I Hate To Admit It, But Digital Distribution Is Growing On Me....

[Yaramaki]

15 hours ago, Withywarlock said:

Because Nintendo hate clean drinking water.

Joking aside, it was due to popular demand that people wanted to show off their games on their shelves. As far as I'm aware it dated back to a fan project someone did, where they made mock box-art for digital-only games to be placed inside empty Switch cases. It's a cute idea but unnecessarily wasteful.

I've never seen First party nintendo games that came as a "download code in a box". It's usually the smaller third party companies like nacon, thq and uig entertaiment amongst some others that do this eventough there are smaller ubisoft and warner bros titles out there as code in a box aswell , but most of these releases usually have have had a cart release in the past.

You know funny this came up just now i emailed a couple of companies that started doing this a few years ago and to my surpise somebody at big ben (now nacon) and thq nordic emailed me back stating that it is done to offer the games as cheap as possible in retail stores and that it is done because they coulden't predict the demand for a game before hand, obviously telling me that most of the games had a cart release before, there was some other marketing talk in there that i can't remember but in other words it came down to we're too lazy and cheap to have do another round of cart releases and we want to make as much profit as possible.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Yaramaki

[NightmareFarm]

i've usually preferred physical to digital but over the past year i've just completely stopped buying physical games. digital has a much bigger advantage in the fact that you can play it anytime you want rather than having to change discs(which is a huge inconvenience since my PS5 is facing towards the wall). You also only have to wait for it to download whereas with physical you either have to go somewhere to buy it(in my case, i would have to take the train to another town to get games since there isn't a proper game shop in my town) or order it on amazon and wait days or weeks. 

[Kane99]

1 hour ago, NightmareFarm said:

i've usually preferred physical to digital but over the past year i've just completely stopped buying physical games. digital has a much bigger advantage in the fact that you can play it anytime you want rather than having to change discs(which is a huge inconvenience since my PS5 is facing towards the wall). You also only have to wait for it to download whereas with physical you either have to go somewhere to buy it(in my case, i would have to take the train to another town to get games since there isn't a proper game shop in my town) or order it on amazon and wait days or weeks. 

For me, I'm just lazy these days. I have no patience to wait for a game to arrive at my door, nor do I have the patience to install a game disc when I could just pre-install the digital game early on and have it ready for me day 1. 

I still wouldn't mind getting the physical version, because I wouldn't mind having it in my collection, but the ease of use that comes with digital is just more preferable to me. 

[Justin11]

One thing with online is that, it saves time and energy. Their is nothing more pleasing to me than sitting at home and making downloads and getting it straightway into my game log, and not moving an inch trying to buy one from offline stores. Infact I don't like much of an ordering this days, i just love to download direct from the game store..

[Clasher]

7 hours ago, Justin11 said:

One thing with online is that, it saves time and energy. Their is nothing more pleasing to me than sitting at home and making downloads and getting it straightway into my game log, and not moving an inch trying to buy one from offline stores. Infact I don't like much of an ordering this days, i just love to download direct from the game store..

Back then we didn't have a proper game store where you could go to pick out your choices of physical copies of video games so we had to go out of town to get them which could usually be stressful at times.

Digital copies did save us some of those stress, but a good merit for physical copies was that you could swap them or exchange them for a another game you want to play when you are Maybe tired of this one or you are done with it.

[Justin11]

23 hours ago, Clasher said:

Back then we didn't have a proper game store where you could go to pick out your choices of physical copies of video games so we had to go out of town to get them which could usually be stressful at times.

Digital copies did save us some of those stress, but a good merit for physical copies was that you could swap them or exchange them for a another game you want to play when you are Maybe tired of this one or you are done with it.

Yes, even here in my geography, we don't have a place to buy physical version of games, we just have to move to the town where we spend money for transportation. But ever since I discovered an online store that helps you negotiate around their marketplace and cash in with a customer via offline, I've stopped moving to the town in search for a game I want to play. I can easily contact anyone from the online marketplace and negotiate a nearby location with him or her and cash in offline. 

[Kane99]

On 8/13/2022 at 4:36 AM, Justin11 said:

Yes, even here in my geography, we don't have a place to buy physical version of games, we just have to move to the town where we spend money for transportation. But ever since I discovered an online store that helps you negotiate around their marketplace and cash in with a customer via offline, I've stopped moving to the town in search for a game I want to play. I can easily contact anyone from the online marketplace and negotiate a nearby location with him or her and cash in offline. 

That's another thing. I don't live near stores that sell video games. I wish I had a game store near me, but sadly I do not. I could make the trip out to go to the nearest stores, but I don't drive and I don't like to bum rides too far. Plus gas money is expensive these days. Gotta save as much as I can. 

[Justin11]

3 hours ago, Kane99 said:

That's another thing. I don't live near stores that sell video games. I wish I had a game store near me, but sadly I do not. I could make the trip out to go to the nearest stores, but I don't drive and I don't like to bum rides too far. Plus gas money is expensive these days. Gotta save as much as I can. 

Saving is just your second agenda man if you truly want to play this new games. I am also saving trying to raise some funds and satisfy my gaming urge. 

[runswithspatulas]

To the OP: I used to buy nothing but physical games. I have embraced digital purchasing and I only have one physical game in my possession and that's Animal Crossing New Horizons. I also have the digital version of that game. One can never be too careful with a favorite game. *Grins* It's just handier to buy online instead of having to traipse to the store only to discover it's out of stock. I can order games in my jammies, download and play them. LOL!

The only thing I don't like is that I can't play them offline. No wifi...no games.

[Justin11]

I am gradually trying my hands on digital version of games, I bought MGP 21 as a digital version for my PS4. It isn't my favourite option but in order to save time, stress I've resorted to playing only digital version of games at the moment. 

[Yaramaki]

So we're 2 Pages in and the only excuses i see coming up all time why people go digital only with their games is they are either too lazy to go to a physical store to buy a game or don't have the patience to wait for the damn mail to arrive when ordering something online, for shame on that.

*Shakes head in disbelief*

Edited August 21, 2022 by Yaramaki

[Techno]

I do have a argument as to why digital is better. It has actually been a massive help to the indie industry and I'd argue it's what even allowed for the indie scene to actually exist as digital distribution has been easier, cheaper, and less risky for developers to utilize. Meaning that the indie scene itself really is only possible for digital distribution. Mainly because indie developers rarely have the money to print out copies of a game.

[Withywarlock]

41 minutes ago, Techno said:

I do have a argument as to why digital is better. It has actually been a massive help to the indie industry and I'd argue it's what even allowed for the indie scene to actually exist as digital distribution has been easier, cheaper, and less risky for developers to utilize. Meaning that the indie scene itself really is only possible for digital distribution. Mainly because indie developers rarely have the money to print out copies of a game.

I can't believe I hadn't thought of this one. It's the primary reason why one of my favourite games of all time Tombi! (AKA Tomba!) didn't sell all that well: it didn't have a distributor. This was a game by Tokuro Fujiwara of Capcom fame, creating his own studio named Whoopee Camp, so this wasn't some two-bit bootleg operation selling PS Value Series games. It wasn't until after traversing the red tape between Sony and other rights holders that it eventually got re-released on Playstation Network, finally receiving the justice it long deserved.

Given how over 80% of games are now purchased digitally, it'd be even harder for an indie title to stand out with physical copies. Back in ye olden dayes of 1997 the Platinum/Essentials/Greatest Hits label was released: a game had to have sold 400,000 copies to have been redistributed with this label. Tombi! didn't get a Platinum label. In the present day however Starbound has sold over 1,000,000 copies. Guilty Gear Strive has sold over 1M copies. Spiritfarer sold over 1M copies. The Forest sold over 5.3M copies. I'm sure I needn't go on.

Brick and mortar stores are getting shut down left, right and centre, and what few are still around are more multimedia merch stores. Like I love HMV as it is now, but the percentage of physical discs and the return of vinyls is still dwarfed by the number of shirts, plushies and posters you can buy.

While this thread does focus on the consumer side of things, it's good to think on how the creators of those games reach us to play them.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Withywarlock

[Shagger]

1 hour ago, Techno said:

I do have a argument as to why digital is better. It has actually been a massive help to the indie industry and I'd argue it's what even allowed for the indie scene to actually exist as digital distribution has been easier, cheaper, and less risky for developers to utilize. Meaning that the indie scene itself really is only possible for digital distribution. Mainly because indie developers rarely have the money to print out copies of a game.

 

That is a brilliant point. I don't like labelling the kind of developers you speak of as "indie" for reasons I've spoke of in the past (To summarise, an indie game can come from a one man team of a shed of a huge company employing thousands because "indie" liberally means it's independently published.), but I know what you mean by "indie" developers and digital distribution really has been a godsend for them. Social media has help as well because it's empowered "word of mouth" like never before and gives good games from talented, small indie dev's a real chance to get traction and get noticed.

 

Again, a great point @Techno that I didn't think of.

[runswithspatulas]

13 hours ago, Yaramaki said:

So we're 2 Pages in and the only excuses i see coming up all time why people go digital only with their games is they are either too lazy to go to a physical store to buy a game or don't have the patience to wait for the damn mail to arrive when ordering something online, for shame on that.

*Shakes head in disbelief*

Yeah so? We have every right to decide how we purchase something. I hate going into stores because of the people and the whole Covid thing has kept me from desiring to be in a store with a bunch of other mouth breathers. For shame? What shame? As long as I'm happy isn't that kinda the point?