The Downside of Digital Distribution

Leviathyn.com | Probably more than half of the games I’ve played in my life were either borrowed or bought used. Now, an increasing number of games I play are digitally downloaded from services such as Steam, Xbox Live, or Playstation Network. This trend towards digital distribution is great in many ways, but it may eliminate the ability for many people to get games.

[dazzrazz]

Biggest downside of services like XBL and SEN... everything is overpriced ! Starting from day 1 titles on PS3 ! Why would I wanna pay $60 for digital download when I can pre-order same title via lets say Amazon and get $10 credit for future purchase or buy digital download of Ghost Recon Future Soldier on XBL for $50 where I can get it from retail store brand new for $29 with free shipping ? Digital distribution was suppose to be cheaper.. no cost of distribution, vendors, manufacturing and all that crap. In reality retail stores have some competition for customers, on digital from Sony and MS only fixed prices... pay or GTFO ! The only worthy place would be Steam which really has no competition at all on PC and yet still manage to have great promos, low prices and insane sales on Holidays...

[christheredhead]

True, thats really the only thing holding back XBL and PSN at the moment. I mean, if they were priced more competitively I would probably purchased more titles through the digital store.

Older titles are massively overpriced with some going for 40 or 60 dollars for a 5 year old game. Pricing has been getting better over time on the consoles, but I'm not adapting until they can offer better prices.

[AusRogo]

Was shopping on XBL the other night, and saw they had Singularity for $99.95! Ended up getting Burnout Revenge for $20 instead. It depends really, like the playstation essentials are dirt cheap on psn and some games on XBL are cheap too. I just thought it was strange that Singularity is still $99. and same goes with some games on ps store too

[PrimeLantern]

Services like Steam are only half right. They have a ton of sales and even discounts on the first week for some games but these digital versions should never cost the same amount of money as the retail ones. No disc, no case, no manual. Just a key and some download time. If anything, $10 less and go from there.

[jerethdagryphon]

the main problem with digital solutions is time space and sustainability

suppose valve goes bankrupt after investing all there money in a bad game.. assets are sold off to pay bills and its possible that people who buy the games rights dont buy steam rights and that steam game would be removed, or perhaps steam is shutdown..

pure digital goods are a bad idea

[Ducky]

Steam removes its DRM if it ever goes down financially.
In that case, you make a backup (on disk/flashdrive) of the games.

Or you only make digital purchases of DRM-free games,
(such as those found at GOG) which doesn't have DRM to begin with.

Pure digital is, yea, a bad idea. Physical should always be a viable option.

[turnerdc]

You can access your games offline. Also there have been several games removed from the service but those who have purchased can still download the game. OnLive also has had a few games removed due to licensing issues but those who have bought access to the game are still able to play it.

[sdozzo]

It's a way for them to get around the whole used games thing and save a tons on overhead.

[Mikey Mike]

It's here get used to it. The days of physical media is coming to an end.