EA: Physical media still has a future
Electronic Arts has said that it still sees a future for physical media.
'The amount of data our developers put into a game grows so fast' he said. 'You give them storage space and they use it. As fast as the pipes grow, those guys are so creative.'
'Secondly, there are people who just like to have a physical copy of a game.'
'Thirdly, there is still this impulse purchasing and gift purchasing where people just like to give a physical present to somebody, rather than a voucher or an attachment to an email.'
These comments echo EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, who has previously cast doubt on the practical usage of cloud based gaming services, such as the soon to be released Onlive.
Do you think this is good news for brick-and-mortar games retailers? Tell us in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyReminds me of Dune 2 on Amiga. Insert floppy disk 1-5 :( :D.
On the contrary though my friend, personally speaking, 15GBs doesn't take more than an hour and a half to download for me - This is much less time than it would take me to get to a brick and mortar store and back home again - and this is something that I can purchase, and subsequently play when I feel bored anytime after 6pm/on a bank holiday/public holiday when the shops are closed, more often then not, it's also cheaper that a brick and mortar store purchase, and equivalent to an internet retailer price - which would take a few days to arrive.
Needless to say, all my games are safely stored together on steam where possible. Software bliss. I'm looking forwards to the Windows 8 'app store' for these very reasons!
TSB
Ha so true. I do enjoy cheaper aswell!
So more and more I'm finding it much easier to buy physical copies and then just add them to my Steam games. I just wish that Steam would let you change the image for non-steam games when in the Grid view, the pixelated icons look rubbish next to my nice lovely steam games.
Try ~80 hours for a 15GB download and then see how you feel. That's on a good day.
I like steam, when I got my new PC, I just downloaded steam and installed the games I will play.
Same with starcraft too, I got the client from my account login and downloaded it all from online.
I see an argument for physical media, but with most new games now, you cant resell them, which is the only reason I would want a physical copy. Although I guess I could sell my steam or battlenet account if i wantd to.
Save the planet, buy digital copies :p
Monkey Island 2! 12 disks damn it, worth every swap though. I got a second drive for it in the end (I think if memory serves you have to swap out disk 2 very often, so having that in a drive all the time cut the swaps by at least 50%).
You have to believe me when I say I understand; I do. The state of internet access in the United Kingdom is appalling, as with everything else. But the problem lies with your internet connection, and your ISP. From what you've said though - which I found quite positive, given you're one of the many low bandwidth internet users - you wouldn't hesitate to use such a service, i.e. Steam, if you had a much improved connection?
TSb
I don't have a super fast connection, but even with 8/1 Mbps connection it really isn't such a pain to download the games I want to play - besides, you only need to do it once. I have my Steam games backed up on another HDD just in case.
Sure, physical copies are nice for presents etc, but I'm not going to miss them when (if) they're gone.
EDIT: Also there's absolutely no way in hell I'm going to pay money for a BR-drive.
So you live c.40 minutes away from the nearest town, yet still have an amazing internet connection? I am so jealous - we live 10 minutes from the nearest town and have a purely average connection.
I do like Steam, I love the Steam Cloud thing as I play games across 2 PCs, but I dislike their DRM (the offline mode has on several occasions failed to work for me). Even if I had a fibre optic connection, there is still a security in having your games available to install from a disk that I would not like to lose.
Sort of; live in Central London, have the mid-range VM50Mb package, 100mb isn't available by me for another few months - but for me to get to a 'Game' it will take me 45 minutes in each direction using public transport. The alternative would be to drive, at slightly reduced time, but at the additional cost of fuel, parking, the congestion charge, and time spent sitting in traffic doing nothing other than listening to the radio, makes travelling there even less attractive.
Another alternative is Amazon/Play etc... and it will usually be cheaper than Steam.
What's wrong with waiting a day or two for delivery?
Join orange broadband. Unlimited downloads, no fair use policy. ;)
This is not the case with electronically stored information that you buy.
You will ONLY have access to IT on someone else terms.
This doesn't apply to PC games at all.
This does.
Announcements like these makes me doubt whether the company in question has any.
For some yes direct download is easy, but for those with piss pore connections its probably quicker to order it off amazon with super saver economy delivery than it is to download a game!
I too like having a physical of a game/dvd/cd makes it more real, gives it substance not to mention quality issues with digital downloads...(not so much for games but think how many times you have waited 10 hours for a client to download only to have a corrupt file at the end of it *Rage*)
Physical PC games nowadays are just for show, all you need is the key in the box and you can play.
Just because you have a copy in your hand doesn't mean you own the game any more than a copy from Steam.
This is the only problem for me. I link all my games to steam where possible anyway and would just use this if my Internet connection allowed it. And the fact that parents/relatives give me physical copies for bday and Xmas :)
Cheers. :)
This is true, there are those tax-loophole savings to be had if you're willing to wait for shipping from Guernsey/Jersey - sadly though, it can be a case of waiting, all the while your co-workers revealing all the juicy titbits, and announcing the best features/parts of the game you've still yet to play!
You've hit the nail on the head! There are Blockbusters and independent game stores all around me, I've got Waitrose, Sainsbury, Tesco, Co-op, Somerfield, Asda, and Morrisons all here within a mile of arms reach, but each only stocks console games. Only Game, and the larger HMVs bother stocking the games for PC, and they unfortunately require some travelling.
TSB
Plenty of companies will get the game to you before the release date.
Lies! Or at least back when I was with them it was lies, their "unlimited" package was only up to an average of 60GB in 2 months, which is ridiculous by any means.
Particularly while ISPs seem to think that 10GB/month is generous, or that "unlimited" can mean "~3GB/day then we throttle you like someone who likes auto-erotic asphyxiation".
Well, you're obviously lucky or wealthy enough to afford that aren't you? :(
As has been said, many of us don't have that privelige. If I'm bored after 6pm, I certainly won't go and spend 30 quid to entertain myself, when I could do that for free using the games I already have ^^
I'm sorry, but your first reply is so pathetic, I almost want to vomit. Learn to wait some time for things, just because your "friends" are all flashing how far they've got in the latest CoD campaign in your face, doesn't mean you should feel a desire to get the bloody game faster. To be frank, I'd focus on getting some better friends ^^
I happily wait for an extra week by using free delivery from online sites, as do the majority of financially conscious, competent people.
Spose when you have, what was it you said, 50Mb/sec DL, speed comes before cost on the list of priorities, but don't expect most people to follow your rich git view.
As the guy sad, have you ever tried Amazon?...
Baffling.
I spent years working in & around the Square Mile & there were tons of places to buy games - because strangely enough, people who earn good money quite like spending it too. The West End & Oxford Street is only, what, 15-20 mins on the Central Line from Liverpool Street? (Tops). Also, if based in Canary Wharf, then try the shopping centre underneath it, down the escalators at Canada Square & head towards Waitrose - low & behold, game shop on the right.
It can't be that hard surely? Why all the trekking to the outer boroughs? I lived in zone two for several years and pretty much the only time I had to break the threshold of zone three was to either visit people or go to the airport & venture off to foreign parts.
Also slightly confused as to the link some people have between having cable and being rich. Cable is for the most part laid in densely populated areas, hence generally poorer areas like Whitechapel & Bethnal Green will have super-whizzy quick access available, while many of the more exclusive outer boroughs and outlying commuter hinterlands & their trophy homes will, for the large part, be ADSL. (Often right at the bottom end of it too).
Anyway, physical media will be sold for as long as there are people willing to buy it. For many people, as stated by Jens Uwe Intat and backed up by many here, the idea of being able to hold a tangible, physical object in their hand is attractive. It 'proves' ownership and is its own, ready made backup device.
I then came home installed it on steam and the disc is collecting dust in a cupboard somewhere.
There seems to be a lot of fear that steam will disappear in the future and you won't have access to your games. While possible based on the amount of money valve make from the service I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Don't worry I wasn't trying to have a go at you, I was just being a bit overly dramatic. :D
It's not that I don't use Steam, it's just that I do feel the convenience of physical media. In fact I own over 90 Steam games and have about 35 installed; checking my hard drive now the Steamapps folder takes up 192GB.
Not really, as a long standing Virgin customer, after trying to close my account when moving house; I was offered the 50Mb package at my new place for £23pm. That's only a little more than one of the few truly unlimited ADSL2+ offerings from BE (not including line rental, then adsl will cost more!), which would net me at the very best less than half the speed. Or perhaps, if you were referring to the games, then no, that's definitely not what I do! I was just highlighting the convenience of digital delivery - as there have been times when I've made plans for Friday night, only to have friends flake out on me, leaving me at home with nothing on TV...
Whoa, take it easy! I think you misunderstood what I was saying. They're not my friends, as I said, they're colleagues - if I'm at work sitting at my desk on the phone with a customer/client and persons xxx and yyy (one of whom is always the director above me) are busy revealing the whole plot of zzz rpg within earshot, it sometimes can't be avoided.
I don't just buy games so I can hole-up at home alone, there is also a social element in it for me, one of which is to be able to engage in a bit of water-cooler game-talk with my colleagues about such & such strategy or fight, or what I enjoyed or thought was implemented really well.
Being a few days behind, as has happened when ordering online - even if this is just because I get stuck not being able to pick up my delivery from the post/sorting office until the weekend, means that I've games at home which I've just never played, because I've either heard everything about it, or heard it was mediocre, or buggy, or otherwise not worth my time etc.
There are also times, when I'll buy a day-after-release-day game purely on recommendation from one of said colleagues, waiting a few days for delivery might just lead back to the above point.
Rich git view, really? I pay less for my internet connection than a bottom end BT ADSL capped connection + line rental, and perhaps £2-3 more per game in some cases which I can then enjoy actually playing with, and talking about to friends.
Id' even go so far as to say steam ultimately actually saves me money against the otherwise inevitable purchases if I were to stroll down Oxford Street or go on Amazon.
Haha, I'm no more a broker (of any sorts) than the 'Dark Avenger' commenting below you is actually Batman or Dexter. Nor, unfortunately, am I loaded. Yes, there are plenty of places near my office where I could buy a physical copy of a game, but none near my home, which is what the travel times stated were for - essentially my normal commute time + 10 minutes to get to a store.
Ultimately though, the point I was trying to make is that for me, the simplicity of *click**click**click* *cliiiiiiiick* *download* for a Londoner with cable or ADSL2+ was far more appealing than trekking any amount of distance, be it 5 minutes away or an hour to get a physical copy.
Your comment about cable is appreciated though, I see from this thread it's perceived as an unobtainable luxury, whereas you're quite right in pointing out it's a faster, yet equivalent priced alternative to ADSL where available, and nothing more.
TSB
What about ISOs you've ripped of your games? How about games from GOG.com?
They're both electronically stored and accessible on your own terms at all times.
You don't sound bitter and jealous at all, what a perfectly normal, well thought out and reasoned response you have going there, good job!
ISOs aren't the same though, assuming you mean a copy of previously purchased content. They will be subject to the same controls as the physical media. Specifically if the game in question employed any form of online activation, then you're back to square one in terms of control.
And before people jump in with "Steam sales - woot!" comments, may I point out that those 70-90% discounts are still profitable for Valve, which means you're being overcharged by at least that amount. In addition, such sales tend to be for older games - whose physical copies (if still available) are also heavily discounted, and not for just a single weekend.
The topic of digital vs physical is not a new one here - previous Bit-Tech articles (like Digi distribution destroys old pricing models or The Downside to Digital Distribution) have covered similar points. Until digital pricing reflects the savings made by producers and until more stores follow GOG's example in treating purchasers as customers and not digital slaves, then physical media will continue to have a role.
That's what "no CD" patches and cracks are for. :P
It means I can do what I want when I want with my stuff. I don't care if they claim I don't "own" the game.
I do agree with you though on the subject of the cost of digital distributed games. They really do need to be less than boxed copies. However, about the Steam sales, it seems like you see it as a problem that even with big discounts it's still profitable, isn't that the point in their Steam Distribution side of their business?
When Steam do sales like that, they have a deal with the developers to discount the games, it's not them simply dropping their profit margin right down. Valve take about 30% of selling price of a game on Steam, I'd imagine it'd be the same in the sales, so a game that's say £3 at 70% off will me making valve roughly £1 and the developers £2. Don't forget, a digital copy of a game costs nothing to produce, it's just a copy. There's no box or pressed disc or anything that incurs third party costs except for Valve's margin, and then what it costs Valve for their infrastructure and bandwith.
It's a lot cheaper to distribute digital games, true - but the price of producing a physical game is low to start with (it's about £1-2 to the home).
WRONG.
There is a FUP (or at least there was last I checked), and I have been contacted on two occasions for breaching it. They even capped my peak time speeds. Never even checked to see if they got lifted. Couldn't even play games during the day. Now I am usually in work in the day so can't really say for sure.
How the developer or distributor shares that profit is secondary in my view (though Amazon charges about 17% to marketplace vendors for listing, order and payment processing, making Steam's 30% for essentially the same looking poor value) but having pricing set at levels few physical retailers would charge is taking the mick.
If my situation was different I'm sure I would buy more physical copies.
The problem we have is that broadband is just not up to scratch in every area, so until it is, physical media will need to continue and have a presence. The high street retailer though, I think has their days numbered due to pricing.