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[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Funny, I was more or less all digital until the coronavirus hit the fan. Since then, I had countless incidents where my ISP wasn't able to provide me with a stable connection. That made me think. If I have to stay at home but can't rely on my ISP, downloading games is a problem. That's why I'm currently meditating reverting back to physical (for music, too).

 

[drotahorror]

Hold my Nintendo

I barely trust Sony to keep their servers up and let me download games in 5 or 10 years. I definitely don't trust Nintendo though. I feel comfortable with Valve/Steam being around for a long time and letting me download my library. Same with Microsoft, even though their W10 store is garbage.

 

[sendit]

Lol I remember before this gen started people were saying it was gonna be the last gen with physical. These people keep pushing the goalpost further and further hoping next time they'll be right.

U.S. computer and video game sales - digital vs. physical 2018 | Statista

In today’s increasingly digital world where information can be accessed in seconds, gamers do not want to waste a second before getting their hands on the latest releases.

www.statista.com

 

[kraspkibble]

Hopefully true. Physical media is archaic. The sooner it disappears the better.

Microsoft + Sony should release all digital XSX + PS5. Make them a bit cheaper too! If people still want to live in the past then let them pay for it.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Before covid and all this shit I would've said nah. Nowadays? Probably yeah if things get worse.

 

[sendit]

Ah, and when that happens all digital games are available forever and ever, surely? Right? No game is ever going to be pulled from any service or store again?

And we'll be able to sell our used games digitally, yeah? Even if the games are tied to our accounts, when we sell the console?

Yeah... Whatever, just like a lot of you guys have already replied, if that would ever happen that's when I quit gaming.

PC/Mobile games are 100% digital. No one has quit gaming because of it. You'll have people that will cry and moan just like the removal of the 3.5mm jack. An all digital distribution model is inevitable.

 

[Strider Highwind]

I mean....I have over hundreds of games on my xbox one x and ps4

My steam library has been building since the thing started and its even more games in their than wht I have on those consoles

And i've got a ridiculous amount of games for my Switch too.

And I haven't bought a digital game since I bought the physical copy of Sunset Overdrive on xbox one.

Physical games for me ended years ago tbh. I used to be big on collecting but the convenience of purchasing a digital copy, preloading it, and being able to play the moment it releases was a better benefit than standing in lines, waiting on shipping etc

 

[Strider Highwind]

PC/Mobile games are 100% digital. No one has quit gaming because of it. You'll have people that will cry and moan just like the removal of the 3.5mm jack. An all digital distribution model is inevitable.

You're spot on

I understand those who want/love their physical copies...but I also know with the way technology is moving that the digital delivery of content is the future. Hell we were kids watching the Jetsons cartoon and I remember an episode where Judy clicked a few buttons on the stereo in her room and the songs from whatever fictional artist she wanted loaded right up

I hope physical games continue, but the trends in technology period have been leaning towards a future where physical media will become a thing of the past.

 

[phil_t98]

I have been all digital this gen on both consoles. The sales they have on the digital stores are to good at times. It’s good having access to your whole library at anytime

 

[xrnzaaas]

Hopefully true. Physical media is archaic. The sooner it disappears the better.

Microsoft + Sony should release all digital XSX + PS5. Make them a bit cheaper too! If people still want to live in the past then let them pay for it.

The fact it's an older technology doesn't automatically mean it's redundant. Good luck selling digital games you didn't enjoy after all, easily sharing them between friends or buying a game that's been delisted.

 

[Eimran]

The day gaming goes all digital is the day I quit and go retro.

 

[Ma-Yuan]

If physical games are gone I see no reason for console gaming anymore. I like to collect games. And since Sony and Ms shift their games also to PC I could just buy a gaming pc and call it day for the absolut block busters I liked to play on PC and collect retro games. I also buy a lot more games then I can handle because I like to collect or wanna play them one day which never happens. If it's all digital I would surely buy less because I would really just buy what I can play currently. They might not have thought that 100% through I guess a lot people are like me. The normal attack rate per console is like 10 games. Most consoles I own games for I have more then 100 games for... But the vast majority I never managed to play

 

[existensmaximum]

PC/Mobile games are 100% digital. No one has quit gaming because of it. You'll have people that will cry and moan just like the removal of the 3.5mm jack. An all digital distribution model is inevitable.

You don't see me playing PC or mobile, do you? I'm not talking about other people, I don't care what they do.

I, personally, will quit console gaming if there's no physical media.

 

[Max_Po]

Hold my Nintendo

I barely trust Sony to keep their servers up and let me download games in 5 or 10 years. I definitely don't trust Nintendo though. I feel comfortable with Valve/Steam being around for a long time and letting me download my library. Same with Microsoft, even though their W10 store is garbage.

In reality games from my "Games for Windows" client have disappeared.

 

[Dargor]

These dudes dont even try to be right anymore, huh? Next gen already makes it mandatory for physical media to be available for at least 6 to 7 more years...

 

[sendit]

You don't see me playing PC or mobile, do you? I'm not talking about other people, I don't care what they do.

I, personally, will quit console gaming if there's no physical media.

 

[Paracelsus]

I believe him, I have never seen so many people shill for anti-consumer practices like this gen.
If they said "you are not paying for the game, but for a 3 year deal, then you have to renew it for full price or lose the game" people would still agree to it because they don't quite own it anyway.

 

[sublimit]

Please have a little patience greedy publishers. They will go away (because gamers are idiots) but not that soon.

 

[DonF]

Naah, son.

Physical media changes and evolves, but doesn't disappear.

 

[HighResTomato]

Have a look at how this guys company nickel and dime you for everything in £40 games.

frontier is a trash tier studio and need to fuck off to obscurity for their handling of ED.

 

[LarknThe4th]

I don't think that any next-gen game will be fully on the disc. They will all need extra downloads, due to size.

Feels pointless collecting physical when they don't even contain the full game.

This is the main thrust of the argument for me. Physical media sales are going down at a steady clip, but besides that, the actual medium is becoming insufficient(whether you agree with developers taking up gigs and gigs of seemingly unnecessary space on a disc is besides the point) for developers

 

[Slings and Arrows]

This is why Microsoft keeps losing, there are more markets in the world than US and UK

 

[Hendrick's]

This is the last gen of physical for sure. 2-3 years is a bit too soon, but digital sales have surpassed physical now though, so the writing is on the wall.

 

[diffusionx]

Physical media is already dead, games don’t run off the disc, and the game on the disc is almost never the actual finished game. It’s just a technicality at this point. The discs are just a form of DRM, basically.

It would not surprise me at all if, at some point, a PS5/XSX came comes out with just a code in the box, like PC games today.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

COVID merely made Digital an alternative option to buying a Physical version in shops that were mostly closed.

Even Nintendo acknowledges that Animal Crossing had better Digital Sales because of this.

The CEO juat looked at Data from when Lockdown happened and not that Physical trends are going down over many years. It probably is trending down but not at a fast pace.

We have at least 10 years before it re-emerges 10 years after that just like Vinyl sales.

 

[diffusionx]

COVID merely made Digital an alternative option to buying a Physical version in shops that were mostly closed.

Even Nintendo acknowledges that Animal Crossing had better Digital Sales because of this.

The CEO juat looked at Data from when Lockdown happened and not that Physical trends are going down over many years. It probably is trending down but not at a fast pace.

We have at least 10 years before it re-emerges 10 years after that just like Vinyl sales.

Digital sales have been going up for years. Digital went from being a rounding error at the end of PS3/360 to 50%+ of sales, and that’s even before COVID. Once you factor in DLC and all that, it’s more like 90%.

It is why GameStop is struggling so much, half their market disappeared in a few years.

 

[Ceadeus]

Next gen have only 1TB of space. A single game right now can get to 120gb. Unless we're talking about streaming, I don't see myself having to download a deleted game again and again, at their size.

Then, there is this practice I found to be anti consumer which is, digital price point. The profit for a digital copy is higher because tHe shipping cost and the seller cost is subtracted. Digital games are sold the same price as physical.

To conclude, I'm not sure that everyone is willing to let go their physical library because it's obvious that it is worth something to not rely on online services that may go down, getting hack or any other reason.

 

[Md Ray]

Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Dave.

 

[Quezacolt]

If that happens, im done too. Even with this pandemic, i kept buying physical editions of my games. I dont have the internet speed nowadays that allows me to donwload a 100GB in just a few hours, it can take days for me, but even when i had 400Mb internet, i still only bought te physical versions.

 

[drotahorror]

In reality games from my "Games for Windows" client have disappeared.

In my reality, I still have to use the store to download Forza Horizon 3 and 4

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

PC/Mobile games are 100% digital. No one has quit gaming because of it. You'll have people that will cry and moan just like the removal of the 3.5mm jack. An all digital distribution model is inevitable.

Of course not, there's still a physical option present...
Let's not pretend like console and PC gamers are the same either, all the collectors are on console, the comparison is irrelevant.

 

[Appleprosy]

Nah.

The same is said for all media.

 

[Fake]

Thanks. Physical is holding digital back with mandated price parity to keep retail alive and willing to sell games, with street dates that never work, with fixed release dates because of disc production.

Imagine being that dumb...

 

[GetemMa]

I understand why people like physical media but it's simply not practical for videogames anymore, especially next gen when game file sizes are going to explode because of the the new 4k standard. You will get a really unfinished or maybe even sub UHD version of the game on your disc and the game won't contain the last 2 months of development, which will almost certainly be required to play it properly. Maybe discs can save some people some data on their internet data plans but that's probably the only good reason to keep discs around. It's an archaic way of transferring data to a console or PC or anything else.

 

[sublimit]

I seemed to remember that Braben had been very anti-physical for a long time and he had expressed many years ago his hatred for physical (and love for digital-only).
After digging a bit i finally found an interview that he did back in 2012.I'm pretty sure there was a thread here about that interview.

Here are some cute things he said blaming physical copies for killing single player games.As i said this is from back in 2012:

The real problem when you think about it brutally, if you look at just core gamer games, preowned has really killed core games. In some cases, it's killed them dead. I know publishers who have stopped games in development because most shops won't reorder stock after initial release, because they rely on the churn from the resales. I won't buy a preowned game out of principle.

Of course, none of that revenue or chart position gets recorded, or VAT [value-added tax]... it's borderline whether that's legitimate. But it's killing single player games in particular, because they will get preowned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk. I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it.

It's really no wonder that he was in bed with MS and Don Mattrick back in the launch days of XB1,making digital-only shovelware and shilling for Kinect:

Nowadays, would Call of Duty happen without multiplayer? It's almost as if the single player is now the tickbox. And in the same way, with time, Kinect is a very interesting thing that's not trivial to engage with, but when you do, it's great. And I think like with the multiplayer, Kinect is still early on, and I think people are just starting to personally believe in it, and also starting to realize that there are some great additive things that you can do with it.

news

news

gamasutra.com

And last but not least he was also blaming used games for affecting Game quality.This is from back in 2008:

"Five years ago, a great game would have sold for a longer period of time than for a bad game -- which was essentially our incentive to make great games," says Braben.

"But no longer," he continues. "Now publishers and developers just see revenue the initial few weeks regardless of the game's quality, and then gamers start buying used copies, which generates money that goes into GameStop's pocket, nobody else's."

Braben adds that the growing resale market will affect the genre of games that studios plan to develop. He believes that studios will develop fewer single-player and action games, as they can be completed quickly and then resold.

As Recession Deepens, Used Games Get More Painful

Gamasutra goes in-depth on the used game controversy, with analyst stats on top resale genres and Frontier's David Braben weighing in on why the resale market keeps game prices "artificially high".

www.gamasutra.com

That is David Braben for you, a guy who has been blaming the physical market for killing single player games (lol) ever since 2008 and also blaming them for the quality of any shitty game out there.

 

[darkinstinct]

I swear I hear this every 2 years and it always turns out to be a wrong prediction. I don't see media you can hold in your hand going away for at least a decade. It may be more limited but there will always be a market for the collector who wants to hold his purchase in his hand.,

It's important to note who this is coming from. Frontier is indie, the whole move to digital only has long ago started. How many AA indie games do you actually see in retail?
And the reason is that for an indie who sells maybe 500.000 copies there is no scenario where producing discs for 250.000 people and shipping them around the world is an enticing idea that makes you more money.
The majority of console games already never see a retail release. And for big publishers there will be a time where physical makes no sense either. Consoles are just following PC ten years delayed. When is the last time a retail game did not need a beefy day 1 patch? Physical releases are an illusion. In a few years the physical copy of a game will be nothing but a card with a download code. Just like PC.

 

[sobaka770]

I think it might take a bit longer but the wiring is really on the wall. playing with disc inside and swapping is not a great experience. And that's coming from someone who at one time loved physical collectors editions and who still thinks that 4k Blu Ray movies are much better than streaming and to me with the investment.

For videogames even 4k disks are not sufficient anymore. Steam has killed physical PC releases and it's only a matter of time that it comes to consoles.

 

[EightBit Man]

Physical Games Are Thriving In The UK, Strongest April Sales Recorded In Five Years

And March was even better

www.nintendolife.com

 

[EightBit Man]

These corporate scumbags already have way too much influence over our hobby, and the lack of technological breakthroughs of physical media only furthers it, this slow erosion of personal property. They can't wait for the day you totally lack any control over your library and consumption of them.

 

[hybrid_birth]

As a gamefly user this sucks if physical ever goes away. Renting is the main way I play all the new releases. I can't afford to buy all these games. Worst case scenario is that I wait months for prices to come down.

 

[turtlepowa]

I think he is right and that's why Microsoft is pushing Game Pass and Sony will PS push Now. It will take more than 2-3 years, but not much. 20 years ago nobody would have imagined that phyical pc game will be gone soon, but then came Steam.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Didn't they say the EXACT same thing at the start of this current console generation?

 

[BigBooper]

Bulldoodoo.

 

[BigBooper]

I think he is right and that's why Microsoft is pushing Game Pass and Sony will PS push Now. It will take more than 2-3 years, but not much. 20 years ago nobody would have imagined that phyical pc game will be gone soon, but then came Steam.

When Steam came along pc gaming was completely different than console gaming was then or is now. PC games were already getting inundated with draconian drm at that point, so the expectation that physical games would work in the future was already dying. Very few have that same kind of hesitation about physical console games currently.

 

[sublimit]

As a gamefly user this sucks if physical ever goes away. Renting is the main way I play all the new releases. I can't afford to buy all these games. Worst case scenario is that I wait months for prices to come down.

95% of the physical games that i buy are new. Some on day 1 (sometimes i'll even buy a CE) and some later on when they drop a bit in price.

When they will finally kill physical and there will be only digital and streaming "services" i will NEVER buy a game on day 1 ever again. I will be also buying much much less games. Only what is absolutely essential from companies i trust. And even those i will be buying only when they drop below €20.

And when they will also kill digital and everything will be streaming services like Stadia/Netflix i will quit new games and i'll be focusing on what i have.

 

[turtlepowa]

When Steam came along pc gaming was completely different than console gaming was then or is now. PC games were already getting inundated with draconian drm at that point, so the expectation that physical games would work in the future was already dying. Very few have that same kind of hesitation about physical console games currently.

We are already half way there with digital sales. If i'm correct in 2019 Sony sold globally more than 50% of the games digital and in some countries like UK 80%. I think it will be faster than some people think and if Sony/Microsoft will offer the option to resell digital games it will be very fast since the main reason for people wanting physical games is the possilbility to trade and resell.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Games are getting so much bigger now, I can only imagine they will be download only to save on the cost of materials.

 

[Neff]

1) There will always be a collector's market
2) You can buy a boxed game without going to a shop

 

[GeorgPrime]

David Braben: "Physical games will go away in two to three years"

The age of physical video games is coming to an end.That's according to David Braben, founder and CEO of Elite Dangerou…

www.gamesindustry.biz

It everything is connected on Blockchain and i can buy and resell digital.... fine.

If not... fuck off.

Games are getting so much bigger now, I can only imagine they will be download only to save on the cost of materials.

ANd you will continue paying full price for them like a retail version

 

[Thaedolus]

I don’t really give a fuck either way to be honest. The only games I buy used are ancient and I learned long ago not to sell games, so that changes the buy/sell equation. The only thing that matters after that is whether or not I can still download games on my shit years down the road, but by the time that comes around I assume there will be other options to get my content.

Right now I’m buying like 90% of my shit digital only and it’s convenient as hell