Goodbye Big Box

[Sean Sands]

Goodbye Big Box

Boxes, discs, and other such tangible evidence of gaming purchase are all highly overrated.

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[kawligia]

I don't particularly care about the game box or extras; I usually wind up throwing them away.

But I do not want exclusive digital distribution. Its great to have it for people who want it, but I will be sorely upset if that's ever my only option.

I just do NOT trust that I will have permanent access to the games. Any number of problems can arise from the service having difficulty, to the company going bust, to my internet connection going down.

I do agree that a physical disk has its own risks such as being lost or damage but personally, I would MUCH rather be responsible for MYSELF than to place full and complete trust into the hands of another person or company (especially company) that I have no control over.

If I can't play my game because *I* screwed up, that's one thing but losing access because of someone ELSE'S mistake is just "getting screwed."

 

[Vincent V]

I like game boxes so far as its a goo place to keep my games when i'm not using them. And i also like to have physical possesion of any and all software i own (except XBL Arcade).

 

[Kedcom]

Lots of interesting points and I too am somewhat of a convert but I highly object to Steam being so sneaky and not clearly stating that all transactions via Steam in Australia are based on US dollars. Yes it IS mentioned somewhere but I had bought two games before I even realised. That is NOT on. They had better fix that sharpish before someone reports them to the govt trading standards people. I'm sure someone already has to be honest.

One thing that does surprise me however is that Valve are an incredibly switched on company yet no one seems to have realised that they could also market Steam as an environmental bonus. Less discs, packaging and distribution is a great thing and they should promote that aspect of what they are doing. As long as they reduce the prices due to the lower costs of course... as if....

NB: I don't know what Steam's costs actually are: It could be that running their servers etc costs as much as normal production/distribution costs. And a life cycle analysis of their energy and component usage as opposed to traditional costs MAY prove that it's not the environmental leader it would perhaps appear to be... I await more info on this all in time please!

 

[Leroy Frederick]

I like game boxes but I use digital distru too (Steam, D2D, Metaboli). But I remember the days when buying a game/pc game the box and (especially) the manual was as much part of the experience of buying, owning and entering the world of that game (I remember the civilisation game's manual being bigger then the good book!), that's why I hope we'll always have the option to buy a box/collectors edition where valid/possible, I mean the Company of Heroes gold edition box is pretty sweet.

Sometimes the digital thing goes a little too far though as is the case with Adobe (Photoshop, Flash etc) charging the same price without any print material from cs4 compared to cs3, yet charging more for the download versions all in the name of saving the planet, Er yeah, right!

 

[090907]

I prefer hard copies. There is something about being able to physically hold a game and take it to the counter which i miss with any on-line Purchase (call me old fashioned if you want. I care not.) Besides, I had a pretty slow net connection up until a few months ago and Steam updates took forever.
On the other side of the coin, My games shelves are now ridiculously full and that's after a purge a few months ago when I moved,

 

[johnman]

My net is not fast enough to download all my games, especailly considering the size of some of them. I do have many games on steam, and i have many boxed copies too.
Why cant we have both?

 

[squid5580]

I love my discs. Going to the store, talking with the shopkeep, taking the package off the shelf and reading the back. Getting it home and ripping off the plastic like a rabid dog. Getting that whiff of new game smell. Sometimes that is more pleasurable than the game itself.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Practicalities aside, how you feel about digital distribution depends largely on your appreciation of media and packaging as an intrinsic part of the game itself. I have a very holistic appreciation of games, but some people don't. I'm not sure which one is right (even I have to admit there are a lot of reasons to prefer digital distribution) but as long as there's a choice between boxed and digital, I'll always go boxed - and I sincerely hope the day when I no longer have that choice never comes.

 

[MarsProbe]

Personally regardless of what happens, I'll always prefer buying my games in physical form. While there is the clear sense of ownership that still comes with actually having the disk in your posession, I find part of the excitement of getting a new game is being handed the new, sealed box by the shop assistant. That and being able to peruse the manual before getting the game home builds up a good sense of anticipation. That's something downloading a game wouldn't be able to match.

Then there are those times when a collectors edition gets released that is actually worth purchasing and you can only get that in a physical form.

Also, as squid5580 hinted at above, I like to engage with the human beings in the shop when buying my games. All in all, buying a physical copy of a game is more satisfying than clicking a few buttons to download the game online.

 

[level250geek]

Granted I've spent more than I can remember on XBLA, and the first thing that I'm going to do once I have my gaming PC up and running is create a Steam account, but my preference is for physical media. It all comes down to bang for the buck, and while I'm a sucker for the trivial doo-dads that come with pre-orders and over-priced collector's/limited/deluxe editions I'm not really speaking of those here. As of now, Steam charges the same as physical retailers for a new game. When I buy that game from GameStop or Target or Amazon, I get whatever trivial doo-dads it may come with as well as the Right of First Sale. I can trade it in, gift it, re-sell it, use as a coaster, whatever: the game is mine. When I buy digitally, I'm essentially buying a license. Granted, DRM renders physical media the same, but if I'm going to be playing the same price I might as well get a book and a box and the right to re-sell along with it.

The reason buying music digitally works is because it is cheaper. When Mastodon's new album comes out next week, I can fork out $19.99 for it in the store, or $8.99 for it as an MP3 download from Amazon. Until digital distribution services for games start charging less than retail, they will always be a supplement to retail, not a replacement.

 

[Royas]

I can't agree at all to this philosophy. Digital distribution is a nice addition to the traditional retail sources, but it can not replace them at this point. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, but not anytime really soon. Broadband isn't nearly universal enough for this. Add to that, I don't really trust any of these online companies (I don't even trust online activation DRM on retail discs) and I just can't see using digital distribution exclusively anytime in my lifetime. Maybe, just maybe, if the government would regulate the gaming companies a bit, require them to guarantee perpetual access or something, it would work. Until then, corporations are just too unreliable and broadband just too spotty to make this work.

 

[DeadMG]

It should be noted that for all games, losing access to the original will give you good cause to visit The Pirate Bay.

 

[neispace]

I dislike digital distribution. I want the physical copies of the game so I can play it on the actual system it was designed to. I like being able to go into a game store and buy a game, and look at games.

For consoles, digital distribution is a stupid idea, because consoles become obsolete, and then it becomes impossible to replace the games. It's hard enough trying to track down a saturn game right now; it will become ten times harder when the only way is to hope you find an xbox 360 arcade game still installed on someones hdd.

 

[Miral]

I generally prefer physical media as well, but that is changing as the physical games get more and more opressive "licensing" (I'm looking at you, EA). I'm also one of those freaks who actually read the manual before playing any game, which might be a factor

But Valve have definitely gotten hold of a winning strategy. I found myself buying the Oddworld games this weekend (mostly due to the insanely cheap pricetag) -- even though I still know exactly where my physical discs for the games are.

 

[sonidraw]

I enjoyed reading this article, and I sympathize with some of the points raised.

Still, I prefer buying the physical copy of the game rather than rely on digital distribution, although I still use digital distribution too. In fact, I use whichever one is most convenient at the time and place OR whatever promises to be the most enjoyable. Sometimes I just want to go for a ride or a walk to a nearby store and physically browse through the games. I'm the same way with books. I purchased a couple of books online just the other day, but I would much rather go to one of the many bookstores in my area instead.

There's some chemical in my brain that is activated when I see, smell, feel, read, and take home a product.

 

[karmapolizei]

I completely agree with the author, and I also think that a few perks of digital distribution might even still show up. In particular, it's the UT3 free weekends that showed what digital distribution with a well designed DRM scheme can do. There's no need for demos anymore - on a digital distribution platform, publishers can give the whole game away as download to play for a limited time - for free or a really small charge. You can rent any game right away - pay a a few dollars and play the damn thing for 24 hours or something like that - and if you want to keep it, you can just unlock if for a charge.

I think there's a lot of potential in digital distribution, especially for PC gamers. What I outlined above might redeem us from "stealing" games to see if they work on our rig, and it could put an end to seriously crippled demos. I think this is going to happen, and I'm looking forward to it.

It could also help to make peace between the industry and its customers - publishers can (and indeed SHOULD) lower the prices of games. As a customer, you can have almost instant access to a game you want - which tipped the scales from pirating to buying several times for me, and I don't think I'm alone there. That's a real win-win - we get instant access, the industry gets more PAYING customers, everybody's happy.

 

[GonzoGamer]

While I do really appreciate free demos and free dlc (like the UT Titan pack I was playing this weekend) I don't want to turn to digital distribution completely,
Maybe if they passed the saving onto the consumer, I would be more into the idea but as it is now, they're usually the same price. Though I have to say that half my PS3 library are PSN games I downloaded like the Pixel Junks, echocrome, and Noby Boy; I did buy them all for $5 a pop.

But I think the big problem with digital distribution is that it swaps the responsibility of storing physical media on a shelf with the rest of your crap with the more expensive responsibility of storing digital media on a hdd. So I'm not against the idea as a concept and I think it'll work once we have terabytes of info on flash drives and super high speed wifi for all but that's a few years down the road. I just think that at it's current model, digital distribution is a greater expense on the consumers who already spend up to $400 on consoles and about $60 for individual media.

 

[Leroy Frederick]

I have to say as a gamer (and as a developer) it warms my heart a little to see I'm not the only one who enjoys and still wants the experience of buying boxed games / products. I think the searching, swapping, viewing, buying and acquiring of box games at retail is the man's equivalent of women and handbags / shoes. It's the only time you'll catch me in the same store for ages! (Of course, that's not to say there isn't women out there that feel the same way )