NPD says that 90 percent of game sales came from physical media in the third quarter of 2009. That's console games, meaning that only 10 percent came from downloading.
I see the PC guys in the back raising their hands. Calm down, dude, as it isn't much different here. For non-console platforms, including PC and MAC, 79 percent came from physical media.
The people like you and I, the people that download and buy physical games, only account for 19 percent of all game buyers. That's still small, but it is steadily increasing, says NPD. I know that I'm more willing than ever to download a game. It has nothing to do with storage space or the environment, though. I just love the convenience. Make it even more convenient and possibly cheaper, and I think digital distribution will take off.
Report: Physical formats account for 90% of game sales [Gamesindustry.biz]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
12:20 PM on 01.13.2010
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Digital distribution is a menace. I want a disc, not a chunk of intangible code.
Agree
@Topic
Still, when I worked at Target for three years (two in electronics), I don't think I've EVER sold a physical copy of a PC game. The PC physical copy sections in retail stores are abysmal, and most are a joke/go clearance in a few weeks to compete with Steam.
@Renagade Panda: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Code is permanent? You've obviously never worked with code. So many things can go wrong with code for no apparent reason, and fixing it can either be simple or a living hell. There is nothing permanent about code, and discs are only accident prone if you don't handle them well.
I've had discs for several years, and never had them scratch. Even in my vertical 360, the 'accident prone' setup. Code, otoh, has completely f*ked me over on multiple occasions. Steam games randomly decided not to play on my PC, DLC has given me compatibility issues and glitches, downloads have gone corrupt, you get the idea.
The most expensive download game I've bought was Warhawk ($30 or $40) and I was only rebuying it because my disc cracked in my PS3.
I personally just go for which ever is cheapest at the time of purchase.
-If you buy a physical copy, you are free to make digital backups (Steam does not). With digital copies, you are the at mercy of how many copies you are ALLOWED to make.
-If you aren't satisfied with your purchase, you can return it, or sell it if you don't like it anymore. Steam says "fuck you, you bought it".
Because of the reasons I just listed, and the fact that digital distribution may just take over 100% in the near future (with devs closing left and right, why would they want to keep paying publishers? Why not open up a first party DRM/SecuROM filled online store?).
Dude, what the hell are you even talking about.
"So many things can go wrong with code for no apparent reason, and fixing it can either be simple or a living hell."
True. The DDS servers of whatever service you're using can go down I guess, or the file you download can be corrupted, but I find it hard to believe that the game source code would ever be completely destroyed. If the download doesn't work, you can always do it again later.
"There is nothing permanent about code, and discs are only accident prone if you don't handle them well."
Discs are way more accident prone than code, which really isn't even prone to accidents at all. Even if you take care of your discs, they can still be damaged by your hardware. Pretty much every disc based console I've ever heard of has had problems with damaging discs, especially the 360. If yours has worked fine (as mine has), then your lucky. One of my friends had a 360 that literally cracked a disc.
"Code, otoh, has completely f*ked me over on multiple occasions. Steam games randomly decided not to play on my PC, DLC has given me compatibility issues and glitches, downloads have gone corrupt, you get the idea."
The reason you're having problems isn't because you installed the game in a different way, it's because usually DDS games, especially Steam ones, are slightly different than their physical media counterparts. But this doesn't make DDS inherently worse (Steam is worse for other reasons). It will be the other way around for some people. My friend had a physical copy of Far Cry 2 that stopped working after he changed OSs. He never could figure out why. He got the steam version when it was $10, and it hasn't had any problems. And yes, downloads can go wrong, but guess what, you can just download it again. If I buy a "new" copy of a game that the Gamestop employees have fucked with, there's nothing I can do about it.
Wait. What fantasy land retail store lets you return opened games?
I also don't think it's completely out of the question for Steam to incorporate in the future a "trade your game to a friend" system; there's already gifting, anyway.
All I know is I can count the number of hard copies of games I've bought in the past couple of years on my hand, because they're sitting right next to me. The Saboteur (only because it never showed up on Steam), Mario Galaxy, MGS4... that's it. Apparently I'm part of the minority still, but I purchased that many games on Steam alone last month. And I deemed it awesome.
That's what I've done. I bought the Oddworld 2 Pack on Steam for like $4.
@Magnalon:
I highly doubt digital distribution will takeover. People still enjoy physical copies of products. I honestly like them better when they're in my hands. But I can see the enjoyment of not having a bunch of disks littered around.
I know gamers will go where the companies tell them, but that doesn't mean the consumer will.
Thats a lie I do understand, Greed.
I'm still hoping I can see a 20%-30% reduction on prices for digital downloads for AAA titles.
I'm not talking about PC specifically, I'm referencing experiences across all platforms, PC, 360 and PS3.
I could take the time to write a whole response, but I'm at work.
Bullshit! If you buy a Steam game or Direct2Drive game, you have access to all the backups you want. They know you bought the game, and they let you download it again if you have to. And you can't return opened games if your not satisfied, not to any place I know at least. The return policy usually states that the game has to be reopened. The only time I've ever got a refund is when I made them test the game to see if it would run and it didn't.
And yes, I guess you can sell your game later if you want to.
"-If you aren't satisfied with your purchase, you can return it, or sell it if you don't like it anymore. Steam says "fuck you, you bought it"."
Ummm, I love you buddy but you can't exactly return opened games to any store that I'm aware of just because you didn't like it, nor can you sell pc games back to stores, maybe ebay but retail chain's like Gamestop don't take pc games anymore. So there really isn't a disadvantage to purchasing from steam (other than physical media) because your going to get the same treatment at any retail outlet.
Yes. To everything you say.
I think between this and the repot stating half of consumers don't even know digital distribution is an option and less than half of those who don't use it I can once again safely assume this "boxless" future is all hype generated from companies to push their titles digitally.
I'm not anti-digitalism. I just think it should be the option, not the standard.
What I meant was you could return it to Gamestop.
I should have clarified that for all used titles, they allow you to return them, no questions asked for two weeks for a full refund.
Also, Goozex.
1. Availability. Retail stores run out of games. It's a bitch to drive to the store and find out they're out of the game you want, and it's a waste of gas money too. That isn't a problem with DDS. You do have to wait for you game to download, and sometimes the servers will be down if it's a huge release, but it's unlikely you'll have to wait longer than it takes for the stores to get games back in stock, and you don't waste money in the process. And I have no idea what the hell happened with Prey. So far it looks like an exception to the rule though.
2. Self publishing. One of my favorite games in the past 5 years is Lugaru. That's a game you would never, ever see on store shelves. Digital Downloads allow small indie developers to get their games out to the public at greatly reduced cost. This is really my favorite part about digital downloads, as it doesn't even require a specific service. A developer can just host the file on their own site. So even if you dislike DDS, you shouldn't praying for it's death, as it enables things like this to happen.
That comment actually reminded me of another perk to digital distribution. You can often get games more cheaply than you can at retail. Before and after Christmas, there were some fucking awesome deals, both in stores and online. Best Buy especially had some really attractive deals, so I and a friend went out to see what we could get. Well, we couldn't get shit, because everyone else had seen the deals to, and they were out of pretty much all the games on sale. Sure, Bioshock was still listed as $5 at Best Buy, but for all intents and purposes, it was $20 (or whatever the usual price is) because we wouldn't have access to it until after the sale was over. That wasn't a problem with Steam though.
Aw, hell no. Whassup dawg?
The NPS stopped tabulating PC game sales because they admitted they did not have enough information to do so, but now they think they have enough infor to put up a percentage like that?
Ok then.