The Future is Still Retail
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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For me, I have this "Paranoia" about having all my information in my computer. Less to do with hacking and more to do with my comp going on the fritz for one reason or another. That is why I keep any and all passwords and usernames in a black book of mine.
If one of your games becomes unplayable for one reason or another that single game is effected, not everything. If you use a computer and it goes on the fritz, than you can't play your hard copy games until your computer is fixed. If you have all your games digitally downloaded AND the computer is on the fritz, than your SOL unless you saved your KEY numbers. Now all you have to do is install every single game you digitally downloaded into your computer. Yeah, that isn't going to take forever.
One more thing, for those that say that computer connections will get better, I LOL in their FACE!!!! It was reported in my hometown that we would get cable internet to do better than DLC, that was 6+ YEARS AGO and we still do not have cable at all. Sure bigger cities would have better connection, but not everyone lives in a big city there are still ALOT of small cities and towns all over everywhere in the world.
EDIT: I have a hard copy of FONV. I decided to re-install the game because I messed up on some mods. So I decided "Hey why not use steam to re-install it since it gives me that option", so I had steam re-install the game and gave me the waiting time of 18 hours. Than I decided to cancel that out and re-install from the Disc. The disc took 20+ minutes to install the program. During those 18+ hours I could have gone to a store, bought 2+ games, talk with friends, eat dinner, than return home and install both games. Chances are, all that would have been faster than waiting for one game to install.
If one of your games becomes unplayable for one reason or another that single game is effected, not everything. If you use a computer and it goes on the fritz, than you can't play your hard copy games until your computer is fixed. If you have all your games digitally downloaded AND the computer is on the fritz, than your SOL unless you saved your KEY numbers. Now all you have to do is install every single game you digitally downloaded into your computer. Yeah, that isn't going to take forever.
One more thing, for those that say that computer connections will get better, I LOL in their FACE!!!! It was reported in my hometown that we would get cable internet to do better than DLC, that was 6+ YEARS AGO and we still do not have cable at all. Sure bigger cities would have better connection, but not everyone lives in a big city there are still ALOT of small cities and towns all over everywhere in the world.
EDIT: I have a hard copy of FONV. I decided to re-install the game because I messed up on some mods. So I decided "Hey why not use steam to re-install it since it gives me that option", so I had steam re-install the game and gave me the waiting time of 18 hours. Than I decided to cancel that out and re-install from the Disc. The disc took 20+ minutes to install the program. During those 18+ hours I could have gone to a store, bought 2+ games, talk with friends, eat dinner, than return home and install both games. Chances are, all that would have been faster than waiting for one game to install.
Here's how you take your digital copies to your friends house.
step 0: go to friends house
step 1: type in steam account
step 2: type in steam password
I dunno about you guys and gals but my friends and I do this all the time at LANS (who doesn't have an extra computer around for guests nowadays?). Ditto for Starcraft 2.
Also, it really isn't that difficult to pack up your 360 and take it to a friends house either (a little more complicated than typing a password in, but not much). I have a station set up in my living room that has all the cabling run, my friend just needs to pop in a 360 and go. Xbox live is absolutely genius at tunneling multiple 360's through upnp NAT's btw.
step 0: go to friends house
step 1: type in steam account
step 2: type in steam password
I dunno about you guys and gals but my friends and I do this all the time at LANS (who doesn't have an extra computer around for guests nowadays?). Ditto for Starcraft 2.
Also, it really isn't that difficult to pack up your 360 and take it to a friends house either (a little more complicated than typing a password in, but not much). I have a station set up in my living room that has all the cabling run, my friend just needs to pop in a 360 and go. Xbox live is absolutely genius at tunneling multiple 360's through upnp NAT's btw.
His speed is 4x faster then mine. I'm on a 1mb connection, and I know others who are on a slower speed. Rural Vermont doesn't have much in the way of fast internet. There's satellite, but that is just awful for playing games online.CrystalShadow said:
Although there is a silver lining to my situation, for my current ISP, there's no contract, or bandwidth cap. So I guess in retrospect its not all bad. But still slow as hell...
You're forgetting three groups:
The come lates: If a game isn't profitable to sell via digital distribution, it will be taken off the market, this goes for old games as well as it costs money to maintain servers and server space is limited. Say I wanted to go back and play a classic that I didn't get a chance to play when it originally came out. I am going to have a harder time finding it through digital distribution as the data simply won't be there anymore.
Those who seek stability: Hard copies are reliable, they're there, there won't be some sort of download problem.
Those who understand economics: Digital distribution is cheaper because it's built around less people being involved. It kills jobs. Digital distribution is inherently built to monopolize. If Steam were the only source for games, then they could charge you whatever they wanted. And I don't like the idea of giving money to Valve so they can put more money into damaging the games industry through their bad ideas.
The come lates: If a game isn't profitable to sell via digital distribution, it will be taken off the market, this goes for old games as well as it costs money to maintain servers and server space is limited. Say I wanted to go back and play a classic that I didn't get a chance to play when it originally came out. I am going to have a harder time finding it through digital distribution as the data simply won't be there anymore.
Those who seek stability: Hard copies are reliable, they're there, there won't be some sort of download problem.
Those who understand economics: Digital distribution is cheaper because it's built around less people being involved. It kills jobs. Digital distribution is inherently built to monopolize. If Steam were the only source for games, then they could charge you whatever they wanted. And I don't like the idea of giving money to Valve so they can put more money into damaging the games industry through their bad ideas.
If digital distribution drops game prices like it should then yeah it would gain a bigger hold over the market. But at the moment my choice was to buy cataclysm in store for 40$ or buy it online for 40$ and I said well for the same price I want my damn physical copy. So in a few days I will have a box and on wed it wont matter what I did lol.
Always the same basic assumptions, that "improvements" in tech make change inevitable, that everyone has the same idea of what constitutes an improvement etc. The first point to make is that the reason surveys ask for "connected" rather than "actually use" is because the "actually use" numbers are comparatively low and subject to manipulation. I've never seen any article blaring about huge rates of change in console internet use, have you?
What's been happening in entertainment for quite some time isn't a gradual convergence to a single standard, but instead the creation of increasingly diversified niche markets. Console gamers who are heavy internet users (i.e. everyone on this board) are a niche market...but it is probably nice to think of yourself as a daring pioneer early adopter paving the way for the awesome future.
What's been happening in entertainment for quite some time isn't a gradual convergence to a single standard, but instead the creation of increasingly diversified niche markets. Console gamers who are heavy internet users (i.e. everyone on this board) are a niche market...but it is probably nice to think of yourself as a daring pioneer early adopter paving the way for the awesome future.
Nice article.
A market dominated by digital distribution is nothing but a pipe-dream. Publishers and developers want it for obvious enough reasons; more money in their collective pockets. But Unless there is a *serious* revolution in consumer habits, I predict that DD sales will level out at a sizeable minority of the market.
As Seamus says, shopping habits aren?t logical. Nevertheless, there are trends. Trends that DD Cheerleaders seem completely oblivious to. For example, people do not (as has been suggested) generally drive to town, buy a single game, and drive back without doing anything else. People go out to town for the day. They go to the supermarket, during which time they might browse the games section. Perhaps they?re looking for a gift and want to talk to a real person. It is almost impossible for an industry to change those sorts of habits in the short term.
But DD has increased in value to the industry. Well yes, but the figures don?t tell the whole story. Even if DD now accounts for X% of industry sales, we never hear what that actually consists of. Are we talking about games at full retail price? Are they marked-down special offers? What about DLC (free or paid), linked to a physical purchase? This is important, because the industry?s business model relies on the sale of full games at full price. If DD can?t deliver that as reliably as a non-digital retailer, the industry faces a painful and costly reformation.
Then we have to ask who?s using DD. The figures aren?t readily available, but we can make inferences. We know for example, that men tend to buy things from websites like Play.com and Amazon, while women tend to buy more from shops. I suspect the majority of DD users are tech-savvy 20 to 30-something males. Fine when you?re selling Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Not so great when it comes to your Kinect titles, your Wii Sports, your casual games. Most, if not all the new money in the last five years has come from the industry targeting people outside the traditional gaming demographic. DD simply will not reach that audience at present!
So Digital Distribution is not the saviour of the industry, and will probably never overtake sales of the physical product.
A market dominated by digital distribution is nothing but a pipe-dream. Publishers and developers want it for obvious enough reasons; more money in their collective pockets. But Unless there is a *serious* revolution in consumer habits, I predict that DD sales will level out at a sizeable minority of the market.
As Seamus says, shopping habits aren?t logical. Nevertheless, there are trends. Trends that DD Cheerleaders seem completely oblivious to. For example, people do not (as has been suggested) generally drive to town, buy a single game, and drive back without doing anything else. People go out to town for the day. They go to the supermarket, during which time they might browse the games section. Perhaps they?re looking for a gift and want to talk to a real person. It is almost impossible for an industry to change those sorts of habits in the short term.
But DD has increased in value to the industry. Well yes, but the figures don?t tell the whole story. Even if DD now accounts for X% of industry sales, we never hear what that actually consists of. Are we talking about games at full retail price? Are they marked-down special offers? What about DLC (free or paid), linked to a physical purchase? This is important, because the industry?s business model relies on the sale of full games at full price. If DD can?t deliver that as reliably as a non-digital retailer, the industry faces a painful and costly reformation.
Then we have to ask who?s using DD. The figures aren?t readily available, but we can make inferences. We know for example, that men tend to buy things from websites like Play.com and Amazon, while women tend to buy more from shops. I suspect the majority of DD users are tech-savvy 20 to 30-something males. Fine when you?re selling Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Not so great when it comes to your Kinect titles, your Wii Sports, your casual games. Most, if not all the new money in the last five years has come from the industry targeting people outside the traditional gaming demographic. DD simply will not reach that audience at present!
So Digital Distribution is not the saviour of the industry, and will probably never overtake sales of the physical product.
It won't matter what Producers want if Consumers aren't interested in following them. As long as there are enough consumers who want to continue to purchase through retail, then producers will continue to make their products available through retail, simply because it'll be more economical not to cut themselves off from those customers.Quizza said:
And for those who don't use steam/the download purchase system of their friends choice?Jacob.pederson said:
Oh, and I'm sure there are large numbers of people who don't keep an extra computer around for guests. I know I sure don't. Why would I spend that kind of money on a computer that's just sitting around in case a friend needs to use it?
Or, with a physical copy, if both you and your friend own an Xbox, you can just take your copy of the game and a memory storage unit (memory stick or memory card or what have you) over to their place and plug them into your friends system. Much easier, if you ask me.Jacob.pederson said:
I sometimes buy games digitaly but only if I don't have a choice(for example the game is a PSN exclusive). I dislike programs like Steam, spyware shit if you ask me. And their prices aren't that good either, it's only worth it when there's a promotion or something. I'd personally always stick to retail games.
The points are very fair. Despite the fact that I'm not much of a collector, don't care for achievements and such, and consider myself a very practical person, I still bought a retail copy of Cataclysm instead of the digital download at the exact same price, despite the fact that my retail copy will arrive during mid day on the 7th and not instantly as soon as the clock beats midnight. It just feels more comfortable to have an actual item to hold and justify the spent money.
This has been mentioned many times before, but I think it's worth reiterating.
I downloaded the Orange Box off of Steam. Wonderful games, all five of them, and practically a steal at their price. But it took me about three days of near-constant downloading to get all the games installed, and my connection wasn't even that bad. If I had been able to find the Orange Box for PC in a store, I could probably have installed all five games in a couple hours. I wouldn't have been effectively unable to use my computer for three days.
In short, I say there will always be a market for retail games, and although my case was hardly extreme and did not prevent me from buying the digital version, I'd be willing to bet quite a few people would refuse to put up with massive download times and simply avoid buying large games if digital was the only choice.
I downloaded the Orange Box off of Steam. Wonderful games, all five of them, and practically a steal at their price. But it took me about three days of near-constant downloading to get all the games installed, and my connection wasn't even that bad. If I had been able to find the Orange Box for PC in a store, I could probably have installed all five games in a couple hours. I wouldn't have been effectively unable to use my computer for three days.
In short, I say there will always be a market for retail games, and although my case was hardly extreme and did not prevent me from buying the digital version, I'd be willing to bet quite a few people would refuse to put up with massive download times and simply avoid buying large games if digital was the only choice.
Retail will never die because of punks like me, who love-love-LOVE physical media ownership. Who relish having collections massive enough to build a guest home out of the plastic involved. Who delight in being able to have something crazy happen, like for example a girlfriend having an 80s-themed birthday party and being able to lug over my NES and a massive bundle of cartridges for it, or a buddy who still sticks by his PS2 and being able to loan him a crapton of games when finances are tight.
Now, this doesn't mean I don't also enjoy digital distribution. A couple bucks and some time downloading equaling a tasty game for me to enjoy, hell, I can dig that. But I can get the same thrill times ten when I drop by my local stores and drop dimes for some low-cost games (and CDs and DVDs). And then I own them. And I can do as I wish with them. Loan them, watch them solo, watch them with others, have them sit on my shelf and look pretty. It's hard to add to a room with CD-Rs alone.
Now, this doesn't mean I don't also enjoy digital distribution. A couple bucks and some time downloading equaling a tasty game for me to enjoy, hell, I can dig that. But I can get the same thrill times ten when I drop by my local stores and drop dimes for some low-cost games (and CDs and DVDs). And then I own them. And I can do as I wish with them. Loan them, watch them solo, watch them with others, have them sit on my shelf and look pretty. It's hard to add to a room with CD-Rs alone.
1) I feel this point is completely subjective. I am just as content scrolling down my Steam list enjoying my collection as I am looking at my shelf for my console game collections.
2) Flash drives? External hard drives? On Steam, I can simply sign myself into any other computer. Use this idea for a console and it is the same deal.
3) I feel like this is an awfully controlled case. You are being pretty nitpicky, I think. How many kids' sole source for entertainment is digital? Younger kids will always have action figures and the like. At my age, I would love for someone to give me clothes, furniture, accessories, etc. as opposed to simply games or music. And don't forget what is needed to listen to the music, play video games, read books, or watch movies. Gifts can still be consoles, controllers, headphones, iPods, Kindles, etc.
4) I think this part really hurts your point more than supports it. Impulse buys are more common digitally. Think of how constantly Steam has sales. Or how relatively cheap Steam games are to retail games. And look at the iPhone. Would it even have half as many app sales as it does if everyone had to go to the store and buy each app?
5) These numbers will get smaller. And this is where I can bring up what I feel is an over-arching point: new generations will do things differently. For example, my kids will be born into a world where Nooks/Kindles, iPhones, Netflix streaming/On Demand, and PSN/XBLA/Steam/WiiWare, etc. is not only common, but the norm. They will be born into a whole different world. And not only with digital distribution, but with technology in general. Technology is getting way more sophisticated constantly. Finding a 2TB hard drive nowadays is as easy as walking into a Best Buy. A couple years ago, that was unheard of. Think of how this will be in a couple years from now. 512TB?
2) Flash drives? External hard drives? On Steam, I can simply sign myself into any other computer. Use this idea for a console and it is the same deal.
3) I feel like this is an awfully controlled case. You are being pretty nitpicky, I think. How many kids' sole source for entertainment is digital? Younger kids will always have action figures and the like. At my age, I would love for someone to give me clothes, furniture, accessories, etc. as opposed to simply games or music. And don't forget what is needed to listen to the music, play video games, read books, or watch movies. Gifts can still be consoles, controllers, headphones, iPods, Kindles, etc.
4) I think this part really hurts your point more than supports it. Impulse buys are more common digitally. Think of how constantly Steam has sales. Or how relatively cheap Steam games are to retail games. And look at the iPhone. Would it even have half as many app sales as it does if everyone had to go to the store and buy each app?
5) These numbers will get smaller. And this is where I can bring up what I feel is an over-arching point: new generations will do things differently. For example, my kids will be born into a world where Nooks/Kindles, iPhones, Netflix streaming/On Demand, and PSN/XBLA/Steam/WiiWare, etc. is not only common, but the norm. They will be born into a whole different world. And not only with digital distribution, but with technology in general. Technology is getting way more sophisticated constantly. Finding a 2TB hard drive nowadays is as easy as walking into a Best Buy. A couple years ago, that was unheard of. Think of how this will be in a couple years from now. 512TB?
Indeed.Onyx Oblivion said:
I love Steam, but when I buy things, it's when I'm about to go to bed because that shiny new copy of Civ V is going to take 18.9 hours to download.
Whereas my 22X DvDROM drive can install the disc version in about 3 minutes.
I enjoy your articles, Shamus, but I think you're wrong on this. I come from that very mindset you're arguing in favour of - the collector, the old retail model, etc. I used to have crates (quite literally) of game disks. I dunno how all that changed for me, but I think XBL had something to do with it - that, and the steady building of a better broadband (here in the UK, at least).
Those first few tentative downloads via XBL were a slow revelation... suddenly, the idea of 'owning' something that could always be recalled from 'the cloud' became an attractive concept; I looked at my room cluttered up with endless game disks and figured 'this could all be virtual' and I'd even get some living space back into the bargain.
Since then I've not only cleared out all my old games, but enjoyed the simplicity, convenience and cost-benefit of downloading entire games - on 360 and on PC (especially PC). I find the very idea of owning another game disk anathema. I like the idea that once purchased digitally, the game is always available for me out there in interwebland should I need it again, but, better - it's always the latest, most-up-to-date version (Steam is great!) - yes, the game will always remind me when it's keen to update itself. I like that.
Online will be the future of video game purchasing, like it or not - and it's practically here, now. Maybe not for those with mindsets still locked into quaint notions of 'owning' a physical disk and case, but for the vast majority of younger people now and in the future it will be the new normal.
Those first few tentative downloads via XBL were a slow revelation... suddenly, the idea of 'owning' something that could always be recalled from 'the cloud' became an attractive concept; I looked at my room cluttered up with endless game disks and figured 'this could all be virtual' and I'd even get some living space back into the bargain.
Since then I've not only cleared out all my old games, but enjoyed the simplicity, convenience and cost-benefit of downloading entire games - on 360 and on PC (especially PC). I find the very idea of owning another game disk anathema. I like the idea that once purchased digitally, the game is always available for me out there in interwebland should I need it again, but, better - it's always the latest, most-up-to-date version (Steam is great!) - yes, the game will always remind me when it's keen to update itself. I like that.
Online will be the future of video game purchasing, like it or not - and it's practically here, now. Maybe not for those with mindsets still locked into quaint notions of 'owning' a physical disk and case, but for the vast majority of younger people now and in the future it will be the new normal.
My extra PC isn't just sitting, it is a Minecraft serverSpace Jawa said:
Also, it didn't really cost me any money that I wouldn't have spent anyways, because it's made up of parts cycled out (due to upgrades) of our other 5 machines. I do realize this isn't exactly the normal set-up, but there are an increasing number of 2-pc households out there, and that's really all you need to play your steam games with a friend.We also have 3 steam accounts between the wife, kid and I, so if a friend doesn't have a particular game, they can borrow one of those for a bit