Epic Games Boss Dreams of a Future Without Physical Retail

[Legion]

If physical sales were to go away, the price better get reduced by 10-20 bucks. 60 bucks is way too much to spend on a game in the first place, not to mention something that isn't physical. The only reason why we have 60 dollar games, I believe, is to mass produce physical copies. At least I think.

That is certainly the most logical reason, after all, without needing to make packaging, discs and pay company to ship the games, it should be significantly cheaper to make them.

That said, Dead Space 3 can be bought for £39.99/$62 at GAME on the PS3, and it costs £59.99/$93 from the PSN store. Not only is it 50% more, it's also more than you will find it at any retailer in the country.

How they can justify that kind of price is beyond me.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

I can see how digital distribution can offer more freedom and better revenues for developers,and I also believe that it's going to boom and expand much in the future,but I also believe that physical retail discs will still be around,and I also doesn't think that this way of selling should totally stop exist.

I see the points Epic makes,and they have some reason,but at the same time I think they accuse the wrong thing.
I mean as it is now,I agree that digital distribution can be more worthy and profitable for a developer,especially an indie one. But the biggest problem isn't the physical retail shops themselves,but the high expenses required for someone to publish their games that way. Of course for a BIG company like Epic that shouldn't be a problem,really. It's only a problem for small or young studios that doesn't have quite a budget yet to do physical distribution.
It's a major problem to indie developers.

The thing is that those publishers that do retail are bound to price the games at fixed prices of let's say 60$.
And the percentages each party gets are pretty standard. So from the 60$ price,10$ goes to the retail shop,10$ goes to the government for taxes,another 10$ is spend for package and disc manufacturing and producing,20$ goes to the publisher,and 10$ goes to the developer.

But if some studio sells the game on digital it has some freedom to decide the price,and the percentage revenues are more convenient.So if you publish the game yourself and you have not a different entity as a publisher,and lets say you sell your game at 30$,the digital distribution service will hold about 20% to 30%,and from the rest of the price the government will collect a 10%.
So in this example where the developer publish the game on its own at 30$,the revenue will be split as follows:

30$ minus 30% (9$) for the digital distribution service,equals 21$.
21$ minus 10% (2.1$) for taxes,equals 18.9$

So practically that way a developer could have almost double the revenue from each sale of the game,while at the same time the costumer will have to pay only half the price.
But we see that most major AAA games doesn't have a reduced price on digital digital distribution,because they have this idea that if they price their games at a lower price it will be like saying "our game isn't good enough".
But indies doesn't think that way,and I like that.

 

[Smooth Operator]

That digital future would be perfectly acceptable if we were guaranteed ownership, but US already had that law bought and paid for so the answer there is no, and any company under that banner can do with your games whatever the hell they please... which makes that shinny future rather grim.

And let's not forget most corporate controlled countries are now hard at work to limit the internet as much as possible, already a big chunk of people now living on a download allowance which make these services completely useless.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

That digital future would be perfectly acceptable if we were guaranteed ownership, but US already had that law bought and paid for so the answer there is no, and any company under that banner can do with your games whatever the hell they please... which makes that shinny future rather grim.

And let's not forget most corporate controlled countries are now hard at work to limit the internet as much as possible, already a big chunk of people now living on a download allowance which make these services completely useless.

They already do with the games whatever they please,even if you buy a physical retail disc.
I purchased Far Cry 3 PC version,and from the game's disc an important file was missing. A ".exe" file if you know what I mean. They made it so you have to log in to their service by using the internet,and register your game so you can't sell it later as a used copy,and you have to do all that to let you download the exe file of the game and being able to play it.
That means that no matter if you buy the game digital or retail,they force you to marry it with an account of yours and download its files anyway.

When I first installed the game from the disc,I couldn't find the game's icon anywhere,there was no .exe and thus I couldn't even start it and get to the title screen,and I thought I had bought a broken game and paid 40 Euros for nothing,and only after googling my problem I realized that its just a stupid thing they did to prevent used game sales,and I had to manually do stuff with Ubisoft's Uplay program in order to start downloading the missing file that the game couldn't even run without.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Yeah, it's all been said already. Physical media implies ownership, and that's exactly what developers don't want; and £40 for an indeterminate rental does not appeal in the slightest. The lack of a physical medium may nudge costs down slightly, but since more of the expense is currently store overhead than actual manufacturing costs (which amount to about tuppence) it's only ever likely to nudge towards Amazon levels.

Of more concern is the competition it sucks out of the market. If I want to buy a game now I can go to HMV. Or Game. Or Amazon. Or even PC World or Tesco. Under digital distribution it's locked into particular markets by publisher. Steam will distribute some games. Origin wil distribute some others. With no cross-pollination or competition, it's a recipe for price gouging (see - bus ticket prices in Manchester, where Stagecoach in the south and FirstBus in the north have a gentleman's agreement to not bid for routes in each other's half of the city, in order to keep prices artificially high).

Couple that with there being approximately zero chance of the cost of a download game decreasing over time (because there isn't the need to shift old physical stock) and it all spells suck.

 

[rob_simple]

If that's the case why don't they make their games digital only? Fucking hypocrite.

Because the future doesn't just happen on one person's say so. The industry isn't ready to go wholly digital but the guy makes a lot of good points.

Personally, while I like the satisfaction of a physical product, I look forward to a day when everything is digital. Provided there are securities in place so that a company can't rescind my right to play the game whenever I want, and that I can download the game onto a HDD that I own and not just store it on their servers.

The problem a lot of people have with things like this is they picture it running on the hardware they own now, (or what the next gen will offer,) but the future is a long, long time; who knows what consoles will be like in ten or twenty years. Who knows if consoles will even still be a thing.

I, for one, am excited about the potential for change.

 

[Strazdas]

Sorry to dissapoint you but ignorance and lack of internet infrastructure that could be considered decent in 21st century in majority of your market will not let you achieve it.


And now, to bash some claims.

#1: Bandwidth caps limit how many games a person may buy. Out in the country, we had a limit of 80GB a month ($20 for every extra 10GB if we went over our limit). And in town we have a limit of 200GB a month, but it stills gets used pretty fast by a family with 3 computers, a Xbox360, PS3, Netflix, and a seldom used Wii.

We used to ahve a limit of 80 Gb..... 7 years ago..... now we have either buget internet (that costs like 7 dollars per month) with 300 GB limit (and thats 20 games per month if we take all games are 15 GB which is what most AAA titles take now) or you get a normal (or good) internet and have unlimited bandwitch. Blame your ISP for staying in 20th century.

#2: Gaming machines simply don't have the space. My PS3 only holds 60GB of data (I still use mine that I bought in 2006), and games (Especially high-end graphic ones) take roughly 10-20GB per install on a PC. So I would only be able to have about 3 games on my console, and MAYBE enough space for my game saves.

As long as you keep supporting stuff like need to insert memory card and lack of 3rd party HDD support you will have this problem. This can be fixed instantly with ability to support external HDDs or having a decent internal HDD which is not expensive nowadays.

#3: Constantly installing/un-installing games is a WASTE of time, and a hassle if you need the space to install a new game or play a old one.

See above.

#4: Even if new consoles come with Terabyte hardrives (Which would enable a good amount of games at once), it would increase the cost of consoles AND make things like trade-ins impossible.

Currently 2 TB drive (that means it can hold over 100 games at the same time) costs around 60-100 dollars. This is the price you pay for 1-2 games. If you are using consoles you already accept that you chose the more expensive platform, stop complaining. Trade between users can be enforced. we already got european court saying they have to do that. all it takes is someone to legally complain. Not in europe you say? well tough, time to actually start caring about real life and change the laws? else what is democracy good for.

#5: It would entirely remove the 'middle-man' such as private run game/hobby shops, and larger stores like EBgames (Which also removes the ability to trade-in games for credit towards a discount on new games.

Awesome. the middle man had to die 5 years ago.

#6: It creates a DEPENDANCE on the internet and owning a credit card. Which as we all know is stupid as at the age of 14 I never had a credit card, and I was the one buying all the games in my family. I saved my allowance for basically nothing but games. Plus there are times when you simply don't have internet access (especially if you grew up in a single-parent household that sometimes had to choose between Internet/TV vs Food/Shelter).

As opposed of dependance on electricity, public transport and all other things we depend on. If you want to be independant go live in a cave. otherwise, stop complaining about dependance, its efficient and its a better way.
You dont need a credit card to buy online. Bank trnasfer can be done by going to a bank, telling them the required information and giving them cash. you dont need and account. (some services dont allowed bank trasnfers, complain to them for being reliant on single payment method like paypal).
If you dont have money for internet, gaming is far from the first of your worries. games are a luxury item.

#7: It allows companies to create STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID security measures. Such as the HUGE failure that was Diablo III's "Always Online" policy. And adds the possibility of the companies adding 'Micro transactions' and advertising to their games like any other online game (Unlikely, but still a possibility due to the REALLY BAD decisions some companies make).

Retailers doen nothing to stop such security measures. on the other hand, YOU could have. by not buying the game. it is gamers that allow companies to make such stupid measures. A better argument would have been assasins creed 2, when the official servers crashed on day 1, and the pirated people who cracked the need to be online was playing offline fine. but thats pirates and thats not a good case agaisnt digital services. if anything, its an argument for better service.

So say what you want, but physical games aren't going anywhere soon. Fully digital gaming would simply exclude a portion of the current market, and make other gamers unhappy. Plus it removes ANY social interaction you get from meeting people at game swaps (Usually a group of people or strangers get together and borrow or trade games while giving out some contact/gamer info for online/trade purposes), or at the stores themselves (Heck, I would've never met half my friends if it wasn't for game swapping or hanging out at the stores).

I CAN see a possibility of Digital gaming someday becoming the norm, but that will probably happen around the same time EVERYTHING gets hooked up to the internet.

Im very glad you met friends in stores, but you can do meet them online as well you know. like, you know, in the escapist.
Pretty much everything is hooking to the internet now. most phones are always online, you see such things as microwaves using internet to align clocks now. sure it wont happen instantly, but gamers were always early-adopters anyway.

If that's the case why don't they make their games digital only? Fucking hypocrite.

probably because they have no say in their games distribution.

Gaming is a HOBBY.
If there comes a time where I'm unable to OWN my game, then I'm out.

see you on the other side i guess, oh wait, you already left.

Will nobody think of the manuals. And the beautiful games that can be made with the help of long-winded hard bound tomes. And the cloth maps, and the short stories, and the galaxy charts, and the monster compendiums, and the keyboard overlays...

Is this your first day on the internet? you can find all that and more on the internet, for free, without having to burn trees to make paper.

Well as magical as that sounds, someone still has to sell the hardware. What good are games when you need the console? And when then? Walmart and Target? Because we're already closing off enough jobs as it is, that we need to reduce the market even further.

direct shipping?
no need to buy shelf space, no need to buy shop storage, no need to predict demand as much as it did, logistics taken care of by the company that does primarily logistics.


capcha: all singing
preach you little choir boys of retail.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Wall Of Text

Agree completely, I prefer to have a physical disk because I like having a physical collection, plus if the hard drive dies i'll only have lost game saves. Which leads to 'No!!! I lost my game saves and have to play them again to get them back...on the other hand I can play through my collection of favourite games again.

 

[ASnogarD]

I bet he (Tim) would love to go digital only , no need to pay a publisher to get you game distributed or sell to shops who get a piece of the pie... he would sell the game at current price and just keep the savings.
Customers would see no difference except a option of where and how to buy would be removed.

His arguments about development costs are pure rubbish, sorry... a good game can be made at a fraction of the current AAA titles.
What he REALLY means is that mediocre and tepid rehashes of current franchise IP's need that type of budget, mostly for the hype machine to get fans pre-ordering the title as it sure as hell wont sell on its own merits.
Proof ? See Minecraft (and Terraria but that rode the Minecraft wagon to success) and FTL, both small budget and tiny studios that couldnt rely on heavy media coverage to start with, they got the hype going because the game was good enough to get players talking about the game.

How much of a AAA title is wasted on marketing, legal matters, hiring star actors and musician assets, administrative fees, perks for management and stars, etc etc... how much is actually gone into the game itself for coders and artists (who usually get hired and fired on a title basis).

Modern AAA game development is 90% Hype, and 10% Game.

 

[The White Hunter]

If physical sales were to go away, the price better get reduced by 10-20 bucks. 60 bucks is way too much to spend on a game in the first place, not to mention something that isn't physical. The only reason why we have 60 dollar games, I believe, is to mass produce physical copies. At least I think.

I for one do not necessarily look forward to that future. The only reason I play console games is to have physical boxes. He's got a point though, I presume developers will be able to have way more freedom.

hohohoho.

$60. Thats cute for a download. The RRP for games here is usually £60, which is about... 93$? Give or take. And physical retail is usually around £43 in a store or in the 30's online. At least for console games, though I've seen some PC titles with insane asking prices as an RRP for downloads.

I honestly dread this future of download only because I'm a horder and a bit of a collector.

 

[josemlopes]

One thing that I would like to see is buying a digital game from Steam for example and having then that game available in every other digital store.

The main reason that I dont like digital distribution is because of the possibilitie that one day my collection of games can all go to hell because some guys cant run a business. Other then that Im fine with it.

PS:Im also only fine as long as they dont need you to be online all the time, just once for the download of the game.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

Agree completely, I prefer to have a physical disk because I like having a physical collection, plus if the hard drive dies i'll only have lost game saves. Which leads to 'No!!! I lost my game saves and have to play them again to get them back...on the other hand I can play through my collection of favourite games again.

If anything, staying digital lets you keep the save files, through Steam Cloud and such. I don't really see what you're trying to say. :/

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've said this once and I'll say it again:
If I can't own a PHYSICAL COPY of a game, then I'm even LESS likely to buy it.

No demos.
No chance to replay the game after PSN/XBL/etc dies.
60USD for a DIGITAL COPY.
No used games.
Etc...etc...etc.

Gaming is a HOBBY.
If there comes a time where I'm unable to OWN my game, then I'm out.

Screw you Mr. Epic Games Boss.
Good for business does NOT mean good for consumers.
-Just ask Australian gamers.

You took the words right out of my...er...right off of my finger...tips...yeah. Gaming isn't a service after all, games are products. I can almost see a future where I can always find someone willing to sell me a Super Nintendo, games and, the means to make them all work right. What I don't see is a future where I'll always be able to play the latest and greatest game available. Hell, I'm living that to an extent right now. I can't begin to express how pissed off I am that the Wii U version of Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2 is digital only. The US doesn't even have a PS3 version that I'm aware of either and since my consoles hate connecting to the internet, I'm pretty much SOL when it comes to playing the sequel to my favorite Dynasty Warriors spin-off.

 

[wgar]

If physical sales were to go away, the price better get reduced by 10-20 bucks. 60 bucks is way too much to spend on a game in the first place, not to mention something that isn't physical. The only reason why we have 60 dollar games, I believe, is to mass produce physical copies. At least I think.

I for one do not necessarily look forward to that future. The only reason I play console games is to have physical boxes. He's got a point though, I presume developers will be able to have way more freedom.

Aussies still pay $70-80USD so... yeah.

I can tell you the retail market is already resisting it a lot; some people prefer boxes, and others simply don't know where to get digital titles from.

With that being said, I haven't paid over $40 for a new title (Hitman: Abs $32 vs 27 retail, BL2 $35 on GMG vs $80 steam/retail) since Blizzard demanded theirs come at a premium (SC2 and D3 were both pricey although I didn't buy D3 as the RMAH was a terrible idea and the game was gifted to me).

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Aussies still pay $70-80USD so... yeah.

More like 100 USD.

OT: No. Prices aren't going to go down accordingly, and I don't want to use cloud services or have to be online constantly. Besides which, easier than ever DRM. I trust developers just want to make excellent games, but I don't trust companies to refrain from exploiting every crevice of the new system. I'd rather have discs.