If games became only downloadable...?

[ForensicYOYO]

Ive been thinking about this alot but If games became only downloadable how would that change your gaming experience? It wouldn't be that hard for them to do it, probably cheaper too. After all does a downloadable game play any different then one on disc in a box?

So tell me how you'd feel if said changes were made. Good, bad, indifferent? How do you think this would effect businesses such as Game Stop and other stores that buy, sell, or rent video games? Lets discuss.

EDIT: One more thing I felt the need to ask. If this really was going to happen, what would be the best possible solution to make something like this work?

 

[Trogdor1138]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

 

[Sprinal]

that woul d suck

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Yeah eh? We don't exactly have the luxury of downloading ridiculous amounts of music, games, films and uh...other things.
So download only would suck for us majorly.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

No. A thousand times no. It's the same reason that I don't like Kindle. I prefer holding something in my hand, being able to point to it on a shelf and say, "I own that." I own a copy of Suikoden II, and it's one of the things I'm most proud of. Also, I like having a manual. I recently downloaded Record of Agarest War on the PS3. I'm enjoying the game, but I feel like I'm missing bits of information that would normally be provided in the gaming manual under "Story so far..." The game keeps referencing events and races that I should apparently already know, but do not. Then there's the whole "What if the DLC gets deleted/taken away/(insert disaster here)?" argument, which I can agree with.

 

[ForensicYOYO]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Do you not have the same access to gaming markets that are on Xbox live, PSN or whatever its called on the Wii?

 

[Travis Austin]

Well, that would mean I couldn't play video games any more. So, it would suck balls.

 

[Trogdor1138]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Do you not have the same access to gaming markets that are on Xbox live, PSN or whatever its called on the Wii?

We do, it's a bit inferior due to region copyrights etc.

But we have pretty pathetic internet compared to places like America, most people have really low internet caps, the speeds are far slower as well. I couldn't imagine downloading a 60 gig PS3 game or something, it would be insane and it would sell like pants over here. Most people still don't have their consoles connected to the net anyways, which means they can't get patches (for things which should have been fixed in beta anyway) and other benefits. My 360 was never connected for the few years I played it. I can access all the PS3 content due to the built in wireless which is a godsend, but I know many that can't.

Retail stores will always be the number one way the majority prefer to get their products. It's also great being able to pick up games when they're cheaper and older pre-owned games. The mostly fixed prices on the online stores limit people from experiencing games for economical reasons.

I love the downloadable games for certain releases (Braid, Monkey Island etc.) but they won't replace it for the AAA releases.

 

[Merkavar]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

i live in australia and i download most of my games. it may take a day or 2 to download but im not normally in a rush to play the game so i just get it downloading over night and play it when its ready.

i probably prefer it cause i dont have a car and the nearest game shop is a hours walk from my house. so i either spend $40 on a taxi, spend an hour catching 3 buses to get their and back or just down load the game.

plus its generally cheaper for me to down load the games.

how big are ps3 and xbox games. someone mentioned 60gb, is that true? cause like the same game on the pc are like 10-15gb

 

[chromewarriorXIII]

I don't mind downloading games but I always prefer buying a copy of the game. Sure, I hate getting up to have to take the game out and put the new one in but I love being able to look at my shelfs if games and know that those are mine.

 

[Meestor Pickle]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Why is that, Im in Australia and almost only use Steam.
The retailers such EB Games and Game overcharge, (especially EB) and the speeds are good.

 

[Trogdor1138]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

i live in australia and i download most of my games. it may take a day or 2 to download but im not normally in a rush to play the game so i just get it downloading over night and play it when its ready.

i probably prefer it cause i dont have a car and the nearest game shop is a hours walk from my house. so i either spend $40 on a taxi, spend an hour catching 3 buses to get their and back or just down load the game.

plus its generally cheaper for me to down load the games.

This is the situation where it works well. I assume you're primarily on Steam?

I think having both is by far the best way to go. I love being ableto own a physical copy since I don't have to worry about Hard Drives screwing up or something eventually going wrong, I love finding a cheap find at a second hand store. I almost never buy games full price or on launch with rare exceptions when I feel it's worth it. There's just some things downloads can't replace.

 

[Merkavar]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Why is that, Im in Australia and almost only use Steam.
The retailers such EB Games and Game overcharge, (especially EB) and the speeds are good.

yeah i never go to eb anymore unless their are sales on and i happen to be walking past. i can save up to $20 by just going to gametraders.

 

[Merkavar]

This is the situation where it works well. I assume you're primarily on Steam?

yeah i love steam. keeps track of my games, keeps them updated and if i upgrade or reformat my hard drive i can just install steam and download the games again.

 

[Tonythion]

That would be horrible. I wouldn't want games if I had to download them. Not only the games I want have awesome cover art but its just awesome being able to look through your inventory and pull out the game you want.

Also if its a highly anticipated game (like Reach, Assassins Creed and other things like that) I love getting the bundles where it comes with box art, action figures and shit like that. Sure they'd probably release all that stuff as well but I nearly jizz my pants when I get the game AND all that stuff. I don't know what to do first, look through the extras or play.

 

[Trogdor1138]

I'm in Australia... It would severely cripple peoples habits, trust me. Retail copies should always be around.

Why is that, Im in Australia and almost only use Steam.
The retailers such EB Games and Game overcharge, (especially EB) and the speeds are good.

I was thinking more in terms of consoles, since Steam seems like it's the best way to PC game now. I said in the last post in this topic just now about my buying habits, purely because places like EB and Game overcharge ridiculously and we get screwed over here with our releases.

I personally haven't used Steam properly so I wouldn't know for PC, I think the majority for it are downloads though since I rarely meet people who buy a lot of PC games off shelves.

 

[mjc0961]

It wouldn't be that hard for them to do it, probably cheaper too.

Not really. Everyone forgets that servers cost money, bandwidth costs money, spare parts for servers cost money, electricity costs money, a proper room with proper cooling for the servers costs money, technicians to keep the servers running properly cost money... There are plenty of costs that are happy to come in and take a share of the money saved by not printing and shipping physical copies.

Plus you don't really own digital copies, so you can't sell them when you're done and know you'll never play them again to get some money for new games. You can't loan them to a friend. You can't rent them. You're also at the mercy of the publisher or digital store owner as to if you can keep playing that game or not, they could just decide one day that hey we're taking this game down and you can't buy it anymore, and if you lost your copy you can't download a new one oh and of course, no refund.

Also, it's quite rare that downloading a full retail game is quicker than just going to the store and buying a disc. Say I want to play Killzone 3 on launch day, and Sony decides they are going to sell it on discs and on PSN. So I can either take 40 minutes to an hour to go to a store and get a copy, then start playing. Or I can get a download copy and not play for hours and hours as it downloads and installs (it'd be a miracle if you manage to play it on launch day at all; between the fact that it'd be a huge file, Sony's normally slow download speeds, and the fact that so many other people would be online to either play or download their own copies, it is going to be one veeeeeeery slow download).

Oh and of course, not everyone has decent internet speeds, so a lot of gamers would be screwed without physical copies to purchase. Or maybe they have bandwidth limits, or some other barrier in the way that doesn't exist when you just go down to the store and pick up a disc.

So if games went download only, I would be quite upset to say the least. Lots of downsides, very few upsides. In fact, the only thing I think is great about digital copies of full games is for portable systems, as it means you can just keep your games on the device's memory or a memory card and carry only the device instead of the device and a case full of games.

 

[ForensicYOYO]

It wouldn't be that hard for them to do it, probably cheaper too.

Not really. Everyone forgets that servers cost money, bandwidth costs money, spare parts for servers cost money, electricity costs money, a proper room with proper cooling for the servers costs money, technicians to keep the servers running properly cost money... There are plenty of costs that are happy to come in and take a share of the money saved by not printing and shipping physical copies.

Plus you don't really own digital copies, so you can't sell them when you're done and know you'll never play them again to get some money for new games. You can't loan them to a friend. You can't rent them. You're also at the mercy of the publisher or digital store owner as to if you can keep playing that game or not, they could just decide one day that hey we're taking this game down and you can't buy it anymore, and if you lost your copy you can't download a new one oh and of course, no refund.

Also, it's quite rare that downloading a full retail game is quicker than just going to the store and buying a disc. Say I want to play Killzone 3 on launch day, and Sony decides they are going to sell it on discs and on PSN. So I can either take 40 minutes to an hour to go to a store and get a copy, then start playing. Or I can get a download copy and not play for hours and hours as it downloads and installs (it'd be a miracle if you manage to play it on launch day at all; between the fact that it'd be a huge file, Sony's normally slow download speeds, and the fact that so many other people would be online to either play or download their own copies, it is going to be one veeeeeeery slow download).

Oh and of course, not everyone has decent internet speeds, so a lot of gamers would be screwed without physical copies to purchase. Or maybe they have bandwidth limits, or some other barrier in the way that doesn't exist when you just go down to the store and pick up a disc.

So if games went download only, I would be quite upset to say the least. Lots of downsides, very few upsides. In fact, the only thing I think is great about digital copies of full games is for portable systems, as it means you can just keep your games on the device's memory or a memory card and carry only the device instead of the device and a case full of games.

You make alot of valid points. Thank you for taking you time to post this =)

 

[Chibz]

I'd stop buying new games altogether.

 

[Smooth Operator]

The convenience factor sure is huge, but so is the abuse gap.

- drop of prices highly unlikely, why would they drop the price when people already proven they are willing to pay $60, or in Australia even $110

- you never own the game, should you lose your account for whatever reason all the games you bought are gone, that is a huge issue

- you can't resell/lend/share games, I resell most my blockbuster games that only have 6-8 hours of content, so that money can go into new games, or exchange them with friends who bought other games, with download only you are stuck with what you get forever

- data mining, let's not kid ourselves these online services are used for user data collection and your data get's sold back to marketing people (I don't want them to look at my private life, just as they wouldn't want me to look at theirs)