Most of the people reading this right now download games on a pretty regular basis I would assume. I would also assume that the market for downloadable games is pretty good since even Nintendo has a service, so the format must be making a profit. Still, a handful of downloadable games is a far cry from all out digital distribution of AAA titles, and GameStop seems to believe that we've got a long way to go before it becomes a an "addressable market."
Citing a recent GameStop study that they called "the most thorough study to date on [the capability of digital distribution]," Sterne Agee analyst Avind Bhati told IndustryGamers that only 25 percent of the population will have access to the technology for digital distribution and even then there will be major issues with distribution and storage space. Overall "Management... feels that digital growth and brick and mortar growth can co-exist" and is simply not that worried about it.
As a member of a community that is usually on the forefront of all things technological it's easy to call BS on this as the PSPgo is all digital retail and Microsoft has just announced Games on Demand, but taking a step out of this gaming mecca we call Destructoid and looking at it from a real world perspective, it's very true that the technology is in its infancy stages, and that the majority of the population isn't going to be adopting it in large waves any time soon.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
10:00 PM on 06.20.2009
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Even if GameStop has a bunch of stupid employees, it still is a nice place to talk with other guys/girls about games to check out etc.
( yes i know thats probably what they were saying about newspapers a few year sago so please dont bring it up )
Everyone who posts one here is a gamer, has a console, has the internet (obviously), and therefore likely downloads games or game content.
The amount of people I know who own an console but don't have an internet connection or just don't have it hooked up might surprise you. For some, digital is not a priority, and buying retail just makes sense.
Though GameStop would be foolish not to plan for the expansion of internet use (and thus digital distribution), it's not too hard to believe that a lot of people don't take advantage of it. I guess one of the reasons Sony/ MS/ Nintendo keep doing it is because it's low cost.
So many people are missing out though, some of the greatest games of the last year or so have been strictly downloadable.
I love having a pile of boxes.
Besides... what will happen to the retail stores?
If the console industry becomes more and more similar to PC games, I sincerely hope that they keep selling retail copies alongside their Steam-esque distribution models.
There's also the question about broadband availability; it's still not as widespread as people think. Downloading a game like Wolrd of Goo or Audiosurf isn't too much of a big deal, but something like Left 4 Dead on Steam is a big ask for people who don't have Broadband. With these people, it's not a matter of preferring a retail copy, it's their only choice.
Honestly, I don't understand this attachment to buying games through a retail outlet. Especially since most games' boxes are composed of the instruction manual, the box itself, and the game. I like that, don't get me wrong, but both of those things can be replicated digitally. No, you're not holding them in your hand, but they're also not cluttering up your house OR easily breakable. You can't break a Steam file, but you can sure as shit step on a flimsy disc.
Now, I know people like collector's editions. I'm no different. But how many collector's editions have you seen that ACTUALLY justify the extra cost? An extra cost that wouldn't even exist if games were all digitally distributed?
GameStop is holding video games back. They're making our hobby more expensive than it needs to be, burying niche titles, and cluttering our homes with useless hunks of plastic. I'll continue to give them my money as long as a lot of the games I want aren't released digitally, but I will not weep when they finally go belly-up.
And frankly, if GameStop ordered the study, there's absolutely no guarantee that they aren't just trying to placate their shareholders with this "in-depth study."
for those of us who aren't living in armpit towns and have a solid internet connection, it's embarrassing that we STILL don't have digital distribution at least as a functioning alternative.
also, though i know this is based on zero solid fact, don't you think that removing certain costs like printing pages and pages of manuals and stupid plastic boxes would leave more room to either charge less for the game or put much more design work into the game itself?
also: newspapers. you [i]know[/] how this is going to end.
i want the choice.
Beside, downloading triple-A titles will require a lot more high speed in more areas - downloading a game like Killzone 2 would take forever. Why do that when you can just take a trip to the store, grab the disc, come home and play?
But, I do agree that in the end, games will turn into what mp3s turned the music industry into. It's just a matter of time as infrastructure improves.
Also, all my UMDs got stolen along with my old PSP when my house got robbed, so there's nothing really keeping me from getting a Go! when it comes out.
Also, what happens to used games? I like being able to pick up last-gen games for 5$ a game. Then there's the problem of old games, when the system dies, what happens to the servers you download the games from? Do they go away, or do they stay relatively the same price as when they were released?
http://3rdpoblogs.com/colderice/2009/02/25/the-business-of-video-games-has-new-avenues-for-distribution-with-dawdle/
The you've got something like credit cards to deal with. Plenty still don't have one. And a large amount of gamers are under 18. Even then, how many 18 year olds have a credit card? And you've still got those paranoid ones who won't dare use their credit card online for anything.
And we've still got to rely on hardware anyway. A lot of people still have 20Gb HDDs for the 360. How many games could they fit in it? And MS still charge ridiculous prices for their 360 HDDs. Digital distribution is all well and dandy but what happens when your 360/PS3/PC is full up? Go off and pay for another HDD?
And casual gaming. As long as that lives, retail lives. More times I've seen some casual gamer over the age of 50 go in and ask "have you got a nintendo machine?" They don't even know the wiis name. Imagine trying to teach most of them even the concept of digital downloads online. And they're such a major profit to the games industry too.
And then you've got the DRM crap.
Just so much crap to sort before considering digital distribution as the norm.