Digital Distribution is Scary for Gamers
Digital distribution is a scary future for the gaming industry. Not for publishers and marketplaces, but for consumers. While companies operating under the model of digital distribution may show it off as the land of sunshine, rainbows and roses, it’s a grim and unfortunate place for gamers.
Before we tread out too far into these harsh waters, I have to point towards the efforts of Valve and their marketplace: Steam. The PC and Mac platforms of Steam have been a service to their users. Games are appropriately priced, sales are frequent and whole giveaways have been known to happen regularly. In the unfriendly market we’re about to ingest, Steam is an oasis.
For every other large platform in gaming, digital distribution sucks.
Oh, it’s convenient. There’s no doubt about that. Given a decent Internet connection, you can purchase and game entirely from you couch in practically no time at all.
And for smaller developers and risk taking publishers, digital distribution is huge. It’s an inexpensive place to get your games out to the public. EA can take bigger chances on less likely games thanks to downloadable content as the risk versus reward works in their favor. Publishers can gamble, and that spells innovation.
Beyond those two points, however, digital distribution sucks.
Consumers have no control over pricing. You can’t select retail outlets based on affordability and customer service. You can’t head to Amazon, Walmart, Target, TRU or elsewhere to find that sweet, special price. Instead, you have to go with the single marketplace available to you, and you have to pay the price they provide. DLC is restricted to a given marketplace, and that spells problems for consumers.
Furthermore, there’s no used game market. Yes, for pubs and devs, used games suck. They make companies no money whatsoever, and each used sale is one less potential new customer. But for consumers? Used games are great! Low prices for older titles; users can hit classifieds, Amazon, eBay or other used marketplaces and totally run off with tons of goods for low prices. Digital distribution could suck a lot of fun out of garage sales.
How about pricing? A perfect example of the wholly inappropriate usage of digital distribution: Microsoft just listed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox LIVE for $59.99. Seriously. The game is more than a year old and they’re asking for full price. Then there are games like Borderlands that have been out for just as long as Modern Warfare 2, they’re $20. Why? Because Microsoft, for example, is in complete control of their own pricing.
Right now gamers can take solace in the fact that they can head to their local stores to pick up used and new games at competitive prices. If digital distribution becomes the norm, an outcome that the industry is slowly heading towards, hitting retail shops for deep discounts is going to be a thing of the past. We’ll be stuck with whatever prices and inventory a single marketplace lists. We’ll be in big touble.
I’ll sacrifice convenience for competitive pricing any day of the week; even if it means the death of digital distribution.
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