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gaming are physical gaming copies go the way of the dodo with digital downloading/streaming on the rise?


Mesme Rize

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As some of you might know, i recently subscribed to the Playstation Now service and i am having a great time with it playing games on it and it seems like Sony and microsoft with their Xbox Game pass push their services more and more with current gen games. Which makes me wonder, how long until physical copies become more and more obsolete?

It kinda reminds me of the rise of the MP3 format, where digital music became more convinient, while all the big music stores that still sold CDs went out of business and i feel like stores like gamestop are also losing more relevance. Gamestop is making less and less money out of their games and had to close down shops because of their dissapointing revenue, since they have been doing a nose dive since 2014.

What do you guys think

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The two main downsides to downloaded games for me are 1) that they take up more data space than the physical copy (since there's no disc or cartridge to read from, all the game's software data that makes it run has to be saved somewhere) and 2) I can't sell them when I'm forever done playing a particular game to get store credit towards a new game.

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Say you've bought and downloaded a ton of games on your Xbox. One day, you pay for an overpriced UFC fight but the stream doesn't work until the very end, and by then you'd missed everything. You call Xbox and they refund you. Then you get flagged and suspended for fraud because you wanted a refund. Your suspension is temporary, but imagine knowing now that you cannot ever get a refund because both Microsoft and Sony are terrible. Your only solution? Post about it on reddit and hope it makes it to the front page.

This is a real situation that happened, saw it on reddit earlier. Many people commented about their terrible experiences with these companies.

And if you're permanently banned? Say goodbye to your games. You can't play them ever again, unless you buy them all again.

 

Or you could buy physical copies. Microsoft or Sony banned your account for some stupid reason? You'll lose your progress but you can still put the disc in the console and play.

Or you could buy a gaming PC, if you can afford it

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The main thing, for me at least, that digital copies offer is the convenience factor. Being able to buy a game directly from the Xbox store for example, is rather convenient, as is not having to swap out discs of any kind and just booting up a game. Convenience is something that a lot of people want now in the world, which I don't really blame them for that. With how hectic life is for a lot of people, wanting that extra convenience in a hobby you enjoy is understandable.

This, in combination with the good sales and of course the game pass service and what have you, this all really does make me think that digital gaming is by far overtaking physical releases. Granted I still have plenty of physical Xbox One games but I play the digital releases more. Stores can still be competitive of course, like how I was able to get a physical copy of Final Fantasy 15 for $30 when the digital version was $50, but it is too few and far between.

3 hours ago, meme said:

Or you could buy a gaming PC, if you can afford it

The vast majority of PC gaming is digital so....I don't get it.

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Just now, meme said:

But you don't get screwed by Microsoft or Sony.

Everyone has their own horror stories with any service so for me I don't see it as applicable.

Back on topic, I will say that Xbox Game Pass seems like an incredible deal so, that is definitely a blow to physical releases.

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I'm glad that services like these exist. I just don't see the point of a physical game these days. I'm not sure if this works the same on the Xbone, but on the PS4, any game in it's entirety, whether it's physical or digital, will be saved on the HDD. IMHO, unless you have crappy internet, I see no reason to have a physical copy.

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Many stores still sell music CDs, not to mention DVDs and Blu-Rays. There will always be a market for physical media, but it will certainly shrink as digital media becomes more accessible, more convenient, and higher quality. Games don't really have an enthusiast format comparable to vinyl records or Blu-Ray, but physical media will always be popular among collectors and general enthusiasts. They're more visually impressive and offer more control, even though they're less convenient (on paper; bad streaming is of course not very convenient). The best outcome is both physical and digital formats existing in harmony. 

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I'm all for physical copies if they have neat collectibles that come with it but by and large most of the games I buy with Steam releases and the like are literally keys in boxes for the respective service so that's just extra junk for me to throw out anyway.

So yeah, getting there.

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I do think it will get there eventually, but it's going to take awhile. Personally, I don't mind buying digital copies. I like that you don't have to insert the disc every time you want to play the game. However, not being able to sell digital copies is the one downside of digital games. It's kind of preferable for me because I always end up selling my physical copies of games and then regretting it later.

Edited by joanro
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I for one favor physical copies cause I want to actually own the game I bought, not rent it at the company's discretion. The drive to make everything digital only is basically an attempt to kill the used game market, since companies make zero money off buying and selling games used. Plus, it also gives them the ability to deny access to people with weak internet connections or remove a game for any reason. Finally, you can only have so much space and games on a single hard drive without needing to upgrade, whereas storing physical copies is much easier.  

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I almost only buy physical coppies. The only games that I've bought digitally are Bloodborne and stuff on Steam. I doubt it's gonna go away soon. Lots of people still like the idea of buying a physical copy with the case and everything. Also worth noting are collectors and special editions of games and what not which people still go crazy over. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Problem: I have crappy internet. If I try to download a 30-50GB game, I'm going to have to wait a long time to play the game, as if I have a disk (with all content on it, which is a rarity nowadays), I don't have to wait. I can just play it. Bree.

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It will never get to the point where everything is all digital, except with digital only releases. Now that could be scary if all developers did this. The only time I buy digital is when it's digital only or a long time digital only, like the Shantae games. They are all digital and rarely go physical. Pirate's Curse just recently came out in physical this year and it's been out a couple years now.

Of course that's not a great example since that was supposed to be a full digital only game, but basically if I wanna play a game and there are no plans for physical I will buy digital. That's the only way. As others have said if you get a ban your library goes bye-bye if you didn't download it, and even then many games have to check a license. Even Steam does this and I only buy on Steam if there's a great sale. You can have your full library downloaded but if you haven't been online in awhile you still can't play.

And that brings me to another issue with digital. It almost always costs full price and there's less sales. The vast majority reason I buy on Steam is the sales, and you cannot buy used digital games. If you want cheaper you have to wait for a sale. You can buy used IRL and some games fall in price over time or have sales in stores way more often, while digital stay full price almost always.

Buy responsibility people!

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On 6.09.2017 at 2:24 PM, Mesme Rize said:

xbox-game-pass-vs-playstation-now.jpg

As some of you might know, i recently subscribed to the Playstation Now service and i am having a great time with it playing games on it and it seems like Sony and microsoft with their Xbox Game pass push their services more and more with current gen games. Which makes me wonder, how long until physical copies become more and more obsolete?

It kinda reminds me of the rise of the MP3 format, where digital music became more convinient, while all the big music stores that still sold CDs went out of business and i feel like stores like gamestop are also losing more relevance. Gamestop is making less and less money out of their games and had to close down shops because of their dissapointing revenue, since they have been doing a nose dive since 2014.

What do you guys think

I think physical copies will be here for quite some time. For example in Poland they tend to be cheaper than digital ones (game that costs 60 dollars on steam cost about 50 in stores). That and some people just enjoy having actual physical copy on their shelves. I don't, but I know plenty of people who do ;) Some people also still don't trust digital copies. In Poland it is still relatively common - people generally don't want to rely on internet connection, there's also fear of what happens when platfrom like steam goes down - will we get our games other way? Or are they gone along with the money? I think it will take at least few years for people to REALLY move into digital gaming market.

With music it is also difficult story - mp3 is not flawless audio format, some stores like iTunes don't even providee You with mp3 of 320 kbps quality (at least I never found an option to get those from iTunes). Also more and more new albums get their own special editions that are either strictly limited, are signed by the band, have extra tracks - something You're not going to get digital way. And that all comes with lyric book that's not obtainable digitally and better sound quality (except for dreadful sound of Death Magnetic by Metallica XD). With music I *definitely* don't see physical market disappearing entirely. It is pushed back, yes, but still alive and well. With this being said digital music is a great tool for underground bands to promote their music, even I will most likely rely on it xD 

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On 9/7/2017 at 8:45 AM, joanro said:

I do think it will get there eventually, but it's going to take awhile. Personally, I don't mind buying digital copies. I like that you don't have to insert the disc every time you want to play the game. However, not being able to sell digital copies is the one downside of digital games. It's kind of preferable for me because I always end up selling my physical copies of games and then regretting it later.

Actually depend on what games you're talking about, if you're playing on a PC then usually those gaming discs are meant to only be put in once to install the game. These kinds of discs aren't very common now in Western countries because you can just buy the game online and install it there, and a huge concern is how wasteful it is; those one or two discs don't look like much but if we're talking about games like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic where millions of copies are being sold that could be an environmental concern, especially since gamers are far less likely to send used disks back because they need it for installing – what if you for some reason uninstalled the game but changed your mind and want to re-install it? PC games are one of these cases where it's probably better to just buy it online and sacrifice a bit of your bandwidth usage. 

People need to consider not just the convenience of digital copies but its accessibility. Plenty of locations don't have easy access to actual gaming stores and even if they do there's no guarantees that the game they want is there. Digital absolutely triumphs physical in this case; as long as you have Wi-Fi you can buy any sort of game online. Another problem is environmental concerns; a single physical gaming box doesn't look like much but you have to consider many triple-A gaming companies are churning these things out in the millions every month and realize how much plastic and paper they are using. Only less than a decade ago did the video game industry opt to remove the instruction manuals from gaming boxes to save paper, but it's still a hefty use of resources. Purchasing used games is only a small fix to a large problem because not everyone sells their games back to a gaming store (also driven by the fact that if you're not selling back a popular game it's likely you won't get much money – I've sold several non-triple-A games to Gamestop before and barely got a dollar) and not everyone wants to buy a used game for various reasons. 

Furthermore, the physical game industry is dominated by triple-A companies who can readily mass produce their games. Some developers don't have the money to do that and have to stick to releasing their games online on a distribution platform until they get sufficient funding. 

I do think the market for physical gaming copies is going to dwindle; digital distribution platforms like Steam are out-competing video game retailers, much like how Amazon is slowly starving retail stores, or how years before Netflix and Redbox killed Blockbuster. Sooner or later, physical gaming copies will only gain a niche market for collectors. This only applies to Western countries, especially the US; some countries like Japan have this tendency to retain old markets long after it has died elsewhere such as cell phones or fax machines. It could just be an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" cultural idea. 

Edited by Anneal
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