The Future is Still Retail

justnotcricket

Echappe, retire, sous sus PANIC!
Apr 24, 2008
1,205
0
0
TaboriHK said:
justnotcricket said:
TaboriHK said:
I don't think it's just that they think it's better, but it's cheaper. It's just a matter of waiting for society to adjust to it slowly. I don't think it will happen tomorrow but saving money logistically reads a lot clearer on paper than the inconsistent irrationality of shoppers.
But is it always cheaper?

A while ago, I went to get a copy of Dragon Age Origins Awakening for PS3, only to be told that the PS3 version was download-only. This irritated me, because instead of being able to just buy my game and go home and play it, I had to go through the whole download process (using internet that I also pay for, I might add). Anyway, I consoled myself with the thought that the game would be cheaper because it was just the data, not all the box and marketing and whatever. Well it wasn't. It was the same damn price, PLUS the cost of the internet I would have to use to download it. (And before anyone claims I had to pay for fuel to go to the store...I walk there ;-P)

If downloadable games want to be my future, they'd better damn well be cheaper than the tangible versions, that's all I'm saying.
That's not what I mean. I mean it's cheaper for them. It costs less for them to produce and distribute.
Ah, true - sorry, misread there. Although...if it is cheaper for them then they could always reduce the cost to the consumer as well... *hysterical laughter*
 

Sartan0

New member
Apr 5, 2010
538
0
0
I lead this comment by stating it is my opinion and it will be some years before we get to this.

1. The Collectors- will have the ability to buy a physical 'special collectors edition' for more cash. Everyone else will download it. (Both normal and special versions)

2. The Visitors- Will be able to bring their authenticated copy up on their friends tv/computer of the future. (Pending tech but possible)

3. The Gift-givers- will like the collectors be able to pay more to have a physical copy but it will be more. Or they will just send over points. (It is not all that different from a gift card really.)

4. The Impulse buyers- Your joking right? I impulse buy on steam and impulse (haha) now.

5. The Unconnected- They will be more and more marginalized as time goes on sadly. Though there will be less and less of them.
 

tehweave

Gaming Wildlife
Apr 5, 2009
1,942
0
0
I do hope physical copies never go away. I like having physical copies of my games, and I also work for a retail store... So I would be out of a job again if this happened.
 

Space Jawa

New member
Feb 2, 2010
551
0
0
Partezan said:
Im way ahead of you. Been "buying" games online since they invented bit torrent
If the air quotes mean what I think they do, then of course you're going to go to downloads. You wouldn't really loose out anything from the physical copy anyway, would you?
 

tharglet

New member
Jul 21, 2010
998
0
0
Irridium said:
Thats another thing with Digital Distribution. I'm curious to see how many people are willing to sit and wait for 10+ gigabytes of data to download. I don't care how fast your internet is, downloading that much data takes a long-ass time. It'd be faster to just go to the store and buy it.
Actually, if it's a weekday, it's quicker to download it... as I'd have to wait til the weekend to go out and buy things.
Though your connection seems awfully slow - on mine it's done in a few hours, if that. During the steam sales, I downloaded ~30GB at one point, and that didn't take all day. Then again I do have a reasonable connection (8mb).
 

Nikolaz72

This place still alive?
Apr 23, 2009
2,125
0
0
Irridium said:
Onyx Oblivion said:
This isn't even accounting for internet speeds of connected consoles, as you touched on, in the quote below. Connected could be anything.

Some of those folks simply cannot reach broadband access from where their console is sitting.
When I first got on Xbox Live, the first thing I did was download Shivering Isles. That's the sole reason I got online in the first place, really.

Do you know how long it took to download with my internet at the time?

18 fucking hours.
Hehe, I remember when I bought Mass Effect off of Steam.

Took me 2 months of on/off downloading for it to finally finish. If I let it download and not stop it(and if my internet stayed on throughout) then it would have taken 2 straight weeks of downloading.

Thats another thing with Digital Distribution. I'm curious to see how many people are willing to sit and wait for 10+ gigabytes of data to download. I don't care how fast your internet is, downloading that much data takes a long-ass time. It'd be faster to just go to the store and buy it.
I guess the hardcore supporters of Steam all have more than 250 KB per second download speed. Usually the average should be 1 mb. So 10 GB is not that long taking into account that you can do other stuff while downloading-
 

Red Scharlach

New member
Nov 5, 2010
25
0
0
Therumancer said:
If I'm an Octogenerian in a rest home decades from now, and I decide I want to play "Fallout: New Vegas" on my antique PC which I've preserved all this time, I'm probably out of luck because 40-50 years from now there is no guarantee Valve/Steam will still be in business.
On the other hand, CDs and DVDs rot so you will be unable to play any "physical" copies either. Even though Valve might fold before any of us turn eighty, the license to distribute their games will be up for sale for eternity and it is likely that someone akin to GoG would sell them if Valve could not. Whether this means we would have to buy them again or if Steam accounts would still be recognised is of course impossible to say. Either way, games that already have a digital distribution platform are much more likely to survive the ages than games merely sold on disc.
 

Skratt

New member
Dec 20, 2008
824
0
0
Very good article. I think the video game publishers suffer from the "sales aren't big enough" syndrome that plagues the music industry. It's not that they aren't making money, it's that they aren't making enough. So we get statements like "Retail and used sales are bad, m'kay."

I love my Steam and my XBLA, but Microsoft charges me to download shit that is otherwise free if you have a PC. Plus, if you buy a digital copy on the XBLA and delete it, you have to re-buy it. Why do they do this? Because they can. That is why I hope retail never goes away. There aren't enough people willing to stand up and say "hey, that's not right, you shouldn't do that to your CUSTOMERS". Plus switching to digital only for the console market would simply give a monopoly to the console manufacturer. I mean, where else would you go to buy a digital copy of an XBOX game?

Come to think of it, that seems a bit anti-trust, doesn't it? I've heard that somewhere before...
 
Apr 28, 2008
14,634
0
0
Nikolaz72 said:
I guess the hardcore supporters of Steam all have more than 250 KB per second download speed. Usually the average should be 1 mb. So 10 GB is not that long taking into account that you can do other stuff while downloading-
That wouldn't really work out for me. As I have a brother, mother, and step-father who all use the internet. Step-father especially, since he needs the internet most of the time for work.
 

wii_about_guide

New member
Feb 9, 2010
5
0
0
This article conclusively proves the entire game distribution model will not go completely digital in the next two years. That's about it. Some points are silly - plenty of people impulse shop on the internet - and some only speak to the present - sure not everyone is connected to the Internet *now*, but how long is that really going to last? There was a time when lots of people didn't have phones, but eventually there was a phone line in every house, and now there's a phone in almost every pocket.

Most of these arguments could also be made as to why music won't go entirely digital, but the fact is the convenience of digital song purchases is changing the way we purchase music, and as more and more people shop on iTunes, we move towards a tipping point where it will no longer be worthwhile to have big stores that sell CDs.

And yes, sometimes people predict things for years and they take so long it seems ludicrous it will ever happen. 40 years ago people were predicting telephones with screens so we could see people when we talked to them. 30 years ago people were still talking about them, and it seemed like something that just wasn't going to happen. Now we have Skype, video chat and cameras on phones.

40 years from now you're going to be embarrassed you wrote this, although you may go on and on to your grandkids about how cool brick and mortar game stores were and how they're the poorer for having never experienced them.
 

kingmob

New member
Jan 20, 2010
187
0
0
Frozengale said:
You forgot one Shamus

There is also those who wish to make sure their purchases can never be taken away from them. I mean heaven forbid Steam and Valve fail, but imagine if one day Valve was looking at bankruptcy and they had to pull the plug on Steam? You could end up losing a huge portion of your library and it might even get to the point where you could never get it back no matter how hard you tried. I love digital distribution and having games, movies, books and everything else just available on my computer, but if I REALLY care about something I tend to try to get a hard copy of it lest I find that one day I can't get to my library via a computer.
It is actually the opposite. online distribution has made it MUCH easier and cheaper to access old games. I've even bought old games on Steam I already own, just because they provide me with a handy online 'always available' option and a guarantee it would run on my modern machine.
Of course what you talk about could be a problem, but you store of games would be worth little and probably would be available at a different supplier. If you ever get the itch to play an old game, it only costs a few bucks and a very short download to scratch it.
The hypothetical case you are talking about has only a small chance of happenming and it would cost you almost nothing to replace the game. This is opposed to retail, where breaking the product of yesteryear would make it almost impossible to replace because it is not available anymore.

Also, I've already run into my first DVD failures because of age, online storage doesn't age at all.
 

proghead

New member
Apr 17, 2010
118
0
0
I like reading your column better every time i do.

And you're completely right this time, too. Noting more to add really. Except that we've been there before. Wasn't cinema supposed to kill books? Wasn't TV supposed to kill the radio? They never do - only the focus shifts.
 

dls182

Viva La Squir
Jun 15, 2009
167
0
0
As one of the collectors mentioned in the article, I completely agree and hope that you're right. I dread the day I can't go down to the shops and buy a CD or game. Having something real to hold and keep is a much better feeling than having some information on a computer.

In my opinion, nothing beats a physical copy
 

aaronmcc

New member
Oct 18, 2008
629
0
0
Great article Shamus. Gotta wholeheartedly agree. Why else would I have been sitting on ebay trying to buy Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Codex Edition for the past 3 days...other than me being loser of course!
 

Clash_Action

New member
Nov 7, 2010
5
0
0
That's a quaint idea, but you are thinking in terms of what exists right now, not where technology is going to bring us.

Our current connection speeds, data storage, processor speeds, and "down" networks and connections will be totally irrelevant in the next century. Hell, what we have right now is already mind-blowing. How can you possibly think that we've reached some kind of plateau in technology?
 

Sad Face

New member
Oct 29, 2010
154
0
0
Good article. Seems well thought out, and I agree with the points.

I prefer to buy a physical copy of the game, I don't think I own one digital game. Plus, there are tonnes of games I've bought because a friend lent me their copy or brought it over with them and I got hooked, so the company got an extra sale out of it. Seems counter-productive to eliminate that possbility.

I hope that we're never totally digital.