Is Digital Game Distribution The Future For Gaming? (Games Blog Banter)
Written by Simon Barker on June 21, 2008 · Filed under Games
“Welcome, welcome to the 6th instalment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!”
I recently tried and failed to buy Grand Theft Auto 4 in local stores around the day of release – yeah I know I should pre-ordered it a long time ago, but what can I say, every other GTA game I’ve played has been on the PC, so I’ve never experienced places having no stocks, plus I’m used to waiting at least 6 months anyway!
The Physical Issue?
This situation then got me thinking about the way games are still being distributed, I wondered how many other people like me were willing to pay for it on the day of release – I’d taken a day off work and everything! It eventually took me around 2 weeks till I found a store to buy it from – I’d have bought it from an online store before then, but I’d got that annoyed by the situation I’d decided to just wait for the PC release again, it was only because I saw it and it was only an impulse buy that meant they got my money this time around.
If I hadn’t succumbed to an impulse buy (which is rather rare for me actually) then the developers and publishers would have got much less out of me when I bought the cheaper PC version further down the line.
This whole experience really got my thinking about the actual practice of having to buy a game as a physical product. Surely, it’s becoming somewhat dated? – Even high street stores are beginning to stop stocking physical music CDs in favour of providing music downloads.
What Does This Mean to the Gaming Industry?
I just wonder how much money is also spent in producing, distributing, stocking it onto shelves and then having a shop assistant actually take your money during the transaction when you’re stood in the store buying it – having used who knows how much fuel to get there, so throw fuel prices into the mix too and you’ve got even more cost.
Combine this physical stocking issue with that of piracy, where the games publishers are always berating how many sales they lose, particularly on the PC due to people copying these physical discs and it really makes you why full retail game downloads aren’t happening more and are currently relegated to mini-games that you can buy on Xbox Live, Wii Ware Games and the like.
Valve have had their own online distribution system called Steam for a number of years and it’s good to see more games appearing this way and be able to download ahead of the release date. You can then be sure that you will be able to actually play on the day of release as is the case with the Half Life games. I’ve never had any problems with Steam system and clearly it works for Valve as I never hear about them complaining of piracy affecting their sales!
You could argue that you would want a physical disc to provide a backup of the game for when you next want to install and play the game – well I used to be someone liked to have his collection of games sat on a shelf on display, but these days I find I have enough clutter around the place without having physical game cases taking up space. Surely with increasing storage size, coupled with the reducing costs of memory cards, USB storage devices, hard disks, Blu-Ray and even that of solid-state drive technology – backing up your downloaded game shouldn’t be an issue?
Another point could be that downloaded games require online verification to play and what would you do if you don’t have internet access at that time? Admittedly, that is annoying when you lose your broadband connection, however more and more physical media games require ongoing online verification as part of their anti-piracy systems, so chances are you’re going to be in the same position with most of them soon.
A Digital Future…Soon?
Overall, with increased broadband internet speeds and increased storage, I’d much rather have my games delivered to me digitally and be able to play as soon as we reach the release date rather than going out to buy from a store or wait inside for the postal service to bring it to you (or not as the case may be).
What do you think about digital game downloads? Is it time to ditch those shiny discs that served us well for so many years, but now their days have come and gone? Embrace the digital world for more convenient game playing?
Check out these other Blog Banter articles! Living Epic, Silvercublogger, Mahogany Finish, thoughts and rants, weblog.probablynot.com, XboxOZ360, Delayed Responsibility, Gamer Unit, Hawty McBloggy
I don’t mind the clutter so much, as long as it is organized. I also relish the in person experiences the bigger name releases have to offer. I do enjoy the convenience of digital distribution, and I use it fairly often, but I’m not ready to give up my hard copies quite yet. :)
Its not time yet for the world to go digital. Maybe for some things, but not everything.
I enjoy my hard copies much better :)
Silvercubes last blog post..Blog Banter [#6] |?|Distribution Dilemma|?|
The good articles in your blog,
Hello !!! glad to see your blog
Thanks for the information :)
I still think that as long as there is some form of backup, ie. you can re-download the game for free should you lose it from your computer, like with Valve’s digital distribution Steam system, then it’s a good way forward….he says as he looks over to the shelf with a bunch of games that haven’t been touched in months!
I think they should keep both physical and digital distribution. The idea is give more options. It’s a matter of preferrence so this way it is acceptable for variety of people. [There should be more here but it's just rants] I find the second hand market very important too not only for those who can’t afford it upon release and those who want to get rid of their “clutter”, but for the collectors too. The original cover (not the cheap “Sold Out” ones), the paper manual and the mechanise (inc the limited editions). To limit it to just digital means you are destroying more than just one important niche(? might have used the wrong word).
On a seperate note: I don’t like the developers keeping tabs on me.
On a personal note: And I usually play single player mode because I like to admire the story if there is any and don’t go for multiplayer games because I am easily addicted.
It’s interesting to read this now a couple of months later. EA just announced that its digital revenue has grown by 30 percent to 570 Million and that they want to put most of their R&D into the digital business. For PC the switch seems to happen very fast. Many console games come with DLC and exploit the longtail. I’m very curios, though, how the console makers will deal with this digital trend and replace the retail partners as marketing and distribution chain.