Analyst Predicts GTA V Will Be Digital Only

[Bishop99999999]

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

Well, not everyone had CD-Rom drives not too long ago. Technology marches on, and in time as wireless broadband networks become reliable and as fast as wired connections, it's going to be increasingly difficult to justify the expenditure of so much money on what will inevitably be a dying format.

And the increasing integration of things like origin and steamworks make the choice between digital distribution and physical distribution moot.

 

[Vault101]

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

Well, not everyone had CD-Rom drives not too long ago. Technology marches on, and in time as wireless broadband networks become reliable and as fast as wired connections, it's going to be increasingly difficult to justify the expenditure of so much money on what will inevitably be a dying format.

And the increasing integration of things like origin and steamworks make the choice between digital distribution and physical distribution moot.

I at least want the option if my internet is down, or other reasons

thats the thing..the option, at least

 

[Vault101]

Uhh I live in an area where the big ISP companies basic package is 40gb a month before they charge outrageous fees for overages. The big game companies may wanna sort something out with them first.

I would kill for 40gb a month...I have 6

well actually Ive been upgraded to 10!

 

[zigzigzigbah]

Do they not think about people without or with very little internet

 

[vxicepickxv]

Is there anyone who actually wants digital only distribution for games?

I do. Cut down the overhead for retail copies, and that will lead to lower prices, and discounts sooner. Also, it will put that fewer middlemen between developers and their consumers, meaning more of the money you spent on a game goes to making the next game, and making risky, innovative titles more financially feasible. Ill grant you that that is in an ideal world where some people don't need a retail copy because of their internet, but if DD could accommodate everyone, it would be better for everyone.

1. Yes, it will cut down on the overhead for retail copies, which are forced by retailers.
2. No, because the prices won't go down any.
3. Possibly. Of course, I can't find a copy of Starcraft 2 that isn't still 60 bucks.
4. The profit difference isn't enough for major companies(in particular EA and Activision) to make any risks. After all, if something does poorly, the stock prices reflect that. The sole purpose of the board of directors is to make as much money for the board of directors as possible. Doing something that won't print large sums of money is not good for stock prices.
5. See Jim's collection of rants about how breaking up used games is bad for business.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4568-Online-Passes-Are-Bad-For-Everybody
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4720-Used-Games-Have-A-Right-To-Exist
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4745-Fighting-The-Problem-Of-Used-Games

 

[Strazdas]

at the times when internet isnt a problem any more i dont see why not. and if your internet cant handle a 4 gb file download, get a better internet. i have over 1tb traffic every month and my internet never stops to think about it. removing the retailer part completely is what should be done. they get money for reselling. id rather buy online and give money to the creator of the game (or more of it since its publishers were downloading form mostly) than leave half of it at retailer i cant care less about.
but i dont see this coming soon, as movie industry it will drag on the discs. there still are peopel that us VHS, tv used BETA tapes till 2005 in some places. and i still know people who use floppy discs. however with the rise of services like onlive i can see it coming.

 

[babinro]

I'd like to see this...the sooner we shift all gaming to digital the better in my opinion.

The process will inevitably cost sales in the short term but I think it's best for the industry. We'd need a few big releases like GTA 5 to get people used to this practice anyways.

Realistically though I don't think this will happen. We probably wont see this until next generation consoles. Though for all I know GTA 5 is next gen.

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

By incorporating the online element of digital downloads the game is inherently more difficult to pirate. This is the main reason I'm in favor of such a change.

Convenience of not having to rely on a disc and confidence that the product will be available in the long run are a couple of personal bonuses.

I agree that the used market will take a big hit when this comes around, which is certainly a strong negative. I simply hope the market will adjust to this by offering the digital titles on sale earlier like with Steam. I don't expect games to sell at $5 or anything, but they should gradually drop to 50 percent value over a year or two so those with less income can enjoy.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Sadly, at least in the UK, there's a huge number of companies advertising 'cheap superfast internet, 20mb speed!' then hidden away in the small print, limits of 10 or even 5gb a month download.

If GTA V is going to be the triple A title that is expected, that means some people would have to wait 3 months after buying it before they'd finished downloading it.

What needs to happen, is governments need to stop bending over to the entertainment industry, not every use of high bandwidth is piracy, certainly as we move on, more and more legitimate business will be done this way, and we need to stop the terrified stranglehold on bandwidth. (Of course this is ISPs too, scared of giving away free stuff when they can charge a premium for it, why offer an unlimited 50mb connection when the plebs will pay over the odds for a 2mb one capped at 10gb, eh?).

Put it on a damn dvd or two, and then incorporate online activation (NOT Rockstar social club, combined with 2 or three other kinds of DRM, then put it out on Steam with all the DRMs still intact.) If they're sending boxes and codes to stores, then the dvd is going to cost them another 50p or so. Do it. When people buy a game from a store, they expect to be playing it 5 minutes after they get home, not see a 'downloading - approx 17 hours remaining' bar.

 

[])rStrangelove]

I don't think there would an uproar tbh. Think for a moment:

Do we really need to install the whole game at once?

What if it downloads the next part while you're still in part 1? You wouldnt notice (most likely).

 

[bakan]

It won't be digital only, even in developed countries the internet speed is often abysmal for this age, or should I say especially western countries because the ISPs don't want to upgrade the infrastructure.
Additionally the older XBox360s and PS3s don't have much disk space and the publisher won't risk sales because of too much limitations on the customer side.

We are at least 1-2 console generations away from digital only distribution

p.s.: to clarify things, I own consoles and a PC but my internet connection is capped at 200KB/s and I'm not from a backwater country

edit:

snip

snip

By incorporating the online element of digital downloads the game is inherently more difficult to pirate. This is the main reason I'm in favor of such a change.

Convenience of not having to rely on a disc and confidence that the product will be available in the long run are a couple of personal bonuses.

I agree that the used market will take a big hit when this comes around, which is certainly a strong negative. I simply hope the market will adjust to this by offering the digital titles on sale earlier like with Steam. I don't expect games to sell at $5 or anything, but they should gradually drop to 50 percent value over a year or two so those with less income can enjoy.

The prices won't drop anywhere near you think they will drop, every cent they save for not producing physical copies (production costs are already pretty low) will be more profit.
The prices would drop by max 5-10$ in retail stores at the beginning (as little consolation) and stay the same for online distributors.

 

[Vault101]

I'd like to see this...the sooner we shift all gaming to digital the better in my opinion.

The process will inevitably cost sales in the short term but I think it's best for the industry. We'd need a few big releases like GTA 5 to get people used to this practice anyways.

Realistically though I don't think this will happen. We probably wont see this until next generation consoles. Though for all I know GTA 5 is next gen.

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

By incorporating the online element of digital downloads the game is inherently more difficult to pirate. This is the main reason I'm in favor of such a change.

Convenience of not having to rely on a disc and confidence that the product will be available in the long run are a couple of personal bonuses.

I agree that the used market will take a big hit when this comes around, which is certainly a strong negative. I simply hope the market will adjust to this by offering the digital titles on sale earlier like with Steam. I don't expect games to sell at $5 or anything, but they should gradually drop to 50 percent value over a year or two so those with less income can enjoy.

1. Im sure there are plenty of way digital can fuck up..like a disk...data corruption and of coarse the very act of downloading (Ive tried to download beyond good and evil 4 times and its corrupted everytime)

2. again, as long as you keep it where ever its kept, but then what if you need to make room for more? mabye you could keep it on another hardrive..but that also might be subject to degredation (mabye less than a disk I dont know) it might be always linked to your account..but for how long? its still at the whim of somone else

I know that if the world ends tomorrow my PS3 abd disks will keep working..at least for a little while

 

[Vault101]

at the times when internet isnt a problem any more i dont see why not. and if your internet cant handle a 4 gb file download, get a better internet. i have over 1tb traffic every month and my internet never stops to think about it. removing the retailer part completely is what should be done. they get money for reselling. id rather buy online and give money to the creator of the game (or more of it since its publishers were downloading form mostly) than leave half of it at retailer i cant care less about.
but i dont see this coming soon, as movie industry it will drag on the discs. there still are peopel that us VHS, tv used BETA tapes till 2005 in some places. and i still know people who use floppy discs. however with the rise of services like onlive i can see it coming.

get better internet? ohhh right thats the solution to everyhting is it? look I dont want to go there, fact is that might not be an option for alot of us and I would wager you dont realy care because it doesnt affect you

also reapting what the jimquisition had to say about used games...as consumers its the ONE thing we have in this age of DRM and DLC, I dont want it taken away

digital distribution is not perfect, I dont see why we cant have the option to have a hard copy if we wish

 

[babinro]

I'd like to see this...the sooner we shift all gaming to digital the better in my opinion.

The process will inevitably cost sales in the short term but I think it's best for the industry. We'd need a few big releases like GTA 5 to get people used to this practice anyways.

Realistically though I don't think this will happen. We probably wont see this until next generation consoles. Though for all I know GTA 5 is next gen.

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

By incorporating the online element of digital downloads the game is inherently more difficult to pirate. This is the main reason I'm in favor of such a change.

Convenience of not having to rely on a disc and confidence that the product will be available in the long run are a couple of personal bonuses.

I agree that the used market will take a big hit when this comes around, which is certainly a strong negative. I simply hope the market will adjust to this by offering the digital titles on sale earlier like with Steam. I don't expect games to sell at $5 or anything, but they should gradually drop to 50 percent value over a year or two so those with less income can enjoy.

1. Im sure there are plenty of way digital can fuck up..like a disk...data corruption and of coarse the very act of downloading (Ive tried to download beyond good and evil 4 times and its corrupted everytime)

2. again, as long as you keep it where ever its kept, but then what if you need to make room for more? mabye you could keep it on another hardrive..but that also might be subject to degredation (mabye less than a disk I dont know) it might be always linked to your account..but for how long? its still at the whim of somone else

I know that if the world ends tomorrow my PS3 abd disks will keep working..at least for a little while

You make a good point when saying that your ownership is up to someone else. For games on Steam I don't have any realistic concerns. But the console market has shown time and time again that backwards compatibility is not important and that they are more than willing to profit from past titles over and over again. I simply take the good faith stance on this until they give me a reason to worry about digital distribution.

Part of the reason I hope digital distribution hits consoles next generation is because they could design it to take advantage of cloud storage. This could help eliminate the problems of storage.

This is far too hypothetical though...can't truly say if its a good idea until we see it happen.

 

[Rouzeki]

*wanders over to a horse that was beaten into near-giblets during the Diablo 3 always-online mess*

I'm sorry about this, Whiney Mcneigh.

*ressurects the horse using random science, then proceeds to beat it with a mallet*

1 hour and 30 minutes from where I sit, I know people who literally have hueghs net as their best internet option. I sampled their connection sometime ago and just loading a video is a process. better then dialup, but good luck getting GTA V in any reasonable time.

As much as I love digital distribution, being a retro and indie PC gamer over everything else, this crazy notion of forcing only digital copies or only digital access to parts of single player content into the triple A industry has to put itself out of commission for awhile.

Until broadband in some form that ISN'T mobile hits every part of the US, for example, I find it incredibly stupid or people over here. This ongoing sentiment of it in where people are surprised that there won't be backlash over this is an outright insult. this recent push for online passes in single player makes it more troublesome then it has to be for people who bought the game new as is, patches aside.

Have you seen the National Broadband map for the US? ugh. http://www.broadbandmap.gov/technology


Ill accept full digital distribution, but only when your not potentially throwing customers to franchises out in the cold. when you have to journey somewhere just to download something to your Xbox, something is seriously wrong. don't get me started with the franchises that think its a good idea to make a switch into always online while still keeping the guise of its kin that were offline.

*glares evilly at Blizzard, drops the mallet, and walks off*

 

[Vault101]

I'd like to see this...the sooner we shift all gaming to digital the better in my opinion.

The process will inevitably cost sales in the short term but I think it's best for the industry. We'd need a few big releases like GTA 5 to get people used to this practice anyways.

Realistically though I don't think this will happen. We probably wont see this until next generation consoles. Though for all I know GTA 5 is next gen.

why though? WHY? is digital distrubution better? it just gives the cusrtomer less controll over their purchases

and used games is the ONE little thing we have, I dont want that taken away

oh and lets not go into how IT WILL NOT FUCKING WORK for some people..at least not with todays setup

By incorporating the online element of digital downloads the game is inherently more difficult to pirate. This is the main reason I'm in favor of such a change.

Convenience of not having to rely on a disc and confidence that the product will be available in the long run are a couple of personal bonuses.

I agree that the used market will take a big hit when this comes around, which is certainly a strong negative. I simply hope the market will adjust to this by offering the digital titles on sale earlier like with Steam. I don't expect games to sell at $5 or anything, but they should gradually drop to 50 percent value over a year or two so those with less income can enjoy.

1. Im sure there are plenty of way digital can fuck up..like a disk...data corruption and of coarse the very act of downloading (Ive tried to download beyond good and evil 4 times and its corrupted everytime)

2. again, as long as you keep it where ever its kept, but then what if you need to make room for more? mabye you could keep it on another hardrive..but that also might be subject to degredation (mabye less than a disk I dont know) it might be always linked to your account..but for how long? its still at the whim of somone else

I know that if the world ends tomorrow my PS3 abd disks will keep working..at least for a little while

You make a good point when saying that your ownership is up to someone else. For games on Steam I don't have any realistic concerns. But the console market has shown time and time again that backwards compatibility is not important and that they are more than willing to profit from past titles over and over again. I simply take the good faith stance on this until they give me a reason to worry about digital distribution.

Part of the reason I hope digital distribution hits consoles next generation is because they could design it to take advantage of cloud storage. This could help eliminate the problems of storage.

This is far too hypothetical though...can't truly say if its a good idea until we see it happen.

cloud from my point of veiw is even worse...its completley out of your hands, and at the mercy of servers and the internet...(I mean what if you get another PSN-like incident?)

Im not saying digital distribution or cloud is the devil...Im just saying there ar eboth posative and negatives, and it certainly isnt an option for alot of peopel thease days at least, plus I think if it was ALL digital our choices would be limited...

I'll say it again, I dont see why the hard copy option cant be there, hell even if I have to get a disk drive peripheral for my future console....(mabye?) mabye it is the future but the transition will be a ***** (and what about internet costs as well? just thourght of that)

 

[Vault101]

)rStrangelove]I don't think there would an uproar tbh. Think for a moment:

Do we really need to install the whole game at once?

What if it downloads the next part while you're still in part 1? You wouldnt notice (most likely).

so an "always online" thing?

oh GOD no thats even worse, I play games to get away from the internet now and again, I also have a shitty cap

 

[Preacher zer0]

Well... an industry analysis company that is "completely focused on the games industry" have just demonstrated that they know nothing about the games industry.


Of course there will be a GTA V hardcopy, Rockstar (unlike the aforementioned analysts) are not idiots.

Discs will phase out when the demand for them phases out... right now the demand for discs is still a reality so the market will supply...

It ain't rocket science.

 

[theheroofaction]

Hey guys, just gonna remind you that disc based gaming has been dying out since the late 90's

You know, kinda like pc games.

Oh wait...

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Like anyone thinks this would actually be happening to such a huge game.
Not only would it take forever to download even with a better than decent hook up, something that would alienate even a lot of hardcore PC people, but it would kill sales for the consoles.

Even if this digital only thing starts pushing further forward i just don't see it happening to anything this big so soon.

Plus i like my games the way they are. Physical, tangible items that i can actually admire the box art on. Sometimes i just look at my shelf and think back on whatever adventures i've been out on lately. Remember the good times, forget the bad. That sorta thing.

 

[Something Amyss]

Surprise! It's not Michael Pachter!

Well, it sounds crazy enough to be him.

I do have a feeling retail will probably be crippled in a generation or two. While technically true it'll never go away entirely, it will be rather meaningless at some point.

And, I might add, I much prefer physical copies. This ain't me daydreaming.

The thing is, I doubt there's going to be much in the way of "retail box with code" at any point in the conversion to digital. For one, it takes away some of the benefits of digital distribution: It costs to ship, store, etc. Even if there's only a slip in the box (Or slip plus collectible), it still takes the same amount of storage space.

Not to mention the current restrictions on bandwidth. Even if you have a good connection, odds are you're using a company with a cap if you're an American.

250 GB used to seem like so much...Until Netflix, eMusic, Steam and company started cutting into it. And there are smaller caps.

Now, why it won't happen with GTA, or any game where they give a damn about selling it to the XBox 360 crowd: Just look at the fit people have had over the HD texture pack deal. Now, instead of the Texture Pack requiring an HDD, try imagining the whole game.

At least the PS3 was more generous with its HDD sizes.

I could possibly see it for the PC, where Digital Distro is getting to be standard and the space occupied at retail is pretty small, but even then, I'm not sure people are willing to cut out gamers without broadband entirely.