| Digital Distrbution Guess the plans to phase out physical media is going to have to wait a few more years. The gaming industry would love to destroy the secondary used game market. No physical disc? No resale later. |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | said by Killersaurus:Guess the plans to phase out physical media is going to have to wait a few more years. The gaming industry would love to destroy the secondary used game market. No physical disc? No resale later.
Ever have a disc get scratched? Every have a disc drive go out on you? No disc drive, none of these problems. Also cost of said gaming system goes down. Less power need further reducing cost. Less cooling needs reducing costs further.
Most people here deriding digital distribution do that on their PCs ALL THE TIME. No wait let me guess you all still buy CDs then convert them.  |
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| Digital distribution destroys the concept of ownership of media. Everything is reduced to a license to play. You can swamp me with legalese telling me that's all we have now, but that is not true in the practical sense. You're trading a disc drive for a much larger hard drive and an always-on internet connection. I don't think the savings are there and that they're worth what you're giving up. imo. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast
| The delivery cost for a 4GB game (we'll assume it's small enough to fit onto a single DVD) is maybe 40 cents over a nice, expensive CDN these days. Double that if someone loses the game and has to reinstall. That amount won't even pay for the disc and jewel case for a boxed version of the game, let alone transportation etc. of the good.
If licensing for digital content starts to make sense, and pricing of said content becomes more in line with the cost to provide it, then we've got a model that everyone can agree with.
Heck, I already agree with it. I would much rather download a game and play it (whether straight or by mounting a disc image via DaemonTools) than fiddle with a disc. Then again, I have a 2TB hard drive on my primary computer, which will be replaced by a computer with a 2TB HDD and a 256GB SSD tomorrow. |
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mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI | reply to BF69
said by BF69:said by Killersaurus:Guess the plans to phase out physical media is going to have to wait a few more years. The gaming industry would love to destroy the secondary used game market. No physical disc? No resale later.
Ever have a disc get scratched? Every have a disc drive go out on you? No disc drive, none of these problems. Also cost of said gaming system goes down. Less power need further reducing cost. Less cooling needs reducing costs further. Most people here deriding digital distribution do that on their PCs ALL THE TIME. No wait let me guess you all still buy CDs then convert them. I'm still playing games that are disc that are 20 years old. How many companies will keep servers open for games they're no longer seeing any money from? I admit most aren't like me, but to take away that option is BS. The gaming industry has pushed online not only as a form of drm, but to "encourage" people to get the newest games by making it impossible to fully play your older games. Just look at EA. Multiplayer is only available through their servers. Which they just happen to shut down after a couple of years.
For pc's, there really isn't much choice other than dd's. So I do my best to buy drm-free versions of games (Amazon and GOG have been pretty good here) and back them up. And then there are cracks for other games. It's too bad that trying to back-up drm infected games technically makes me a criminal. But oh well. Oh and as far as music. I sure do buy CD's and convert them. FLAC is much better than what Apple or Amazon sells. |
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| reply to BF69
said by BF69:said by Killersaurus:Guess the plans to phase out physical media is going to have to wait a few more years. The gaming industry would love to destroy the secondary used game market. No physical disc? No resale later.
Ever have a disc get scratched? Every have a disc drive go out on you? No disc drive, none of these problems. Also cost of said gaming system goes down. Less power need further reducing cost. Less cooling needs reducing costs further. Most people here deriding digital distribution do that on their PCs ALL THE TIME. No wait let me guess you all still buy CDs then convert them. Oh, I don't think so. Certainly not on the console market.
I can typically get a new release, disc based, PS3/X360 game for $10-20 off full retail, at or within a few weeks of launch. I pre-ordered a bunch of games during E3, and they were $39.99 retail after discounts.
Those same games are available digitally for $59.99, and with Playstation Plus you can get a whopping $6 discount.
Unfortunately, by the time my ISP gets their share for data transfer, than can easily eat up the $6 discount.
On top of that, I can provide dozens of examples of digital games that are more than $20 extra than the retail counterparts - a great example is Darkness II, released on PSN for $39.99 this week. That game is over 6 mo old, and has been $19.99 in stores.
None of the above even considers the resale - while I tend to keep many games, I can trade or sell physical copies. Digital is worthless to anyone other than me once purchased. Factor that in, and digital copies are at least twice as expensive as retail, if not more.
So, no sir, digital distribution is a gaming company wet dream. Overpriced, zero resale value, and cuts out the retail store completely. No sales, no need to clear shelf space.
There is NO argument that can be made that digital distribution will in any way benefit the consumer, or lower costs overall. |
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