Remedy: The Sooner We Go Digital the Better

[GonzoGamer]

well...we are a long ways away from that goal. Just as netflix's instant streaming has allowed more people to watch indie and foreign films, digital distribution should open up the doors to more independent gaming. eventually developers will discover they can release a hit without the help of huge preexisting companies to distribute it...I mean...the other alternative of course is that all of the big corporations invest huge amounts of money into making sure they remain i the picture for digital distribution....which would suck

It is a sticky situation. Many big games do require outside investors for manpower & tech costs and a lot of the publishers also manage that for developers. It?s not just printing & distribution.
The thing about the Netflix streaming is that it started off as a bonus add on to the dvd rental service. People were happy enough renting dvds but the instant streaming was added value that attracted a lot of new customers. Now I know people who just do the streaming. The service would be a lot less popular if we had to pay for each asset streamed. Gamefly is the company that should be looking at netflix for suggestions. Their service is a little overpriced and could use some sort of cloud based instant play type of service on the PC. I?m not talking about the latest titles, but they need to do something. Especially if they?re talking about diskless consoles.
If they can bring on the full digital distribution on consoles they will have to figure out a way to make it cheaper and/or add value to the service as they are taking away value both in resale and easy lending. I only see them making it more expensive as they request us to pay for online service or cloud storage. The consoles themselves might be cheaper but gaming itself would become more expensive.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Once the entire industry goes digital, we the consumer can kiss all those steep online discounts good-bye. Those bargain basement prices on those triple A titles you missed out on a year and a half ago? Gone. Short of taking the risk of outright theft their will be no legitimate market forces working to force the industry to offer steep discounts on their back-catalogue the way they are currently doing right now. This in turn will mean that the industry will be under less pressure to release games as frequently as they do now, as the value of their product will not depreciate as quickly as they do now.

A mixture of online retailers and brick & mortar stores offers the most competitive market conditions and that has always been best for consumers. Anyone who tells you differently is either a liar or doesn't have a basic grasp of economic theory.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. Given the efficiency of digital distribution once initial ROI is met for the game (And I believe the industry standard is 22% to 30% for most publishers) the amount of discount that can be offered and still be profitable approaches near 100% in a straight curve relative the number of copies of the game purchased.

Inversely, retailers have to recover much more expensive costs on their physical location (wages, rent, operating costs, stocking costs). They'll never be able to offer as much of a discount as a digital retailer.

In any case, I think it's far more likely that you'll see subscription models arise that will give you unlimited access to back catalog games for a nominal monthly fee. That's a huge amount of money for publishers/distributors to tap into that far eclipses selling straight copies of these games and probably provides better value for money to consumers as well.

I think the incredibly amount of nativity you're displaying goes a long way towards explaining why you didn't understand what I posted. Apart from standard competitive pressures there would be to my understanding little to no reason for the publishers to share their new found bounty with the consumer. Initially they might promise to give you a taste but these will be false promises told by people who are paid well to lie effectively. In the end prices will rise and the 'bargains' will dry up and you will learn the cold hard reality that a business only has loyalty to it's owners.

Furthermore but most importantly under a monopoly of the digital distribution system, used games would cease to exist. The ability for the consumer to sell their unwanted games is one of the most important factors in the devaluation of games. Right now if you hold out and wait for but a single year you can get a game for 2/3 of the initial price. Typically if you wait a year and a half you can scoop up a game and all it's DLC for a pittance of the initial asking price.

Are you telling me that they offer these discounts out of the goodness of their hearts? Perhaps it is their ever-loving compassion for their fellow man?

No. They do not.

At that stage they know that they are largely competing with the second hand market and they price accordingly and offer 'free' DLC packages to sweeten the deal.

 

[pejhmon]

1 big problem here (aside from the whole DRM business) is downloading. Games are getting crazily big and internet hasn't developed with it. People living in the countryside tend to not be able to get broadband and even with broadband a 10 gb game will take you a fair while to download. 20mb internet speeds are too expensive for most to be worthwhile. That, and a lot of countries are yet to gain reliable internet (and I'm not talking 3rd world). Spain and Portugal, for example, have terrible internet for anyone a metre outside a big city.

Saying that, Steam sales. Sorry GAME, you never had a 70% sale did ya now? And steam seem to have started some sort of credits system for the TF2 store that requires a gift voucher style payment from which money is drawn from, maybe soon they will release these in card form and sell them in store, like MS points? That'll clear up the credit card issue for people worried by that

 

[(LK)]

Going fully digital for games disribution, when many ISPs are introducing bandwidth usage caps, seems like going into the zeppelin business right after the Hindenburg.

 

[Timmibal]

Going fully digital for games disribution, when many ISPs are introducing bandwidth usage caps, seems like going into the zeppelin business right after the Hindenburg.

Forgive the thread necromancy, but not 'many', just the biggest ones in the states from what I understand. And is it truly 'capped' (IE, no usage after x gigs?) or is it merely shaped to a slower rate relative to traffic?

As I stated before, a LOT of ISPs are starting to make dedicated bandwidth intensive services (I mentioned Xbox live previously) 'not count' against your bandwidth total. All it takes is for one new start-up to come to the party over there in the states and you're laughing. In fact if you look at these 'capped' plans, I would be VERY shocked if such exceptions were not already included.

 

[Svenparty]

What he means is "As soon as we go digital used games sales won't be a problem and gamers will be FORCED to spend roughly £30-40 for a game!"