
As Downloads Take Over, a Turning Point for the Video Game Industry - Futurebot
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/technology/as-downloads-take-over-a-turning-point-for-the-video-game-industry.html?ref=business
======
slimsag
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.

~~~
vlunkr
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
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
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.

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moskie
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
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.

~~~
jsight
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.

~~~
SapphireSun
Luckily 4TB hard drives are on the market these days, however, their price
alone would contribute significantly to the MSRP of the console.

~~~
techdragon
Yeah, at their level of bulk purchasing, it wouldn't. Cost on a Blue ray
drive, cost of discs packaging, etc... All put together they would save. But
they got bitten pretty hard by the "how dare you not let me sell my old games"
crowd. That seems to have deterred them from "download only" distribution.

~~~
jonknee
The costs of discs and distribution don't come back to the console makers (for
most titles). The hardware does and a Blu Ray drive is dirt cheap.

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port6667
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
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-...](http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-30-of-
sales-coming-from-the-pc-75-of-total-sales-from-retail/)

~~~
bsilvereagle
> 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.

~~~
voltagex_
It's a "problem" even for people on wired net connections.

I've got ~10/1 ADSL (nominally 8 megabits on a good day). This console
generation is really testing the limits of my bandwidth - Halo 5 is 60+ GB,
and it doesn't help when you've got errors like
[http://www.iinet.net.au/status/4438711](http://www.iinet.net.au/status/4438711)
happening. 60GB would take 16 hours which is overnight-and-a-bit.

Unfortunately the One is not fault tolerant at _all_. I'll turn it on in the
morning and it won't have started at all (despite having the settings right
for "download while in low power mode).

I can't imagine using the Xbox One as a download-only console if you're on
anything less than true unlimited data (I did 400GB of XBox/Netflix content
alone last month).

I should put this in a blog post at some point but I'm seeing this more and
more from Microsoft and Google - assume everyone's on 100MB+ connections.

e.g.

* OneDrive has no LAN sync, placeholder files have been removed so you can't even have your files available "on demand"

* Google removing SD card support left right and centre.

~~~
shmerl
_> It's a "problem" even for people on wired net connections_

Legacy DSL is indeed a problem for that. High end games (and PC ones are even
more so than console ones) are huge.

As I wrote below - DRM free games can solve this with services which will just
ship you a game on flash storage on demand. DRMed ones however (and most
current consoles are sick with DRM) would have an issue with such method. Your
option could be ditching such consoles and sticking to DRM-free games and
platforms.

------
habitue
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.

~~~
vinkelhake
If I can be the devil's advocate a for a bit...

I don't think it's entirely ridiculous that you can't resell an item that
never degrades. If this was possible, it would be a huge blow to publishers.
Imagine a new game being released on PS4 for $60. A good number of people buy
the game at release, play it through and then put it up on a marketplace at a
lower price. At this time, there is zero incentive for a buyer to get it from
PlayStation store since he will get the exact same product in either case.

I say this as a gamer who exclusively buys digital downloads these days. Would
I like to be able to resell downloaded games? Yes. I just don't think it's
realistic.

~~~
cloverich
> I don't think it's entirely ridiculous that you can't resell an item that
> never degrades.

Thats an argument for protectionism, but not for consumer benefit. In fact it
feels like the opposite -- using IP law to force consumers to pay more for the
exact same product that could be bought "used."

------
tomphoolery
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
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

------
zaroth
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
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.

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

