-irrelevant/?page=1#top_banner)

Electronic Arts is rapidly expanding to digital and online models perhaps more comprehensively than any other third party publisher. Do you think EA will still be selling content at retail in ten year's time?

I don't know, it's a hard question. We know that packaged goods work, and the majority of our current revenue comes from that. That's still a viable business model.

In the long term, we'll see more and more people gravitate to downloaded content. I happen to think that there's something about physical content, like books, that's collectable and satisfying to own.

I still want physical content but I'm not part of the new generation of gamers. I remember a time when I bought a cartridge and excitedly read the manual on my way home, imagining what the game was going to be like. Maybe kids don't have that anymore.

There will eventually be a tipping point, one suspects. The market share of physical games will decrease and decrease until it no longer becomes commercially viable to distribute on discs. It will be decided that there is no longer a significant reason to pursue physical and retail. The big question is when.

I think it's going to be sooner than people think. I think it's going to be sooner than ten years. That's my personal opinion, and might not be what EA thinks.

Do you not feel that a digital-only model could remove casual players from the equation?

The distribution method won't change how games are advertised or marketed, just how they are delivered to customers. My 96 year-old grandmother plays Cut the Rope and World of Warcraft. Honestly I don't think there's a digital barrier for the causal audience any more.

[JeffHCross]

I still want physical content but I'm not part of the new generation of gamers. I remember a time when I bought a cartridge and excitedly read the manual on my way home, imagining what the game was going to be like. Maybe kids don't have that anymore.I remember doing that too. I haven't done it in years though (partially because of a lack of manuals .....)

[CLW]

I don't think its going to happen soon but eventually everything is going to be downloaded. It's a slow process but eventually I don't see anyway for retail video games to survive.

[SmoothPancakes]

It's only a matter of time. Hell, it's damn near impossible to find boxed copies of PC games here in town. Meijer, Walmart, they have EXTREMELY limited selections of PC games, the two independently owned video game places in town, they only carry so much PC stuff, focusing more (rightly so) on the console games.

A couple things that stuck out to me...


In the long term, we'll see more and more people gravitate to downloaded content. I happen to think that there's something about physical content, like books, that's collectable and satisfying to own.

I agree with him here. While I have fully embraced going all digital for PC games, when it comes to stuff like books or movies, I want the physical content. I don't mind reading books or stuff on a computer or on an e-reader, but I still prefer holding and reading a physical book. Same with movies and TV shows. I love Netflix and watch a ton of stuff on Netflix, but I still love having my 4-tier high stack of DVD and Blu-ray cases of movies and TV shows next to my entertainment center.


I still want physical content but I'm not part of the new generation of gamers. I remember a time when I bought a cartridge and excitedly read the manual on my way home, imagining what the game was going to be like. Maybe kids don't have that anymore.

No, kids don't have that anymore, especially not in EA games. There hasn't been a damn manual in EA games, at least not physical, for years now. I was the same way back in the day. When I first bought Civilization IV, hell, I spent hours reading that manual, which was a few hundred pages long. Even the manuals in PS2 games back in the day came a good 40 or 60 pages thick. Now we get these half-assed "glossary version" manuals on the discs that don't tell you shit about what you want to know, forcing people to go online to sites like this, OS or the EA forums and ask questions about stuff in the game because nothing explains what they want to know.

[Rudy]

I'm definitely not someone that wants to go digital for books. I like magazines and real books (which I will read ocassionally). Maybe I'm just old but I certainly prefer it.

[morsdraconis]

I want everything as digital as possible. Books, movies, video games, give it ALL to me digitally. I don't want to see people.

[souljahbill]

If Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo would let me rent digitally-downloaded games, I'd shit my pants. There are more games that I want to play then I want to own. I'm down for a all-digital future but a lack of sales, HDD space, and broadband speed makes an all-digital future unlikely anytime soon.

[JeffHCross]

I don't want to see people.Oh, if only we could put quotes in sigs.

[Rudy]

If Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo would let me rent digitally-downloaded games, I'd shit my pants. There are more games that I want to play then I want to own. I'm down for a all-digital future but a lack of sales, HDD space, and broadband speed makes an all-digital future unlikely anytime soon.

This is a great idea and yet Sony and MS have not embraced it. If they want all-digital then they need to embrace the digital rental space.

[JeffHCross]

PS Plus has a 60-minute trial, but until I played one I hadn't realized how quickly 60 minutes goes by :D