Sephiwind said:
I find it funny how naive people are. So many of you assume that digital distribution will make games cheaper because it is on Steam. I hate to break it to you but the only ones who it will be cheaper for are the developers, especially for consul. Why lower the price when they can just keep selling the games for the same price but rake in more profit by cutting out the middle man.
Also all you people who talk about internet having to improve quicker because of this are sadly mistaken. The physical infrastructure needs to be there for broadband.If an area doesn't have the physical infrastructure then a company need to go in an develop one which costs money. The larger the area, the more time and money it will cost. To fully develop an entire country the size to the U.S. could take years if not decades to to lay down a complete infrastructure so high speed broadband is available everywhere.
Finally one thing that gripes when I read these forums are all the anti-retail people. You people say down with retail, and let retail burn. Well what about all those people that work at these stores? Are you fine seeing thousands of people become unemploied just because you don't like how their corporations handle things? You people just see the store and not all the people that work for it.
You've got a lot to learn about how economics works.
Yeah, digital distribution is cheaper for the developers. It allows them to cut out the middle man in many cases. This can have two effects really. One is that the games get cheaper, or the developer makes more money for future investments. Both are good things in my opinion.
Second, most of the infrastructure is already in place. Broadband coverage in North America is already very good. All major cities have excellent coverage. Most suburban towns have good coverage, and a large number of smaller towns have respectable coverage. Things can always improve, but for the most part, we're fine. ISPs are charging huge amounts of cash for bandwidth not because it's in limited supply, but because they can. It's called artificial scarcity, and it's a common practice in bigger corporations.
Oh and if they did have to build further infrastructure, then yes, it'll cost money, but it'll also create jobs, and eventually start to make some money back for the ISPs.
