It's quite obvious that developers and publishers prefer digital sales, almost entirely because they continue to sell retail games at $59.99 to the consumer, but the consumer has nothing to show for it aside from less space on their hard drive. With no manufacturing cost for discs, covers, cases, distribution, and so on, it is clear that digital is the best way to support the companies, as they get a much higher return on each sale. Working electronics retail has shown me the mark up on these product and many publishers(if not all) don't pack and ship to stores themselves, so there is cost for distributors, after all is done the developer only gets somewhere around $25-$35 for each $60 game sold, varying depending on the publishers cut of coarse.
With all that being said it's pretty clear that the future of gaming is likely going to be digital. I'm stuck in the past like many, clinging to the physical, not only because of the trill of the hunt while on the prowl, the nostalgia, or the true sense of ownership(being able to actually HOLD that game you just bought feels far more satisfying), but because of space limitation that accompanies the game consoles we are given. Microsoft hard drive upgrades on Xbox 360 are doable, though annoying, and Sony with the PS3 a bit more on the annoying side and also voiding warranty, luckily that generation wasn't pushing digital as hard as many may have expected.
The Xbox One and Playstation 4 both launched with 500GB hard drives and with the knowledge that ALL games would have a mandatory install, most over 40GB. This is stupid, not only are they making a nice push this time for digital(free digital upgrade here and there, tons of add on content, lots of indie or digital only release games), but it voids warranty on Xbox One to upgrade the hard drive, and surprisingly not for the Playstation 4. Microsoft dropped an idea they should have kept and Sony picked up what they should have with the Playstation 3.
All these annoyances are also joined by everyone's favorite thing about digital, licensing. If you delete a digital game you bought to make room for a new game and it is pulled from the network because one company decides not to renew their agreement, kiss your prior purchase good by.
No matter what you buy digitally, you do not own it, it simply being shared, it can even be argued that it is simply a paid file sharing service, not unlike Lime Wire or Kazza.
All that being said, I will continue to purchase new games in whatever way they are released, as well as collecting the classics I grew up with. It saddens me that the new generation of children/gamers will not be able to similar experiences we did growing up, getting a new game(rental or otherwise), and rushing home to play it with your friend next to you, trading off after each life and so on.
Welcome to the digital revolution!
honestgamer Staff Jan 13, 2015
TomatoMan Blogger Jan 13, 2015
Germ Jan 13, 2015
dementedhut Jan 13, 2015
The biggest advantage digital has over physical, in my eyes, is for preserving or rereleasing older games that are extremely hard to get. Not to mention that, physical copies of games, especially older ones bought used, degrade over time under certain circumstances.
I know there will be a day when everything goes digital, but it hasn't happened yet, so I'll keep buying physical copies.
zigfried Jan 13, 2015
People like to draw comparisons to the music industry (which still sells physical media) but they're two very different things:
1) For music, you can download one specific song if you don't want the whole CD. Videogames don't work like that.
2) For music, the price is drastically different. $1 for a song versus $15 for a physical CD. Whereas game companies let you either buy the physical version for $60, or the digital version for... $60. The physical version usually goes down in price first, too.
3) Digital is more convenient. However, we live in a very different world from when iTunes was introduced. Amazon has existed for a while, but its growth in the last few years has been exponential. Amazon can already get a game to you on release day if you preorder, and they're planning to provide same-day deliveries in the future. They're doing whatever they can to make it convenient to receive physical goods.
honestgamer Staff Jan 14, 2015
jerec Jan 14, 2015
Movies & TV shows - I have a very large DVD & BluRay collection. I never use any of those digital flyers that come with movies.
Games - indie/Steam stuff aside, the full games that are available, I only buy if they happen to be on special. Given the choice of a full priced digital or physical game, I always go physical so at least I have the option of selling/trading it in later.
overdrive Staff Jan 14, 2015
I have a lot of games. Until someone invents an INFINITE SIZE hard drive, it's not like I could fit all of them on a system. Like, if you're talking for the current gen, a 500GB HD, with games taking 40GB...that kind of detracts from having a collection when you're deleting games in order to store new ones. Besides, I like owning hard copies of stuff. I tend to take good care of games and rarely loan anything out, so pretty much any fears I'd have would be in the "act of god" category.
I use digital for Steam and XBLA/3DS shop stuff. The only pure retail game I bought digitally was Etrian Odyssey Untold because it was on sale, I had a gift card for roughly that cost and since it was a series I hadn't played before, I figured that it'd be the way to go. If I liked it, cool, if not, I could just wipe it away and pretend it didn't exist.