7 ms·

As Downloads Take Over, a Turning Point for the Video Game Industry

42 points by Futurebot 11y ago

tomphoolery 11y ago
Welcome to the "shit, how are we gonna make money from this" party! Love, the music industry (in all seriousness, it was only a matter of time...we just needed the technology to do it)
- JTon 11y ago
  Not really. The article states publishers are doing great. It's the brick and mortar stores that are threatened by digital distribution. I think using HMV for music or Blockbuster for video is a better analogy
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
slimsag 11y ago
Gamestop is to Steam what Blockbuster is to Netflix, they failed to adapt and now they're obsolete. Not only that, they also have a horrible track record for customer service. The internet is littered with tales of horrible experiences from Gamestop, and the only people who might still shop there are grandparents shopping for their grandkids.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  > ...they also have a horrible track record for customer service. The internet is littered with tales of horrible experiences from Gamestop TBF, the same could be said for Steam.
  - Drakim 11y ago
    Probably, but Steam is in a growing business, not a dying one. The argument is more that not only is Gamestop in a diminishing market, people won't even miss it because they have unpleasant memories of it. If Gamestop was this cool amazing video game community hub thing that I loved, I might go there, and end up buying games while I'm there anyways.
    - CaptSpify 11y ago
      Oh yeah, totally agree. But Steam is setting themselves up for the same scenario if they don't stay at the front of the innovation game |;)
- vlunkr 11y ago
  It seems like most complaints about Gamestop aren't directed at customer service, as the employees are usually pretty nice, it's about the prices and policies. They'll buy a used game or take it as a trade in for next to nothing and then turn around and sell it at almost retail price. Lots of kids are basically throwing games away at Gamestop.
  - wernercd 11y ago
    Add to that, the fact that a lot of stuff can't be resold these days. Special gear, hats for specific versions, one time registration codes, etc. I'm all for buy low-sell high (I never sold because it wasn't worth the trade, but thats just me) - but buying from GameStop just leaves you with a gimp product. A large part of that can't be blamed on GS. Developers are all after the PreSale bonus', DLC and anything that stops secondary sales. As much as I love Steam, it is worrysome that I don't even have the option of reselling my games. (On the same token: I generally don't buy unless it's 50-75% off, so...)
    - vlunkr 11y ago
      I don't mind that fact that I can't sell Steam games, because the tradeoff is that I can download the game whenever I want and don't have to keep track of a physical copy.
- tammer 11y ago
  They really need to pivot, and I'm not seeing them do it. To me the answer is obvious: Blockbuster :: Netflix :: actual movie theatre Old Gamestop :: Steam :: new gamestop with all but the rarest used games hauled away, & using the space for pod enclosures that create individual and co-op immersive experiences, rentable by the hour while parents shop at surrounding stores, run errands, etc. Studios get immersive demos, suburban gamers have a new social activity, and gamestop continues to have a reason to exist.
  - Kronopath 11y ago
    The problem with your analogy is that while a movie can take two or three hours, a game can take dozens or hundreds, which means a lot more time spent in your "pod". It's interesting to note, however, that a variation on this idea has already come and gone: arcades. Those were the places you went to when you wanted to play a game somewhere other than your home.
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      Arcades are a pretty interesting analogy to movie theaters. The reason theaters continue to exist, is that movies are released there first. Because they make more money there. I wonder if games could release to arcades before releasing to the public. But somehow that doesn't seem quite as practical.
habitue 11y ago
Now, if only we could get rid of the DRM infesting the games industry like they did with music. It's seriously ridiculous that you can't get a refund for or resell downloaded games. The plastic disk doesn't fundamentally change anything, and they know it, otherwise they'd charge less for digital versions.
- eropple 11y ago
  You can get a refund for games sold on Steam.
  - striking 11y ago
    (as long as you've only played <2h of a game, or the game is fraudulent)
    - eropple 11y ago
      Sure, but that's pretty fair. If you've played two hours of a game, you know if it sucks or not.
      - swang 11y ago
        Until game companies decide to "game" their games by making the first two hours work perfectly, then have everything break apart after that.
        eropple 11y ago
        There has to be a line somewhere. Otherwise you endorse rampant silliness like "oh, I didn't like the artistic decisions involved in the end of Mass Effect 3 after I played thirty hours of it, I want my money back." Two hours of play is already a longer return period than most physical game retailers have offered.
  - douche 11y ago
    That is a relatively recent development though - I think only about a year. I hope it is being used to incentivize publishers to fix their shit before release, rather than dumping buggy, broken, incomplete trash on their captive pre-orders. Most of my Steam orders are sale items, so my calculus is that it really only has to give me as much enjoyment as the equally costly big coffee at Starbucks for it to be worthwhile, and that's a low bar.
moskie 11y ago
I think a harbinger of this was the fact that the latest console generation did not come with an upgrade in (physical) game medium. Previously, each console generation came with newer cartridges, then with newer disc formats (CD, then DVD, then HD-DVD / Blu Ray). But this generation just stuck with Blu Ray. That signaled to me that this may very well be the last generation to even support physical media. If this console generation lasts the typical ~7 years or so... do we expect people to still be using any physical media in the early 2020s?
- SapphireSun 11y ago
  I think the limiting factor is how much hard drive space you want to take up with coresident games. If you use a blue ray, you can load a significant amount of content from disk. Otherwise you're forcing your players to make tradeoffs based on how much space they have left which would cause first releases for a system to have a natural advantage over later releases (sales wise) as HDD space fills up. Edit: Fair enough, it seems games are doing this already, so maybe this argument isn't as valid as it used to be.
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    > If you use a blue ray, you can load a significant amount of content from disk. It should be noted that most AAA games install themselves to disk anyways to help alleviate loading times (especially in the PS4's case, as Blu-Ray is sloooow)
  - nlawalker 11y ago
    The Xbox One (and the PS4 I think, although I don't own one so I'm not sure) doesn't let you play a game off its disc - you have to install it. The only functional differences between disc games and downloads is that you can sell/loan/trade/gift disc games via the physical media, and consequently the disc has to be inserted while playing as proof of continued ownership.
  - jsight 11y ago
    I agree that the limiting factor is hard drive space. It would not have made sense to significantly increase the capacity of the drive by replacing Blu-Ray with something else. That would have just made the hard drive bottleneck even more pronounced. 500 GB really isn't enough for a heavy gamer.
port6667 11y ago
I wasn't expecting the PS4 or XBone to have any media drive, just a hdd and wireless/wired internet connection. Guess we're still a little ways away from that. I remember using Steam when it was new for HL2. I cracked open a beer to enjoy while it downloaded, happy i didn't have to drive for a half hour or so to pick up a copy at gamestop. I had good broadband. However, it took all day and evening until around 2-3 AM for it to finish downloading. Things were over saturated i guess. I didn't re-use steam until a decade later since it left such a poor impression with their one 33.6 modem uploading the game to everyone.
shmerl 11y ago
I really hope digital downloads will take over. It will reduce the influence of retail distributors who like to set skewed regional pricing that in result affects even prices in digital stores. It is often simply a rip off (ask Australians what they think about it). Surprisingly, that didn't quite happen yet. Some games like the Witcher 3 reported[1] a major percentage to be retail sales (almost 75%). I expected it to be way lower already. [1]. http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-30-of-sales-coming-from-the-pc-75-of-total-sales-from-retail/ http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-30-of-...
- wahnfrieden 11y ago
  How do digital downloads solve regional pricing?
  - shmerl 11y ago
    Skewed regional pricing is caused by retail distributors having too much influence. Most often they print physical media and distribute it in their region. And if percentage of such sales is high, they can dictate pricing to game studios. And often they set those prices high, and also require to sign a contract, that same game distributed anywhere digitally should have same regional uneven pricing. Pure digital distribution takes retailers out of the equation (or even if majority of sales are digital, retailers don't have strong influence anymore), and developers can easily set prices any way they want - for instance one flat price everywhere if they wish.
- bsilvereagle 11y ago
  > I really hope digital downloads will take over. There are lots of people on capped satellite/3G/"water tower" internet who enjoy gaming that are going to be cut out of the market if consoles go to a pure digital distribution system. Additionally, gamers in very remote locations (submarines, remote foreign villages, etc) couldn't have the latest releases mailed to them. Somehow they'd have to find a broadband connection. It doesn't make much sense to eliminate a class of paying customers by switching to 100% digital distribution.
bhewes 11y ago
When there is finally a functioning secondary market for digital goods they will be on par with physical goods.
zaroth 11y ago
I am surprised by how bad the Store is on the Xbox One. I did not find much there, and the interface, oh wow it is so bad. Then the servers start crapping out and simple local games fall over, sync issues, just all sorts of problems. It has not been a smooth experience, but even still I'm thinking, what's the point of getting in a car and driving to a store? There needs to be a reason to go there other than because disks are physical media. But the store will have to radically transform to serve a purpose. As for reselling games, this just gives any game with online content tied to an account an inherent advantage. Charging every user can be done with or without physical media. If the static data itself commands a price, probably you are doing it wrong. You want people to pass that around for free as a favor.
lectrick 11y ago
I haven't bought physical media of any sort in years, but I also live in an area where I have FIOS and I can afford large hard drives/SSD's. Those are really the limiting factors, I think.

42 points by Futurebot 11y ago

Welcome to the "shit, how are we gonna make money from this" party! Love, the music industry (in all seriousness, it was only a matter of time...we just needed the technology to do it)

JTon 11y ago
Not really. The article states publishers are doing great. It's the brick and mortar stores that are threatened by digital distribution. I think using HMV for music or Blockbuster for video is a better analogy
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

slimsag 11y ago

Gamestop is to Steam what Blockbuster is to Netflix, they failed to adapt and now they're obsolete. Not only that, they also have a horrible track record for customer service. The internet is littered with tales of horrible experiences from Gamestop, and the only people who might still shop there are grandparents shopping for their grandkids.

CaptSpify 11y ago
> ...they also have a horrible track record for customer service. The internet is littered with tales of horrible experiences from Gamestop TBF, the same could be said for Steam.
- Drakim 11y ago
  Probably, but Steam is in a growing business, not a dying one. The argument is more that not only is Gamestop in a diminishing market, people won't even miss it because they have unpleasant memories of it. If Gamestop was this cool amazing video game community hub thing that I loved, I might go there, and end up buying games while I'm there anyways.
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    Oh yeah, totally agree. But Steam is setting themselves up for the same scenario if they don't stay at the front of the innovation game |;)
vlunkr 11y ago
It seems like most complaints about Gamestop aren't directed at customer service, as the employees are usually pretty nice, it's about the prices and policies. They'll buy a used game or take it as a trade in for next to nothing and then turn around and sell it at almost retail price. Lots of kids are basically throwing games away at Gamestop.
- wernercd 11y ago
  Add to that, the fact that a lot of stuff can't be resold these days. Special gear, hats for specific versions, one time registration codes, etc. I'm all for buy low-sell high (I never sold because it wasn't worth the trade, but thats just me) - but buying from GameStop just leaves you with a gimp product. A large part of that can't be blamed on GS. Developers are all after the PreSale bonus', DLC and anything that stops secondary sales. As much as I love Steam, it is worrysome that I don't even have the option of reselling my games. (On the same token: I generally don't buy unless it's 50-75% off, so...)
  - vlunkr 11y ago
    I don't mind that fact that I can't sell Steam games, because the tradeoff is that I can download the game whenever I want and don't have to keep track of a physical copy.
tammer 11y ago
They really need to pivot, and I'm not seeing them do it. To me the answer is obvious: Blockbuster :: Netflix :: actual movie theatre Old Gamestop :: Steam :: new gamestop with all but the rarest used games hauled away, & using the space for pod enclosures that create individual and co-op immersive experiences, rentable by the hour while parents shop at surrounding stores, run errands, etc. Studios get immersive demos, suburban gamers have a new social activity, and gamestop continues to have a reason to exist.
- Kronopath 11y ago
  The problem with your analogy is that while a movie can take two or three hours, a game can take dozens or hundreds, which means a lot more time spent in your "pod". It's interesting to note, however, that a variation on this idea has already come and gone: arcades. Those were the places you went to when you wanted to play a game somewhere other than your home.
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    Arcades are a pretty interesting analogy to movie theaters. The reason theaters continue to exist, is that movies are released there first. Because they make more money there. I wonder if games could release to arcades before releasing to the public. But somehow that doesn't seem quite as practical.

habitue 11y ago

Now, if only we could get rid of the DRM infesting the games industry like they did with music. It's seriously ridiculous that you can't get a refund for or resell downloaded games. The plastic disk doesn't fundamentally change anything, and they know it, otherwise they'd charge less for digital versions.

eropple 11y ago
You can get a refund for games sold on Steam.
- striking 11y ago
  (as long as you've only played <2h of a game, or the game is fraudulent)
  - eropple 11y ago
    Sure, but that's pretty fair. If you've played two hours of a game, you know if it sucks or not.
    - swang 11y ago
      Until game companies decide to "game" their games by making the first two hours work perfectly, then have everything break apart after that.
      - eropple 11y ago
        There has to be a line somewhere. Otherwise you endorse rampant silliness like "oh, I didn't like the artistic decisions involved in the end of Mass Effect 3 after I played thirty hours of it, I want my money back." Two hours of play is already a longer return period than most physical game retailers have offered.
- douche 11y ago
  That is a relatively recent development though - I think only about a year. I hope it is being used to incentivize publishers to fix their shit before release, rather than dumping buggy, broken, incomplete trash on their captive pre-orders. Most of my Steam orders are sale items, so my calculus is that it really only has to give me as much enjoyment as the equally costly big coffee at Starbucks for it to be worthwhile, and that's a low bar.

moskie 11y ago

I think a harbinger of this was the fact that the latest console generation did not come with an upgrade in (physical) game medium. Previously, each console generation came with newer cartridges, then with newer disc formats (CD, then DVD, then HD-DVD / Blu Ray). But this generation just stuck with Blu Ray. That signaled to me that this may very well be the last generation to even support physical media. If this console generation lasts the typical ~7 years or so... do we expect people to still be using any physical media in the early 2020s?

SapphireSun 11y ago
I think the limiting factor is how much hard drive space you want to take up with coresident games. If you use a blue ray, you can load a significant amount of content from disk. Otherwise you're forcing your players to make tradeoffs based on how much space they have left which would cause first releases for a system to have a natural advantage over later releases (sales wise) as HDD space fills up. Edit: Fair enough, it seems games are doing this already, so maybe this argument isn't as valid as it used to be.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  > If you use a blue ray, you can load a significant amount of content from disk. It should be noted that most AAA games install themselves to disk anyways to help alleviate loading times (especially in the PS4's case, as Blu-Ray is sloooow)
- nlawalker 11y ago
  The Xbox One (and the PS4 I think, although I don't own one so I'm not sure) doesn't let you play a game off its disc - you have to install it. The only functional differences between disc games and downloads is that you can sell/loan/trade/gift disc games via the physical media, and consequently the disc has to be inserted while playing as proof of continued ownership.
- jsight 11y ago
  I agree that the limiting factor is hard drive space. It would not have made sense to significantly increase the capacity of the drive by replacing Blu-Ray with something else. That would have just made the hard drive bottleneck even more pronounced. 500 GB really isn't enough for a heavy gamer.

port6667 11y ago

I wasn't expecting the PS4 or XBone to have any media drive, just a hdd and wireless/wired internet connection. Guess we're still a little ways away from that. I remember using Steam when it was new for HL2. I cracked open a beer to enjoy while it downloaded, happy i didn't have to drive for a half hour or so to pick up a copy at gamestop. I had good broadband. However, it took all day and evening until around 2-3 AM for it to finish downloading. Things were over saturated i guess. I didn't re-use steam until a decade later since it left such a poor impression with their one 33.6 modem uploading the game to everyone.

shmerl 11y ago

I really hope digital downloads will take over. It will reduce the influence of retail distributors who like to set skewed regional pricing that in result affects even prices in digital stores. It is often simply a rip off (ask Australians what they think about it). Surprisingly, that didn't quite happen yet. Some games like the Witcher 3 reported[1] a major percentage to be retail sales (almost 75%). I expected it to be way lower already. [1]. http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-30-of-sales-coming-from-the-pc-75-of-total-sales-from-retail/ http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-30-of-...

wahnfrieden 11y ago
How do digital downloads solve regional pricing?
- shmerl 11y ago
  Skewed regional pricing is caused by retail distributors having too much influence. Most often they print physical media and distribute it in their region. And if percentage of such sales is high, they can dictate pricing to game studios. And often they set those prices high, and also require to sign a contract, that same game distributed anywhere digitally should have same regional uneven pricing. Pure digital distribution takes retailers out of the equation (or even if majority of sales are digital, retailers don't have strong influence anymore), and developers can easily set prices any way they want - for instance one flat price everywhere if they wish.
bsilvereagle 11y ago
> I really hope digital downloads will take over. There are lots of people on capped satellite/3G/"water tower" internet who enjoy gaming that are going to be cut out of the market if consoles go to a pure digital distribution system. Additionally, gamers in very remote locations (submarines, remote foreign villages, etc) couldn't have the latest releases mailed to them. Somehow they'd have to find a broadband connection. It doesn't make much sense to eliminate a class of paying customers by switching to 100% digital distribution.

bhewes 11y ago

When there is finally a functioning secondary market for digital goods they will be on par with physical goods.

zaroth 11y ago

I am surprised by how bad the Store is on the Xbox One. I did not find much there, and the interface, oh wow it is so bad. Then the servers start crapping out and simple local games fall over, sync issues, just all sorts of problems. It has not been a smooth experience, but even still I'm thinking, what's the point of getting in a car and driving to a store? There needs to be a reason to go there other than because disks are physical media. But the store will have to radically transform to serve a purpose. As for reselling games, this just gives any game with online content tied to an account an inherent advantage. Charging every user can be done with or without physical media. If the static data itself commands a price, probably you are doing it wrong. You want people to pass that around for free as a favor.

lectrick 11y ago

I haven't bought physical media of any sort in years, but I also live in an area where I have FIOS and I can afford large hard drives/SSD's. Those are really the limiting factors, I think.