Game Retailers Hurting Themselves With Digital Distribution

GameBiz recently had the chance to speak with Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, about pricing and distribution within the games industry. Wardell follows up a bit on the Demigod piracy fiasco from a few days ago, and mentions that retail outlets may be on their way out. "Retailers need to be careful about this stuff. They're kind of signing their own death warrants once they push digital distribution at the store. Once you have the thing set up — once you've experienced how to purchase the game or deal with it online — why would I go back to the store for the next purchase? Especially if the store isn't providing added value. If you're a retailer, you're killing yourself. If I can't get a game off Impulse, I'm going to Steam. I like stores, but I'm really lazy."

Comments

Seems kinda obvious.

[fractoid]

If you go into Dymocks or Barnes & Noble or some other book store, you don't really expect them to say "go buy it from Amazon.com", do you?

This applies even more so for digital media where the entire product can be downloaded (barring shiny manuals and soforth that rarely happen these days anyway). Isn't a physical retailer becoming irrelevant anyway?

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[linzeal]

Borders advertises their online presence in their stores. I personally stopped buying paper books about 3 years ago.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

A business owner should not allow sentimental opinions about the method of marketing or delivering the product to limit his business. The business owner should seek to implement the model or models that maximise the profit of the company. Or someone else will, be able to thrive with lower prices, and then put the sentimental business owner out of business.

Social considerations can be difficult to balance with the need to maximise profits and be lean.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Lumpy]

Only for the excessively rich. The rest of us wait until the game hits the $19.95 bargain bin.

you might be incredibly wealthy and thinks that $69.99 for a game is nothing, but 90% of us think it's insane and wait for it to become affordable.

Digital distribution allows them to keep the price high as hell forever if they want, It costs nothing to make more copies for them and they dont have the stock of CD's or DVD's out in stores getting dusty over the course of a year forcing the price down.

also it helps game companies by destroying the used game market. If I have to buy all my Wii and Xbox360 games online, I cant sell them used or buy them used...

and the Game publishers are salivating uncontrollably over that idea, they desperately want the used game market to go away.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[morari]

A physical retailer offers a physical product, whether it be books or game discs. That means a lot to me. Besides, there are still a helluva lot of people out there with no access to broadband connections. Digital distribution is a poor solution to a non-existent problem. All it does is allow for DRM to be implemented and controller easier than ever.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[MarkvW]

You hit the nail on the head.

Retailers, I suspect are much more sensitive to fluctuations in demand because they have to bear the cost of physically stocking the products that don't sell. I suspect that they'll put stuff in the bargain bin way faster than an online retailer will.

On the other hand, maybe online retailers will get more sophisticated as time passes.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[GiMP]

As the games become less popular, the value naturally decreases, even with digital distribution. The retailers, even the online ones, know that they won't sell an older, (now) unpopular game two years after its release for $50.

Like you, I tend to only buy games once they're in the bargain bin, and yet I now do this almost exclusively online. Especially with the economy in the dumper, I've seen "bargains" popping up on Steam quite frequently. Games that were $50+ a year ago are now going on sale, or into digital bargain-bins for $5-20.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[fractoid]

No, actually I live in Australia, where you can still find Black & White on the shelves of our local game shops for $79.95. The used game market is there but it's not as big as getting things off Steam, or simply torrenting stuff.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[GMFTatsujin]

I appreciate how time mitigates the risk factor too. For fifty bucks, I know I'm paying to cover the marketing push of the company that made the Shiny New Game, but I don't know that I'm paying for a game that's worth it.

After a few months -- or even years -- the true value of the game will come through, and marketing will no longer be a factor. The game will have shown that it had the chops or not, and price will probably be much lower. I risk less cash for a better proven experience.

Gaming on the Long Tail makes a lot of sense. Digital distribution makes long tail gaming easy and cheap.

PLUG: I started the Long Tail Gamer videocast of favorite games with just this philosophy in mind. See my sig. (Ur-Quan Masters was my first review a few weeks ago. The next will be out shortly.)

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[GMFTatsujin]

(Shilling a bit here. I am not affiliated, I just love the company.)

Good Old Games (gog.com) provides excellent games on the long tail, completely DRM free. Buy it, it's yours. Plus you'll typically get extras like the soundtrack, the manual in PDF, desktop backgrounds, and add-ons.

It's a great system. I hope more businesses adopt it.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[geminidomino]

No doubt. There's been something of a fracas on one of the Guild Wars "elite community" sites[0], about the upcoming Storage update. They are offering new "panes" of storage (each holding 20 items/stacks) for $10 each and people are going mad. This, of course, is understandable since you can get a secondary ACCOUNT(each offering at least 200 slots and many other advantages) for $10 from any number of online and B&M retailers.

Of course, new campaigns that are $9.99 on newegg/amazon are still $40 on the NCSoft online store.

[0]Yes, GuildWarsGuru is well known for it's QQ-fests. This is just the latest.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Garrett Fox]

These days I find that if I have question in a physical store, the employee I talk to will go to a store computer, and use it to look up the info on the company's public Web site. This seems to happen at B&N. The other day at a Best Buy I went looking for the game "Portal," and the young male clerk had to look it up online and ask me to spell it.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve discounts their pricing on Steam all the time. Just makes sense: charge a lot and fleece those who can afford it or really want the newest game, then drop the price and pick up more customers.

You have a point about the used game market. I guess if you buy a lot of games and plan on recouping part the cost by selling them then, yes, this is not good for you.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. We will all pay dearly for intangible goods in the near future when all the clamps are down tight enough.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[fractoid]

Wow, I have a copy of Little Big Adventure that I yoinked from Underdogs (I owned the game way back when but predictably discs are long gone), but it didn't come with the sound files. I'd happily pay a few dollars for the soundtrack, some of the music on that game was beautiful.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[fractoid]

This is one thing that really, really annoys me. I go into a Telstra Shop, to sign up for an internet plan (this was a few years ago, they were the only company that supplied cable to my apartment block) and he was blatantly filling out the "apply online" form on their website. I'd hoped to get slightly faster service, and maybe some professional advice, by going to the store in person... well, I *was* young and foolish then.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[fractoid]

Are you talking about the CEO of a corporation? Or the owner of a private business? Because frankly, while the CEO has obligations to his shareholders, the private business owner can do whatever the hell pleases him, as long as it doesn't put him out of business (and even if it does that's his personal choice).

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

The companies will have to bring prices down, if not, everyone will just turn to pirating like they did with music.

A good $30 of that 69.99 is packaging, shipping & handling and shelf placement in the store. it all needs to go to computers, IMO, just to put a game on the PS3 cost over $7 a unit.

Re:Seems kinda obvious.

[morari]

That doesn't sound bad at all, so long as the games come as some sort of standard installer that I can burn to a disc and archive if need be. ;)

Not necessarily

[owlman17]

With music, the stuff that really matter to me, the musicians I really like, e.g. U2, Def Leppard, etc. I still buy the physical CD even though I could just as easily buy the digital versions from the comfort of my room. Not only am I a completist, I am a fan of those bands. My "B-class" bands or one-hit wonders, yeah I do buy the digital versions.

Same principle with games. I've been waiting for StarCraft II, Diablo III, etc. Even if I could get them digitally (if offered), I'd still buy them from the local store when they come out. I've gladly paid a premium for the physical copies of the games I really like over the years. Not just for the nostalgia, but also to support our local store.

Re:Not necessarily

[Mex]

That's nice that you buy the CD, but you're part of group of consumers that are fast becoming a minority.

Obviously game stores won't disappear soon, but they'll definitely become very niche, for collectors. Forget about nationwide chains. Remember "Tower Records"?

Re:Not necessarily

[corsec67]

There is a "Tower Records" in the mall near me (AEON Okazaki, Japan), it is just the stores in the US that liquidated.
Too bad so many of the CDs in that store are over ¥3,000.

Re:Not necessarily

[MrEricSir]

But why buy from the store? If you attend the concerts, you can usually buy every album you want at a discount, with no retailer involved.

For less well known bands (i.e. not U2 and Def Leppard) the amount you save by purchasing albums at the show can cover the entire ticket price.

Re:Not necessarily

[xaxa]

The small artists I see seem to charge more for their CDs at a show than it would cost me to get them from Amazon.

For instance, I saw Zeromancer a couple of weeks ago. They wanted £14 (or more? can't really remember) for their latest album, but it's available for £9.25 on Amazon marketplace. Admittedly, that's from the USA, but I don't mind waiting a couple of weeks for CDs to arrive.

I'd like to support local independent record stores, my favourite is Resurrection Records in Camden, London, since they're the only specialist industrial/gothic store I know. The CDs are mostly £14-20, but they're £2-3 less on Amazon, and another £3-6 less on Amazon marketplace.

Apparently, I can get music recommendations from the record store. I've never asked though, I just go to last.fm and click "Similar Artists", or go to a gig and remember what the support acts are called.

Re:Not necessarily

[Urd.Yggdrasil]

I still buy CD's as well, but it's mainly due to a lack of quality online downloads. When you buy a game at a store or on Steam you get exactly the same game, but buying a lossy mp3 isn't the same as ripping a CD to FLAC. If there were some decent online retailers of lossless audio I would probably buy from there.

Re:Not necessarily

[Hognoxious]

Too bad so many of the CDs in that store are over ¥3,000.

You're so exotic! Do you read mangas all the time?

Pity us poor fools who don't know the exchange rate between our local currency and the Nippenny.

Re:Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure? At the Takashimaya near me (Matsuyama, Japan) there used to be a Tower Records in there, but it's now a Tsutaya. The store might be there, but it might be a different chain.

Re:Not necessarily

[TheRaven64]

I still buy CDs, but for me it's largely a question of price. The last few albums I've bought have been cheaper on CD from Amazon (including delivery) than they've been from the iTunes store. Given the choice between a CD which I can store somewhere as a backup and can rip in any format I want, or paying more for an AAC version, it's a pretty easy choice. If I could buy them online for $2-3 then an album would be an impulse purchase and I'd buy a lot more.

Re:Not necessarily

[plover]

By making that choice you're supporting the "music industry" rather than "the artists". Granted, the producers make as much money either way, but by purchasing directly from the band you would cut the distributors out of the money, and give a proportionally larger amount to the group (who will hopefully put out another album for you to enjoy.)

Put it this way: buying a £9.25 disc from Amazon you'd give £6 to the producer and the RIAA, and £3 to the store, leaving about 25p to the artist. Buying a £14 disc at the show you'd still give £6 to the producer and the RIAA, but £8 to the artist.

Re:Not necessarily

[dragonjujotu]

Basic exchange rate: ¥100 ~ $1.00 I don't care to be exact, I'm just glad it's a power of 10 unlike the pound an euro.

Re:Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live, or have lived in Japan, and are white, you have to constantly point out the fact that you live in Japan on internet forums. If you're a minimum wage-earning "English teacher", you must make references to your "students" and gloss over the fact that you don't speak Japanese, yet are somehow qualified to teach others how to learn a language.

It's one of the documents you have to sign to get your visa.

Re:Not necessarily

[TheLink]

If the music industry can provide it cheaper maybe they are providing a service then :).

Of course if you really dislike the producer and the RIAA, the cheaper alternative is to get the stuff from P2P for 0 pounds, and then pay 8 pounds to the artist.

But marketing $$$ is often how you found the artist (even if not directly).

Perhaps someone would make a site, collect, organize music and do various Top 100 listings according to various taste categories. Not sure how that site would make money though.

Re:Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

With music, the stuff that really matter to me, the musicians I really like, e.g. U2, Def Leppard, etc. I still buy the physical CD even though I could just as easily buy the digital versions from the comfort of my room. Not only am I a completist, I am a fan of those bands. My "B-class" bands or one-hit wonders, yeah I do buy the digital versions.

Same principle with games. I've been waiting for StarCraft II, Diablo III, etc. Even if I could get them digitally (if offered), I'd still buy them from the local store when they come out. I've gladly paid a premium for the physical copies of the games I really like over the years. Not just for the nostalgia, but also to support our local store.

I agree I bought the bundle off of stardocks website the digital distribution with the physical copy mailed to my door. I support almost everything GPG releases and buy the games they make rather then warez them. I support companies that make a game(s) with supporting. I just hate driving out of my way to a store wasting time and gas. I'd rather do something else while I let my computer download the game. Also the fact I don't have to worry about losing the manual with my CD key on it is a big plus...can't tell you how many times I've had to re-buy a game because of that.

why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[SethJohnson]

Online distro favors devs / publishers for several reasons:

• Cut the retailer out of the cost column.
• Reduce packaging expenses.
• Reduce overhead.
• Small guy boutique can make a fortune with just a spare-time effort..
• End user can't re-sell the purchased product.

The last is the huge one. Adobe and Microsoft have tried all kinds of tactics to supress consumers' ability to re-sell software. The game companies no doubt hate seeing used game transactions taking place without them getting a cut. With online distro, the re-sell market is crippled.

Seth

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

# Small guy boutique can make a fortune with just a spare-time effort.

That's a good thing, considering spare-time effort often results in a better product than what big studios can produce.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[f0dder]

Seriously... name one small boutique game that's consistently better than the big boys? I think you're full of shit. Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Total Annihilation, MechWarrior4, Crimson Skies, Sub Command, 688i, IL-2 Strummovik, Falcon 4, FallOut, Warcraft series, Diablo series. World of Warcraft, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Total Annihilation, MechWarrior4, Crimson Skies, Sub Command, 688i, IL-2 Strummovik, Falcon 4, FallOut, Warcraft series, Diablo series. World of Warcraft, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot.

With the exception of Fallout, I'd take Cave Story or N+ over any of those.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice cherry-picked list of names you've got there, as though that's somehow typical of what "the big boys" produce. How about Spore, Alone in the Dark, Madden Roster Update 2010, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and Golden Axe: Beast Rider. I'll stick with my "spare time" efforts like Braid, thanks.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Daengbo]

Ummm, do you realize that Counter Strike was originally a mod for Half-life?

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[interkin3tic]

Another one: it screws over the assholes at gamestop. There was some speculation that gamestop was trying to punish stardock for digital distribution. There's as of yet no evidence that I know of to suggest it. I wouldn't be surprised though, gamestop is fond of trying to annoy people into giving them money.

The game companies no doubt hate seeing used game transactions taking place without them getting a cut.

A bit of a tangent, but I just have to point out that many other goods are sold second hand, they only rarely result in direct profit for the original manufacturer, and that hasn't hurt those other industries. I think game manufacturers are being absolutely ridiculous, if car manufacturers suggested the same thing, they'd be burned at the stake.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Cherry picked? So what? Doesn't the smart gamer cherry pick the games they buy? If they don't cherry pick the quality titles they're not really a smart gamer are they? Smart gamers don't buy crap.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Alone in the Dark

You're kidding, right? AitD was the first modern survival horror game! It had evil dogs bursting through windows four years before Resident Evil turned it into a cliche. It used 3D layouts and polygon characters back when most games were stuck on sprites. Genre-defining, period.

Man, it'd be dreadful if they'd tried to "reimagine" it last year. Thank heaven that never happened.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Then what were you trying to prove with that list? Nobody said that [name of indy game goes here] was better than the absolute best of "big-name" games.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[MortimerV]

First StarForce posting a link to a torrent of Galactic Civilizations II, now Gamestop breaking the street date. We can only assume that Stardock is doing something right, to be earning so many high-profile enemies!

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[KDR_11k]

Braid wasn't a spare time effort, it was full time though made with a smaller team than the big name games.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[MortimerV]

Now that I think about it, a better place for this would've been in the article about Gamestop breaking the street date. Oh well, it's probably been posted there already.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus the quotation marks.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice cherry picked name you've got there, as though that's somehow typical of what "spare time efforts" produce. There's a whole lot more crappy flash games with no redeeming value whatsoever than crappy professional games with no redeeming value whatsoever.

I'll just add a few names to his list. Fear, Battlefield 1942, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Homeworld, Deus Ex, Call of Duty, Freelancer, Freespace 2, Mafia, Grand Theft Auto, Far Cry, LOMAC, Total War, Need for Speed, Thief, World in Conflict, Ground Control.

If I really think hard, I can come up with two low budget games I really love: Dwarf Fortress and Mount and Blade. I didn't even like N.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

The original claim was:

That's a good thing, considering spare-time effort often results in a better product than what big studios can produce.

Emphasis added for the terminally retarded.
Here, I'll use small words.
1) AC claimed that spare-time efforts often result in better games than what a big studio can produce.
2) f0dder responded with a list of good games that big studios have produced.

Unless you can provide evidence that spare-time efforts often result in products better than the list f0dder gave, then the original claim stands. It's called logic. It's something that woefully underused organ between your ears is supposed to be used for.

That being said, I can only think of a few indie efforts whatsoever that are in the same league as that list (e.g Braid, World of Goo, Geometry wars), and none of those are really "spare time" efforts. There's a whole steaming pile of indie crap out there as well, so you really can't say indie stuff is "often" better than what big studios can produce.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[freedom_india]

Your forgot to include the troubles and issues of online distros:
1) You MUST support every single country's credit card. On the internet nobobody cares you are from USA or EU. They wanna play. And if you limit them, you pay the price of a pirated copy.
2) You MUST have 24x7x365 online access. No lunch breaks, no Christmas holidays, no bathroom breaks. Your time is NOT your time. You don't own it anymore. Even if you fail and go bankrupt you MUST provide access to your products. For instance i bought a huge number of mobipocket ebooks from paperbackdigital.com They went kaput. What did mobipocket.com say? Not our problem. What did i do? Downloaded pirated copies of those books. Would i trust mobipocket once more? NOPE. Did they get the message? NOPE.
3) Localized problems are Global problems. As i said earlier, if your online server is down due to a power cutoff (a la NYC) or Earthquake, your customer in Florida or South Africa doesn't care a sh1t. OTOH if you had sold through GameStop and Keene,NH Gamestop closed due to earthquake, it was not your problem. Welcome to One World.
4) You WILL be using a brand new mode of distribution: one that did not exist for 100 years. if you are shipping DVDs to Gamestop, you used a distribution that was tested over time, perfected over time, clockwork, covered under bank guarantees, etc. Not digital.
5) You WILL pay for bandwidth. Bandwidth is free is a myth. Steam will charge you for distribution by volume. Impulse does the same. Only other seemingly free route is BitTorrent, but only if you allow others to seed without permission. That means allowing unknown people to load up all your DVDs on to their plane, throwing it out of the window over towns, villages and cities, and You ferevntly hoping a few of those morons call you, pay you to load the Game on to their PCs. Tough Luck. OTOH, if you use DRM to control installs, you pay the price of a backlash where your Game will be pirated out of spite.
6) Unless you are paying the costs for every piracy, meaning you pay for bandwidth so that some thief can play your game without paying you, stop worrying about piracy. If your printing presses were not used to print your book, you are not paying the cost. And NO, not every pirated copy is a valid sale. 11 yr old kids don't have 49.99 They WILL pirate. Get used to it. Be happy you are not paying for their torrents.
All said and done, make sure you are funded adequeately. Banks get queasy when you don't include DRM and all that crap.
Good Luck.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[tepples]

You MUST support every single country's credit card.

What developed countries do payment processors such as PayPal and Google Checkout not support?

Localized problems are Global problems.

That's why you put eggs in more than one basket: host your downloads on multiple servers at multiple hosting companies.

You WILL be using a brand new mode of distribution: one that did not exist for 100 years.

The Internet is a packet telegraph network. Electrical telegraphy was commercialized in the 1840s.

You WILL pay for bandwidth.

Then design your product to use less bandwidth. If Nintendo can fit Super Mario Bros. into 40 KB, and .theprodukkt can fit .kkrieger into 96 KB, think of what your team can do with 100,000 KB.

11 yr old kids don't have 49.99

Did you mean "35 year old moms don't have 49.99"?

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Anonymous Coward]

On 5);

Is it not possible to develop a BitTorrent client which works on a subscription and the .torrent files encrypted so they can't be used in other torrent clients to prevent piracy?

Just a theory.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Tridus]

"4) You WILL be using a brand new mode of distribution: one that did not exist for 100 years. if you are shipping DVDs to Gamestop, you used a distribution that was tested over time, perfected over time, clockwork, covered under bank guarantees, etc. Not digital."

Let's see... Gamestop broke the Demigod street date last week. That's when it's even possible to FIND a new PC game there (good luck at the ones near me).

If Gamestop has this retail thing "perfected", its no wonder everybody wants to get away from that model ASAP.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[freedom_india]

Gamestop was ONE Retailer. BestBuy, Walmart, etc. also exist. Compare that with sole online distro.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[freedom_india]

What i stated was preconditions for sole online distros. PayPal and iTunes do not exactly match.
iTunes still accepts PayPal, but PayPal insists (Apple) that my account is funded with a US billing address. Like i care.
You are talking about Hosting. Am talking about others too.
Electrical Telegraphy did NOT send Moby Dick to my home. The internet can. 24x7.
Payment for bandwidth is advice to the newcomers. Most think bandwidth is free. To make sure they understand that they can't send across a 1.7GB crap called Tales of Valor and cry when AT&T charges them.
So, why exactly were you commenting my posts?

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[TheRaven64]

Not only that, it was the entire reason a lot of people I know bought Half Life (I had a copy already, received as a christmas gift). Half Life was fun in single player, but in multiplayer it was just okay. Different enough from Quake to be played for some variety, but not particularly exciting. Then came Counterstrike, which was a completely different game, and suddenly everyone was playing that instead of Quake at LAN parties and was buying legal copies of Half Life to play it on online servers. Without Counterstrike, I doubt Half Life would have been anything like the commercial success it was.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[freedom_india]

True. But allowing the whole Game to be distributed by others is a better choice. Like WarCraft clients. Hell i can install it in as many PCs i want.
I can download it from anywhere.
But that's limited to online play.
While the game executable can be distributed by anyone, to unlock would require a special file, got by purchasing (much like earlier day shareware or even WinRAR, but more robust).
 

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Trojan35]

This is a double-edged sword. They'll probably need to re-do their pricing structure, because many people who currently pay $60 for a game do so knowing they can get half of that expense back on the used market.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[elrous0]

Why you gotta run down 50 Cent?

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[eiMichael]

I'm very certain he's referring to the newest version. As a side note though, I too loved the first one.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[Bigjeff5]

If you're doing an online retail store targeting a global audience, you're probably not going to use Paypal for your sole means of accepting money.

You know that credit cards and the internet and buying things over the phone and internet have been around a long, long time. It's pretty trivial to set yourself up to be able to accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express over the web - I think Visa is most expensive, taking 5% of your sale price but it's also the biggest. If you've got those three then you're covering 99% of the credit card market, which covers 99% of online sales.

Your pre-conditions can be met by most anybody with a couple thousand dollars and a computer, since the internet is 24x7, and so are computers, and so are automated purchasing/download systems. You don't think a person actually sits there and reviews each digital purchase before it is downloaded do you? It's all automated. One guy could easilly manage a relatively large system this way. It's not that hard.

I don't think anybody thinks bandwidth is free, they have to pay for it after all, but relatively speaking it's very cheap. It'll cost $5-10 to ship a little box with a program in it to your door (I'm talking the actual cost, not an online free shipping special here, where the retailer eats the cost). 2gb of bandwidth is going to cost at the most $5, and that's if you've got a crappy cap like mine. It's significantly cheaper on the retailer's side if they are actually selling copies and moving product. It's only expensive per-item if you aren't selling any. This is assuming you payed for a hosting company (or the bandwidth to host your own) and enough bandwidth to cover what you sell.

No, the hard part is getting product, negotiating prices, and staying competative. The internet makes delivery a heck of a lot easier and more accessible, not harder.

Re:why the devs / publisher's LOVE online distro

[f0dder]

Look at the original statement, yes he did. >>That's a good thing, considering spare-time effort often results in a better product than what big studios can produce.

No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked Stardock before they went all Impulse crazy.
But now:
- Maybe the game wont activate in the future
- Who knows what kind of spyware is in Impulse
- No separately downloadable patches

I bought Sins but was rather unhappy when they switched the patching system to Impulse. So you could no longer play online (game versions must match between players) unless you installed their spyware.

No thanks, if I wanted Steam I'd go with Steam.
Is it so wrong to want to buy a truly DRM-free game?
On a DVD (which I can backup), with no passwords/serials to forget/lose?

Re:No Thanks

[KDR_11k]

- Who knows what kind of spyware is in Impulse

If that's your worry you should never buy any binary blobs from anyone. They don't need an online download platform to stick spyware into, they could just do that with the code you buy at retail.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what firewalls are for.

We already know Steam keeps all kinds of statistics about your hardware, how long you play each game, who you play against etc etc.. Along with your account details they can build a nice profile.

Thanks for the strawman though.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what firewalls are for.

Um no, actually firewalls are for blocking and filtering network data based on port usage (talking about the firewalls you get on windows, not complex iptables setups.)

Firewalls don't do a damn thing when you download and install a file.

Also, I can't argue with the poster 3 levels higher, because every point he makes is a legitimate concern, and yes, he shouldn't consider binary blobs to be safe. Some people are fine going through life not concerning themselves with stuff like this, but if security is a concern, then stick with open source stuff you compile yourself.

Re:No Thanks

[Rockoon]

...because there isn't any way to give open source spyware to the average computer user, right?

Re:No Thanks

[tepples]

Firewalls don't do a damn thing when you download and install a file.

They do when you block any network connection from a program not approved by you. Spyware could pipe its connections through the programs already on your system (e.g. wget); to block that, you can run each non-free application in a VM with no access to the Internet.

but if security is a concern, then stick with open source stuff you compile yourself.

Including the compiler? Besides, what sort of open-source self-compiled platform fighting game replaces, say, Super Smash Bros. Brawl?

Re:No Thanks

[Tridus]

"Is it so wrong to want to buy a truly DRM-free game?
On a DVD (which I can backup), with no passwords/serials to forget/lose?"

The 82% piracy rate on Demigod last week that took down the entire server infrastructure would suggest that yes, there's a problem with that model. It's not terribly good at keeping the companies who make the games in business.

Re:No Thanks

[neomunk]

Do you have any financial data from Stardock to back that up? Of course not, because Stardock is making money hand over fist.

Cries proclaiming the death of media companies (especially the recording and film industries) would be far more convincing if I didn't keep hearing the words "record profits" bandied about whenever a story doesn't mention piracy.

The PC gaming industry as a whole MAY be the exception to this, but Stardock isn't.

Re:No Thanks

[LingNoi]

This has been touted multiple times throughout the years, however do you have ANY evidence to suggest that compilers are inserting code into programs?

No, you don't so why continue this nonsensical line of reasoning?

Re:No Thanks

[Kamokazi]

Stardock won't install spyware, unless they want to flag themselves as one of the biggest hypocrites on the planet. They co-authored the Gamers Bill of Rights with Gas-Powered Games. Number 6 states:

"Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their express consent."

communism = forced economy

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who most despise communism and are staunch criticizers of communism (a.k.a. retail businessman who got rich from retailing goods), actually have to rely on the communism idea of a planned economy (i.e. government intervention to limit the digital distribution industry and protection of retail industry) for the retailing industry to survive.

What irony.

Re:communism = forced economy

[fastest fascist]

Right, because before Marx, there was no government intervention in economies. I'm guessing you're from the USA by the casual way you throw the term "Communist" around.

Re:communism = forced economy

[shentino]

Government as referee is different from government as boss.

Re:communism = forced economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that pure capitalism? Retailers buy politicians to pass laws to protect their business.

Re:communism = forced economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure capitalism can only happen when there isn't politicians to buy out.

Re:communism = forced economy

[KDR_11k]

Okay, then make it bribing the local functionaries of the mob or whoever else managed to get the firepower advantage first.

Game retailers are antiquated

[Renderer of Evil]

It's a highly inefficient operation in terms of getting a good return from the shelf space. It's taken up by giant empty boxes that don't do anything.

Here's an idea. Tear down these remaining stores and turn them into arcades with every game loaded on a server with terminals all around. You pay-for-play and if you decide it's something you'd enjoy pay for a copy on a USB stick. Now you have instant gratification and avoidance of downloading of 3 gigs of shit on Steam.

Re:Game retailers are antiquated

[xkcdFan1011011101111]

That's a good idea. My hometown has a store called McVan's. The store allows you to try any video game in the store for free before buying it. This has had an effect (intenionally, I'm sure) of becoming a "gamer hangout" and advice from the store staff and other gamers hanging out is often available. Their product isn't just video games, but geek culture. I wish they had a store where I live now...

Confusing Headline

[im_thatoneguy]

How is it that "Game Retailers" are hurting "Themselves".

Shouldn't the headline read "Online Game Distributors killing Game Retailers"?

I haven't seen any actions on the Game Retailers part that is hurting themselves except for existing. I suppose you could argue they should have become what steam is. But that's passively letting yourself die out.

Re:Confusing Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that Game Retailers are hurting themselves by promoting online distribution. If they push online distribution they are basically telling they're customers to not come back to their store, and instead do everything online.

While this could be bad for the retailers, not moving to online distribution soon would be a worse mistake, as can be seen with Hollywood Video and Blockbuster here in the US.

Game retailers .. antiquated - What is their Role?

[The_Myth]

This is actually not a bad idea. I walked into my local EBGames store to get a classic old fashioned Joystick to play X-Wing vs Tie fighter as my current computer doesnt have a MIDI port to pulg my old joystick into. Where they used to stock hardware like this there were a couple of racks of Wii Controller covers, DS and PSP "Skins" Bargin bins of empty boxes and shelves lined with more empty boxes and Collectible Card Games behind the counter.

The only Joystick they had was under a bargin bin out of sight. I had to ask a staff member did they still sell them. The staff member had to ask the manager who asked another assistent where they moved the old stock to. The second assistant pulled out this old Logitech box (circa 2005) and said it was the only one they had. Ironically is that it comes with a 12 month warrantee that as I had just bought it is only now coming into effect.

With MMOGs, the PS3/Xbox360/Wii marketplaces and things like Steam what role does the game shop serve now? If not this one of demoing the game to get you to want to buy it then what?

Seems is all there is.

[mcrbids]

Books don't run on a computer. You can "download" a book, but using a laptop to read a book is inconvenient, and an e-book reader is expensive and clumsy.

But software needs to run ON the computer. There's no real benefit to the packaging and/or CD itself once it's installed, other than you can get $3 selling it back to (ahem) the local software/games store.

Used games is what the local software store makes money on, anyway. I bought GTA 3 for PS2 at the local store for $7, and I doubt the the original guy got more than $2 for the game.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Kokuyo]

You all seem to be ignoring that deep down, most of us are still hunter-gatherers.

Personally, I like reading stuff on screen. Gives me way less cramps than holding a book or keeping my head at weird angles because the book is on the table. Yet, when I buy stuff, I want a physical presentation of that to put on a shelf. I want my books looking as nice as possible, I want my movies as DVDs and I want the good games to have the packaging standing around somewhere (with such a low number of good games coming out these days, the space used is negligible).

What I'd like to see is this: I go to Amazon, buy a book/movie/game/music and they'll send it just as we're used to. Then there's the option, like a gift wrap, to download the thing for another 3 bucks (gotta pay for bandwidth and server storage after all).

That's the way I want it. I don't want to have to bend over backwards to get my digital content from my media onto my harddrive. Even worse with non-digital content. The mind boggles at the thought of scanning a whole book let alone half a dozen or more. Considering that publishers have digital versions of just about anything they produce, one should think this would be a piece of cake.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[IBBoard]

There's no real benefit to the packaging and/or CD itself once it's installed

There's the useful advantage of having the physical media. It came up before in a previous topic, but I'd still rather have the physical item rather than the binary download because a) it won't get lost in a disk crash or reinstall etc, b) the DRM is (generally) still slightly less and c) it is generally easier to install it on a second computer (for use at a different time rather than getting multiple copies from a single purchase).

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Jurily]

What I'd like to see is this: I go to Amazon, buy a book/movie/game/music and they'll send it just as we're used to. Then there's the option, like a gift wrap, to download the thing for another 3 bucks (gotta pay for bandwidth and server storage after all).

Nah, that's redundant. Why should I have to pay to get dead trees when I only want to read it on the screen? You like dead trees, that's fine, but I don't have the skyscrapers to put all my downloaded books in. (Naturally, all from a legal source, and naturally, I wouldn't have this many if I had to build a library to store them.)

Maybe download could be a delivery option, but forcing me to get it in two formats is just weird.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Nursie]

There is one good reason for buying it at the store - price.

Spore, when it came out here in good old rip-off Britain, was a whole 10 pounds more expensive online than it was in store.
WTF? Surely it's cheaper to push some bits around than to ship it out? And 10 pounds? That's a lot.

Either way, I went to GAME and got it there. Now I not only have physical media, but I got it for three quarters the price.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Kokuyo]

I said that's what _I_ would like to see. Naturally, the other way round wouldn't be rocket science after that.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[crashumbc]

That's because they have agreements with the retailers...

within 5 years it'll be gone and so will most game stores. Physical distribution is the way of the past it's already dead, publisher just haven't figured it out yet...

Re:Seems is all there is.

[hedwards]

Should I point out that you're a Luddite now, or wait till the end of my post?

Books are a terrible format for information to come in, it's easy to lose ones place, bookmarks can fall out easily and one has to find a position which is comfortable, the size of the print and the spacing are usually not right for large portions of the population.

Computers can solve most of those problems quite easily with technology that we already have, and pretty much all of that has already been addressed by at least one ebook reader.

Or to put it another way, perhaps we could just admit that books are not particularly well suited to their intended purpose and should really be relegated to the world of antiques and collectibles. Electronic literature just has too many upsides to be ignored. Probably the only downside to them is the lack of durability into the future, ill conceived things like DRM and poor backups could be really bad for long term culture.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[orclevegam]

Best of both worlds, offer it for download with the physical copy shipping with a coupon for X off the digital copy where X is equal to all but $3 (or whatever) of the cost of the digital copy.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Gizzmonic]

Physical distribution is the way of the past it's already dead, publisher just haven't figured it out yet...

Tell that to the millions of people in the US who are still unable to get broadband. Also, tell me how you are going to reconcile 10 GB + of game size with download caps which are being introduced everywhere.

Also, what's going to happen when you want to bring a game over to your friend's house to play? Do you:

A)Call him 4+ hours ahead of time so he can download it, promising to pay him back to the download cap?

B)Give him your Xbox Live online password so he can validate the DRM? (Thus giving him full access to playing online as you, your credit card no., etc)

C)Bring your backup hard drive to his place and "restore" over his console, erasing his entire system (he will restore from his own backup when you leave)?

The answer is probably A & B if console manufacturers quit using physical discs. That's very, very bad for the consumer.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Garrett Fox]

I'm puzzled by the trend by a few authors of releasing their books for free online, then expecting people to buy the paper copy. In one case I even saw the hardcover, saw the note saying "this is CC-licensed and free online," walked out of the store, and downloaded it freely and legally. As a writer, I'm wondering whether this free-release practice works for anybody but Cory Doctorow.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Kharny]

Books are easy to replace, cheap and require no electricity to operate though.
Ease of use is still a lot higher than ereaders or computers.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. The author is betting that he is a better author than most others. As such, you would enjoy more of his works than works of other authors. If that is true, then some percentage of people will gladly 1) donate money to him (most efficient means of supporting him) or 2) purchase the physical book (inefficient means of supporting him). They will do this because they want to encourage him to write more books because he is better than others.

It may not make the author an instant overnight bestseller, but it could easily provide him an income.

Think of it this way: If George R. Martin said he needed small donations of $1-5 from his readers to be able to continue writing, some of them would do it, regardless of e-books or free downloads.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[Bigjeff5]

It's because it boosts the sales of all their works, especially the one they put up for free. Honestly. They do it because it makes them more money.

Books that make money tend to only make money in the first few quarters, after that sale of those books plummet. The same is true for even blockbuster monster hit books, the difference being the low point for those books is about the same as the high point for your average successful book.

By putting a book that has been out a year or two online, they draw new readership, and a good percentage of the people who read it online either buy the paperback/hardcover of it to keep and read again, or they buy other books by the same author.

Go check out the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/, the editor/co-creator of the site for Baen Books explains why it works, his Prime Palever is pretty interesting too.

It's all Sci-Fi books, and there is a pretty good selection.

Basically, sure there are folks like you and me who don't really care for paper books, but most people find paper much easier and more enjoyable to read, and so tend to sample the online book, decide they like it, and buy it and others in dead tree format. An author may not want to release a book for free, but really it just makes sense after as little as a year to start putting it up for free.

Of course, as eBook readers get better and better and more people use them this business model will be less effective, but then you just adjust and do things a little differently. Right now though it is a very effective way to boost an author's sales.

Re:Seems is all there is.

[SunnyDaze]

I'm puzzled why libraries are still considered legal with all these people complaining about copyright. You get to read the book for free....

If only there was something that gave more info

[Chuck Chunder]

Perhaps something like a linked article!

Fuckwit.

Re:If only there was something that gave more info

[im_thatoneguy]

Perhaps something like a linked article!

Fuckwit.

Except the only "retailer" mentioned in the story was sony. And to me Sony is nothing more than a distributor not a retailer.

He talks about hypotheticals in the article. "If game companies were to start selling online then they would be teaching their consumers that there is an easier way."

But from what I've seen Game Retailers seem to feel that way already and are content to slowly fade into oblivion.

So as I said before. It's a pretty misleading headline to imply that Game Retailers are actively working to right now to undermine their business with online sales--since the only example provided was the Microsoft/Sony online store type arrangement.

Surprise Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised to see the Demigod case(quick recap: the multiplayer servers were slowed for a day by pirated copies that were attempting to connect for registration) being touted in another anti-piracy article, even though the company behind Demigod stated themselves that the problem was their own, not piracy.

Re:Surprise Surprise

[sapphire wyvern]

Well, the person they're interviewing is in fact a representative of the Demigod company, so of course they're going to ask him about it.

Also, they took responsibility for the pirates hampering the game for the legit users... but didn't exactly say that the server problems weren't the fault of the pirates. They said that they shouldn't have configured their game so that the large number of pirate copies (which they say they should have anticipated) affected the gameplay experience of the paying customers.

In short: they state that the problem was caused by pirates, but that they shouldn't have allowed the pirate copies to fuck up the experience for their paying customers; piracy is inevitable and should be planned for; and that pirate copies are usually not lost sales. Their biggest regret was that some customers who pre-ordered were left feeling like chumps when the pirates got copies first thanks to Gamestop. All in all, a very astute and correct analysis of the situation, I think.

Re:Surprise Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was not caused by piracy. Demigod automatically polled an update server with HTTPS to check for updates, and the update server was hosted coincidentally with the actual game servers. They were brought to their knees by a large number of requests, and it would have happened even if they had sold 100,000 copies. The means by which those 100,000 clients got into people's hands has nothing to do with it.

Re:Surprise Surprise

[sapphire wyvern]

Hmm. They obviously didn't account for the actual load; I had thought it was due to failing to account for piracy, but now that you mention it, I suppose 100,000 legitimate copies is not an unreasonable number for the opening month of a new game (although probably far higher than what they actually expected). Having that load arrive earlier than the game's actual street date probably didn't help matters, either.

I guess my point is that it's not hard to imagine that the architecture they had *would* have handled the load of all the reasonably expectable sales. So I think it's hard to say that the 9 pirate users hitting the server for each actual paid-for-copy had nothing to do with its inability to handle the load. You're absolutely correct that 100,000 legitimate sales would have been just as bad for the infrastructure, but that seems a high number of early sales for a frankly small-fish game to my ignorant self. You're likewise correct that they should never have set up their server architecture that way, and they agree.

Used game sales

[cjfs]

With no more used game sales, the publishers can finally have everyone buy new copies and be rid of their number two complaint.

It'll be a slow transition, but we'll eventually see them discount games down to factor this in, right?

Re:Used game sales

[tsotha]

What do you mean, "eventually"? I never pay more than twenty bucks for a game on Steam. I bought Portal for $5 and Deus Ex for $9.99. Sure, new releases are still $40 or $50, but who's in the driver's seat? If you don't like the price, buy a different game. They'll get the message.

online retailers

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Most of the games I buy are through online retailers. I prefer to own a physical copy. I don't like spending over 20 euros on something I cannot touch. (That, and I'm a sucker for collectors editions.) And I don't mind waiting a few days. Offline retailers usually suck, because it's a big mess. It's not easy to find stuff or browse through the whole collection.

Whaaat??

[Anonymous Coward]

This crazy man's statement is so backwards, it's millions of years ago, in this dinosaur conversation:

Mammal: Hey Dino, there's a cold snap coming on, maybe you should get warm-blooded and grow som fur.

Dino: Nah, us dinosaurs would be hurting ourselves by doing that. If we were all warm and furry, why would we need our cold reptile skin??

Re:Game retailers .. antiquated - What is their Ro

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a different experience.

Some people still like to have something physical. Something the store cannot take away from you because for some reason they decide to turn off their servers.

If you buy in a retail store, you can play the game now. If you buy in a download store, you have to wait several hours for the download and in my experience in 1/4 to 1/3 of the cases another 1-2 days for support because their precious store has a bunch of bugs.

Online is not really cheaper...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It seems to be popular opinion that downloads cost are so close to zero that it does not matter. Well after pricing bandwidth deals for servers and minimum bandwidth cost, since you need enough bandwidth for peak demand not average. I was surprised that pressing DVD's and posting could easily be cheaper.

I can get 1000 DVD pressed for 30p including art on the disk and a 4 page slick. 10000 is much cheaper since it can use the same master. Its not much more for a box. Postage is pretty cheap if your not using amazon pricing as a guide. Now for bulk distribution to shops, I would estimate that is cheaper to sell box sets that online copies.

Really the price of infrastructure is the killer here. If you could get away with average bandwidth rather than peak it wouldn't be so bad.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[freedom_india]

You need a small lesson in Economics 101 my friends:
1) The cost of a product is NOT equal to its cost of manufacture, storage, shipping & profit. It is much more complex. For instance store display: Shelves are pricey. If you do not want your Game to be relegated to the corner, you better be prepared to give the Retailer a larger share of your take.
2) The cost of in-store advertising, banking costs (LoC, and other bank costs), add up to your margin; Seriously you are not thinking of shipping 100,000 copies of Tales of Valor to Gamestop without buying insurance against their bankruptcy, not to mention getting their banker to issue you a letter of credit, accounting fiascos, etc. Its not just production+marketing costs. (FYI marketing is NOT selling. Marketing includes everything).
3) Storage space, warehouse rentals, insurance, shipper costs, insurance, finances, banking lines of credit, etc., take a bite out of your profit.
Getting a DVD manufacturer to press 1000 DVD at 30p is the start of your troubles. The maker will charge you for shipping to/from his factory, you need space to store it till you ship it to shops/retailers/direct purchases, money to tide you over until then, etc.
Which is why CDs cost $19.99. (all of the money does not line up the RIAA pockets. And NO, am NOT a supporter of RIAA/MPAA. I buy my music from Russian websites).
So, there goes your arguments.
Being Digital involves a different set of troubles: You need to purchase bandwidth and in this age of throttling, double-dipping by AT&T, you need the clout of Google and the bank balance of Bill Gates to muscle in on a online store like Impulse or Steam. They handle your troubles for a fee. And that is not cheap.
You need to tie up with PayPal or credit card processors who take a a cut.
You need to make sure your latest fixpacks or updates are shipped via the same media.
You need to make sure your online support is available 24x7x365. And NO, you cannot set timings like 9AM-6PM Central. You DO NOT sell at BestBuy. The customers fix your timing. And according to them they ARE calling you at 9.30AM their time. NO they don't care if its 10.30PM your time.
You need to make sure that if you want to sell a second Game you better be prepared to make sure your planned downtimes are PLANNED. No unscheduled downtime. If its down for 10 mins, its down for 10x1,000,000 mins (1,000,000 users).
Above all, prepare to have DVDs ready for shipping when somene wants the physical copy and is willing to pay for it.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

My arguments went nowhere....

I didn't add all these thing because they distract from the point and they exist on *both* sides of distribution as you said. Really We had full quotes including insurance, storage, legal (a big one) and cost of credit (we don't need much we have cash) but only door to door. Not to a shop. I was not much extra. Once you hit the 100000 copy mark things get cheaper per unit not higher.

And *lot* of extra cost too. First is the costs of SLA and associated legal fees, no to mention that already you have to pay a pretty penny and are on a 2+year contract for this end of the server market with expensive termination options. Now you need a merchant account or to out source online transactions. Again this is not cheap and again its expensive if you want a SLA. This gets even more complicated in that its generally a pain if you can't really predict the transaction volume.

Yet you mention all that and then claim I'm wrong. We priced it up. It was about the same to cheaper with shipped DVD's than online. Both is worse of course. The claim that online distribution mean the cost of a copy is nothing is simply not true.

And yet there is even more. One of the big headaches is ratings. In some countries is fine to sell without a rating if you are not based there, in others you must get the game rated first regardless. Legal fees are a bit of a killer since its all international.

However there is another option. Bit torrent. But i don't know if that will really work with paying customers. I think a full download option would be needed at a minimum.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[freedom_india]

Yet you mention all that and then claim I'm wrong.

Sorry. I didn't mean you were wrong. If i had implied it, am really sorry.
You seem to have gone through all the options and done a good deal of research.
That said, online distribution is more of a pain than DVDs. With physical media you have a proven, established, experienced network that works like clockwork.
With online like Steam or impulse, you entering a new world. Many things may go wrong which are not covered under SLA.
For instance Steam servers may melt, Earthquakes in CA which really do not concern the man in CT (but yet gets affected), etc.
Your local problems become globalized and they are YOUR problems. If a DVD shop were to experience an Earthquake, it is the shop's problem. not yours. But if the same Earthquake hits Steam, you are hammered because ALL your customers are hammered.
Ratings as you say is a BIG, BIG pain in the A$$.
Relic is now trying BitTorrent-like P2P downloads to speed up patches.
But even that is slower than Direct from Steam (comcast anyone).
You may want to look at separating content from the license.
Meaning you upload the stuff to BitTorrent. It takes its own path much like the latest DVD Screener finds its way. Others take care of distribitution.
You then sell only Licenses to the Game.
Like winrar does. No, not like Shareware. You still provide direct content and your own torrents, but people are free to download from elsewhere (like Rapidshare, Torrent, FilePlanet, who cares).
Once they install, they need a license file to unlock. This is generated uniquely for each user and centrally validated. Like a COM GUID. Universally valid ID and yet unique. Tied to User , but not tied to online.
Yes, hackers WILL hack your game to produce a hot rodded license file. That's the price you pay.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Yes, hackers WILL hack your game to produce a hot rodded license file. That's the price you pay.

I agree completely. I only hope its gets popular enough for this to be something that could happen. I was only going to have a "cd-key" or as you suggested a downloaded keyfile. I really want to be able to ban cheaters. But tell lawyers that and they a little crazy.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[freedom_india]

From time immemorial man has had the tendency to acquire for free if he could get away with it.
Stealing Electricity when it was introduced was a BIG problem. Big enough for many companies to die. Eventually it got straightened out.
Same was with Telegraph. The number of times codes changed in Telegraph is too numerous. Since telegraph companies charged by word, companies had exotic dictionaries with vast number of definitions for each word: Long sentences for single meaningless words.
So was it with Telephone. People still steal phone talk time through pranks, tapping, etc.
Internet stealing through WiFi...
You can't prevent stealing.
You can only control your own costs so that a stolen Game did NOT result in adding to your costs. Like DemiGod is doing now for Stardock.
A .license file which embeds the user's email ID, hardware ID and a few random details is quite hard to break yet not too costly.
No, DRM would not do it. Gamers get mad when their PCs are hacked legally.
If your Game is stolen, and exchanged for free in torrents, but it does NOT add to your running costs, forget worrying about it. What does not cost you, should not worry you.
Of course your lawyers will argue that each illegal install is money stolen from you: that's not entirely true. A 11-yr old kid may want to play, but does not have the money to buy it. He will somehow steal it. You can't get money from him. But you can bet that he will praise it to his friends, some of whom will buy it.
Other crowd is the earning well-to-do crowd. They will the latest. And they will yours.
Others are professional hackers. They thrive on challenge. They WILL crack the most hardest Games, even BioShock. You can't control them.
Some, like me, will buy out of loyalty, or will crack it if it can't be bought in my country, or play a hacked version to see if its Good and buy it to keep my PC free of Trojans. And yes, i buy every Game stardock makes: Why? NO DRM. I don't even play their Games. I just buy and that's it. I play Company of heroes ONLY. Not even Crysis. But i still buy Political Machine, Gal Civ II, DemiGod, etc. Why? NO DRM, plus i like Stardock.
Their support is cool and their CEO seems to have realized that DRM a la, BioShock hits them back.
Thier only slip up was online resources. This is where they pay costs.
If yours is not online gaming, then you are good to go.
People who steal your Game may buy, may not. But as long as they don't cost YOU in server time or resources, why worry?
Its a Business Risk. Much like CISCO doesn't care if clone copies of their routers are sold in China. Why? They don't incur costs on such cloned copies. So no worry.
Think about it, but consult with a lawyer. IANAL. So beware. I talk from my experience only.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[Asic Eng]

I wonder whether it could be interesting to distribute via torrent. Instead of putting the game on a server you'd put the torrent file there and run a private tracker. Those of your customers who are prepared to seed at least twice the download size would get a small compensation - maybe a slightly reduced price, access to a mini game, or an additional level for the game.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[Psychotria]

I wonder whether it could be interesting to distribute via torrent. Instead of putting the game on a server you'd put the torrent file there and run a private tracker. Those of your customers who are prepared to seed at least twice the download size would get a small compensation - maybe a slightly reduced price, access to a mini game, or an additional level for the game.

That'd be great. But what about the rest of us who don't have 100gb/s connections? And this is aside from the fact that torrents are always (in my experience) shit slow.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[Asic Eng]

Well you need a halfway decent connection to download the game in the first place. The upload is slower, but would it really matter if you get the extra level in a week's time, while the torrent client runs in the background? Some torrents are very fast - that just depends on the number of seeders.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[Lumpy]

Exactly, thanks a TON for that. The cost of the disc in a store is FAR MORE than your website dishing out infinite free to make copies.

Plus you are missing the costs of getting your game in a store like Walmart. you have to meet THEIR terms, your MSRP is $59.99? They want it on the shelf at $49.99 and 15% more profit than you give any other store. And Walmart can command t hat because they are bigger than GOD when it comes to retail store locations. They utterly own EB games,bestbuy, and the others rolled together in game sales.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[brkello]

I really don't see where you are coming from. The cost of pressing, boxing them with manuals, shipping them to stores all over the world, and then letting the stores take part of the profit is not going to be cheaper than selling direct to the consumer. On top of that, it eliminates the used market. And when Valve already has the infrastructure that you can use, I don't see how the traditional method of software distribution is going to last.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[clubby]

I pay $60/mo for a pretty decent but still only residential-class internet connection, and last night my torrents were coming down at 1.6MB/s sustained, with 30-60 second spikes of 2.3MB/s. I think you need to find better torrents.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[freedom_india]

Am NOT trying to justify either means of distribution is better than the other.
I was trying to tell you the advantages of each one and disadvantages of each one.
Its up to you to make a decision.

Re:Online is not really cheaper...

[brkello]

Any DRM is going to be cracked. So I agree that spending a lot of time and resources to come up with DRM is a waste of time. But some simple, non-obtrusive DRM is fine since it will prevent a lay-person from going and downloading a game from some warez site.

Any justification you give for piracy is fairly lame. Stardock is a perfect example of how pirates can cause damage to online experience and degrade paying customer performance. It is true that not all piracy is a lost sale. But to think that none of them are lost sales is ridiculous.

DRM right now is a very broad term. It can mean something simple like a cd key, or something more onerous like a root kit or install limits. There is a balance of protecting your work and pissing off your customers. I really am glad the Stardock thing happened. It just shows that when a company tries to do what the Slashdot crowd suggest they do (DRM free software), the pirates still will step up to the plate and screw them over. I hope everyone on here who says they only support DRM free games is buying up every game they come out with. But I am sure most of the piracy apologists are still not paying them a dime.

No story...

[Anonymous Coward]

You drink the kool-aide, or you don't.
Introduce an enjoyable, playable game with many hours of playable/mod-able content, and you will strike it rich.
Otherwise, try for legislation that benefits your business plans while keeping Pterodactyls our primary commercial flight platform.

Both plans seem to work for some stupid reason.....Unfortunately, I have not seen 'Pterodactyls_make_ur_Windows-world-too_fscking_stupid.deb'...yet.
It's only a matter of time....and will REQUIRE me to 'sudo apt-get install 'Pterodactyls_make_ur_Windows-world-too_fscking_stupid'....and rejoice when I can do so.

Do yourself, or better yet the world, a favor....Heinously shoot a Windows user(and yourself) in the face/balls with a BFG-9000...the more of you sterilized, the better for humanity and it's future.

Harsh, and uncaring you say???
Hah!!Hah!1Hah!1, that does not even begin to express the disdain and lack of respect/full contempt we have for you bacterial cultures(not even upper=level enough to be sheep). LOL!!! We have ROFLCOPTER to at your misplaced arrogance, and mis-guided/deluded attempts at you naively refer to logic/rationality.

Bullshit, to you,...and the White Mule you rode in on.
Contribute, prove yourself worthy, or die!!
If you can't prove yourself worthy, and nothing but a leach. then Fsck you, DDT has *something* for your worthless ass...good riddance to the gene-pool!

Silly Humans...Trix are for intelligent beings, not for you kids!!!
Come back in several Millennium, you may be worth our time then to talk to.

Re:No story...

[KDR_11k]

Introduce an enjoyable, playable game with many hours of playable/mod-able content, and you will strike it rich.

You forgot the "make it appeal to the masses" part there.

Re:No story...

[tepples]

Introduce an enjoyable, playable game with many hours of playable/mod-able content, and you will strike it rich.

But console games sell despite the lack of mods.[1] Why is this? Oh, it's because four people in your home only need one console, one TV, and one copy of the game for a game in a split screen (e.g. Mario Kart Wii) or a shared camera (e.g. Super Smash Bros. Brawl), not four PCs, four TVs, and four copies of the game.

[1] Apart from token moddable efforts like RPG Maker and Fighter Maker.

Read on your Mobile

[krischik]

A good mobile phone can be used to read eBooks. And that is not at all expensive and clumsy.

I know it is off topic but I hate amazon for breaking the mobipocket idea of "read on the device you already own" to push there Kindle thingy.

So stupid - got the whole infrastructure for platform in-depended eBooks when they purchased mobipocket and they broke it.

Re:Read on your Mobile

[xaxa]

Ebook readers have screens that are so much nicer to read for long periods of time, it's just like reading a real book, and not at all like having a light shining in your eyes.

I was going to buy one for my commute (by train), but then I noticed my nearest public library was just over the road from the station and didn't bother.

A good solution would be to put an e-paper screen on a phone, although currently that'd be at the expense of watching video etc.

Re:Read on your Mobile

[krischik]

I don't mind eBook readers. What I do mind is reduction of choice or unnecessary and incompatible changes to an established file format.

Mobipocket can be read on various eBook devices, Windows PCs, PDAs and Smartphones.
Mobipocket. You can buy Mobipocket eBooks from about a dozen shops - most of which even features in the Mobipocket software them self.

Mobipocket was inviting other companies to join in.

And what did Amazon do after they purchased Mobipocket? A minor but incompatible change to the file format and reduction to just one device.

Re:Read on your Mobile

[Digital_Quartz]

Mobipocket can't be read on a Sony reader (without breaking the DRM).

Mobipocket can be read on your computer until your computer hard drive crashes and you have to reinstall your OS, at which point your computer gets a new Mobipocket key, and all your existing books won't read anymore.

Mobipocket is a format designed to be incompatible with the rest of the world from the word go.

Re:Game retailers .. antiquated - What is their Ro

[KDR_11k]

EB/GameStop have a very small store and almost no hardware, you'd have been better off asking at an electronics retailer, they have entire shelves of joysticks with unpacked ones placed on the top of the shelf so you can try them out before picking one.

WTF?

[berenixium]

People still buy stuff at stores? Meh, Amazon and Tesco.com forever.

SneakerNet Lives!

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprisingly, it's not necessarily the case that "digital delivery is faster."

I bought Fallout 3 from Steam. It took about 2 hours to download via WiFi (yes, mine) to my target machine.

It occurred to me, about halfway through, that I live 20 minutes from the nearest Best Buy, and had I bought the game on physical media I'd most likely be playing by now.

Not that I don't appreciate the convenience of not having to leave the house, but it seems like the size of games is growing at least as fast if not faster than the speed of networks.

I could purchase online

[Psychotria]

But I don't. I am in Australia and I have a 12GB/month download cap (after the 12GB my speed is slowed/shaped/capped/whatever to 56k). I am not gonna use up all my bandwidth downloading ONE game. This is aside from the fact that it'd take me longer to download than drive to the store and grab the boxed copy. Maybe we're behind the rest of the world in AU (I dunno), but at this point in time I sure aint in hell gonna download something as big as a game (or Fedora... except that my ISP mirrors Fedora and it's not counted towards my monthly limit, so I do that).

If game companies go the online route only, then they will lose a customer.

3000 Bells, says the raccoon

[tepples]

Pity us poor fools who don't know the exchange rate between our local currency and the Nippenny.

Let me Google that for you: 3000 yen in usd

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

If you attend the concerts

A lot of bands play in bars and in other venues that are legally classified as bars, shutting out their fans under age 21. By the time a fan is old enough to attend a concert, the band will likely have broken up.

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[xaxa]

If you attend the concerts

A lot of bands play in bars and in other venues that are legally classified as bars, shutting out their fans under age 21. By the time a fan is old enough to attend a concert, the band will likely have broken up.

I can't really tell, but if what you've linked to is a large nightclub with some bands, opening at 10pm with the bands on at midnight, that'd usually be 18+ here. The emphasis on the night would be drinking and dancing, with the bands a bit secondary.

If the night is mostly bands, with a DJ just between sets, and opens at 7pm with the bands on at 8pm, that'd be 14+ (or younger, if you have a parent with you. I've seen 5 year olds sitting on dad's shoulders...)

For a gig in a pub, you'd need to be 16 (or accompanied) for the bar room, but other rooms might not have a limit, so it depends where the stage is (I doubt anyone would care if a 14/15 year old wanted to see the band).

Re:Game retailers .. antiquated - What is their Ro

[tepples]

If you buy in a retail store, you can play the game now.

No; you have to wait days for shipping when the retail store has to special order the title you want.

Which electronics store

[tepples]

you'd have been better off asking at an electronics retailer, they have entire shelves of joysticks with unpacked ones placed on the top of the shelf so you can try them out before picking one.

I tried a Best Buy store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it had two PC game controllers on display: an Xbox 360 USB gamepad (compatible out of the box with Windows XP Service Pack 1 and newer, but apparently not Ubuntu Hardy) and a Logitech gamepad. Conspicuous by their absence were arcade-style PC joysticks.

Re:Which electronics store

[socrplayr813]

In my opinion, this is more due to the fact that few people make flight/space sims these days. There's just not much need for joysticks anymore.

Re:Which electronics store

[Anonymous Coward]

I walked into J&R in downtown Manhattan. They had not only a large selection of joysticks, but also accelerators, specialized FPS controllers, and a good selection of PC joypads.

Chain stores will rarely carry that sort of thing.

On a related note

[Turzyx]

Why are digital copies of games bought online via Steam, Direct2Drive and so on nearly always the same price (if not sometimes more expensive) than a retail box version?

It can't be a bandwidth thing, not for Steam at least, since retail versions activated on your Steam account can be downloaded without the media as well.

Why the big swindle? This applies to digital music as well I've noticed. iTunes charges 99p or more for a song in the UK, which equates to 10-15 pound an album depending on the amount of inspiration the writer had at the time. When you can buy a new release at 9.99 in your local food store, why bother with online purchases?

It does make me believe that some people may have genuine intentions to legally purchase digital products without leaving their homes, but pirate them instead when they realise they are being conned.

Re:On a related note

[Wildclaw]

Why are digital copies of games bought online via Steam, Direct2Drive and so on nearly always the same price (if not sometimes more expensive) than a retail box version?

Supply & Demand

or more accuratly, since we are dealing with a low-margin cost, non-fungible, monopoly restricted goods

Demand

Why should they sell for lower than retail when there obviously are people buying it at the prices they charge? Here are the most basic things that would affect internet prices

Cheaper:
* The buyer doesn't get anything "real" so the apparent value is less.
* No resale value

More expensive:
* Higher availability, making it convienient to the buyer
* There is less to gain on the margin cost using economy of scale. (basically, there is less incentive to use economics of scale)

The only place where cheaper to produce comes in is in the buyer mind. Which of course can have a real effect on price, but not as much as you would expect. The basic economic theory behind it all is simple. You draw a diagram with Price on one axis and MarginProfit*Demand on the other. After which you select the price point on the resulting curve where you makes the most profit.

Actually, only drawing one curve is a simplification. In reality you can have multiple curves. One for each customer group that you can manage to seperate out. With taxes, it is usually done by income, but that obviously doesn't work in ordinary markets. Instead, a good way to do it with games is to start out with a higher price and getting a first group to buy, then lower the price and getting a second group willing to wait for a lower price to buy, and so on.

Finally, a note regarding non-fungibility as mentioned above. In reality there is actually some fungibility. People may be willing to exchange one game for another. And this of course does have a slight effect in introducing some supply&demand effects into everything. Economy is definitly not a simple subject.

The parent buys the game

[tepples]

A 11-yr old kid may want to play, but does not have the money to buy it.

In practice, you're saying:

A 11-yr old kid may want to play, but her 35-yr old mother does not have the money to buy it.

But why doesn't she?

Re:The parent buys the game

[Anonymous Coward]

But why doesn't she?
Because it is inappropriate for them? She is a single mother on a budget living off tips? There could be a ton of reasons just pick your favorite. But the point is *THAT* child is not a sale, can not even be converted to one, will never be one. However, his friends might be.

I *KNOW* when I was 11 I did not have enough money to buy videogames. That came from my parents. They usually got them for me but if there was something on the cover they didnt like...

Re:The parent buys the game

[freedom_india]

When faced with the choice of choosing between groceries or game, a wise mother choses groceries. But then many moronic parents still choose Tequila....

Re:The parent buys the game

[Garrett Fox]

Clearly, what we need is a federal video game bailout. We can draw publicity by having Congress do an R-versus-D deathmatch, and then have the survivors play video games!

Re:The parent buys the game

[freedom_india]

Knowing how congress works, the looong speech given by each candidate before he punches is enough to take down the Server with GBs of chat traffic.
Plus they will be each supported by millions of lobbyists on each side of the ring, all trying to muscle in on the limited bandwidth.
As a spanner, AT&T will in its supreme wisdom, choose that day to begin its trials of Throttle-And-Cap system...

Steam is horrible for impulse buys

[osgeek]

No matter how horribly broken the game is that they sell you, they don't take refunds.

Re:Steam is horrible for impulse buys

[NeoSkandranon]

Do any brick and mortar stores allow that anymore? I thought it went out with the onset of CD/DVD burners.

Re:Steam is horrible for impulse buys

[F'Nok]

Some places (such as here in Aus) it's required by law that they take back something that didn't work.

Sure, they will tell you they don't do refunds, but usually they back down very quickly at the mention of legal obligations.

Instant gratification

[daybot]

I'm a casual gamer who bought a PS3 mainly for Blu-Ray. There are two ways I buy games:

• I hear about a game, watch YouTube videos, watch trailer on Amazon, buy it on Amazon.
• I peruse the Playstation Store and buy a cheap game that catches my eye. Instant gratification without worrying too much about losing the game if the console dies.

Although the main reasons I don't shop at game stores are price, convenience and practicality - I do my research online, so why not buy online - I also hate the following things about game stores:

• Nobody sells genuine accessories. I only want genuine accessories.
• They harass you about loyalty cards.
• New games are much more expensive than online.
• The clientele.

Re:Instant gratification

[elrous0]

I would also add another downside to game stores:

• The douchebag behind the counter who looks like he hasn't bathed in a week, smells like bongwater, and always feels the need to smugly tell me how *HE* only plays his FPS's with a keyboard and mouse (when I'm trying to buy a console FPS).

Re:Instant gratification

[daybot]

Agreed. The clientele is like this too, either that or whining children. 20 years ago I was one of the whining children in the game store, so I feel their pain, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

Hard decision...

[genw3st]

You know, despite the general public's movement towards digital distribution, I am still torn as to whether this is the best way to do business. Granted, the game industry isn't really there to suit every gamer's needs, but still...

On one hand I'd like to have the physical copy of the game - but that isn't my deepest, darkest fear when it comes to digital purchases. I am afraid that, per the EULA, I'll someday get screwed due to some random errata or possibly lose everything if the service shuts down.

Say that a company buys out Steam (Valve, etc), and decides that it was a poor investment and closes Steam altogether - everything I purchased on there would be gone. It'd be interesting if they could at least guarantee steam-free ISO downloads of each game in this scenario, or even, perhaps, allow you to download the ISO WHENEVER you wanted to.

Granted, they'd never do this because the point of the digital distribution is to help counter piracy, and releasing untouched ISOs into the wild would essentially be giving the games away. I do find a quote from the article interesting, however:

"Piracy is more of an annoying thing. It's an ego thing. You put your heart and soul into a game and you see someone playing it online who stole it. It pisses you off. You're just really mad. You have to take a step back and say, "if you had stopped them from pirating it, would they have bought it?" The answer is probably no."

It's pretty unfortunate that executives at companies like EA never realize this. I completely understand that this thought-pattern alone isn't enough to quell the rage felt by everyone who helped to develop and produce the game, but then again this is the mindset that prevents game makers and distributors from implementing obtrusive and obnoxious DRM.

I guess my point is that digital distribution is somewhat of a scary thought - no guarantees, no control, no "freedom" - if you read the EULAs, you essentially paid $50 to "rent" the play time from the game makers.

In addition to all of this we have companies like Time Warner Cable that want to implement bandwidth caps - imagine a future with complete digital distribution of operating systems, all software, and all games - but then you have a bandwidth cap, so you end up paying ridiculous sums just to access the products and services that you paid to have access to; you end up paying for the program and the bandwidth to download it. Don't even get me started on cloud computing.

Blah, after that rant, all I can say is - I hope that games are never completely taken off the shelves and distributed digitally exclusively... even if GameStop is overpriced, or a pain to deal with, it's at least a fun place to stop and browse, occasionally pre-ordering a hot title (there's nothing like walking in with a receipt, ahead of everyone, and asking for your brand new pre-order... digital distribution doesn't provide you with that feeling, or the smell of the new case/manual/disc)!

why piracy affects sales

[v1]

Reading the previous article, GameStop released the game early. So everyone that was chomping at the bit to get the game that didn't know it was available at gamestop, (or that had already put down money to preorder the game elsewhere) had an easy option to get on board early, pirate and play it while waiting for the game to come in at their local shop.

I'd do that too given the option. Not surprising in the least. They can't call this any kind of impartial representation of how piracy affects sales. In this respect, piracy does no more to hurt sales as does releasing a trailer. ("well, that had a lot of SUCK to it, good thing I didn't preorder")

Digital distribution will work until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital distribution will work until ISP start capping the usage, then it will be cheaper to go out and buy it at a B&M store. Unless they went out of business because of downloading. The circle of life is complete.

Parent is a troll, but correct

[Late Adopter]

Mod parent with a couple (+1, Informative)s for his trouble. GP raises a question which is partially addressed in TFS: retail stores are actively promoting digital distribution.

Digital Distribution

[Cajun Hell]

I remember the first game I got: it was a wack-a-mole game for the VIC-20. It came on a cartridge. The cartridge contained a ROM chip. It was digital.

Later I started buying games on floppy disks. Those were digital too.

Then some came on CDs. (Digital, of course.)

At approximately the same times that CD ROM drives became affordable, distribution over the internet also started gaining popularity. The internet is digital.

Now retailers are saying that the profits from the last 3 decades of software sales were illusory, and that they were actually hurting themselves? Wow. What is the alternative to digital distribution? Are these people going to bring back laserdisc, or analog tape? I just can't believe it.

;)

People, do you have any idea how incredibly stupid you sound, when you use the word "digital," not to describe, but to contrast(!!?!) networks with digital media?

Since this is Slashdot, I'll use a car analogy. A manufacturer comes out with a new car. Their ads say, "Don't drive a car! Drive a conveyance!" and it has a picture of their car in the ad. And people buy into it and act like it's not ridiculous. That's you, people who use "digital" as a secret code word that means "download."

Retail Stores

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'd feel worse but most retail game stores have phased PC games down to 1 rack any how, so I don't feel too bad that I now buy all my stuff on steam when possible. Its a bit of a change for me; I still have game boxes going back almost 15 years for almost every pc game I've ever bought. But once you get used to digital its just so much easier and overall I now am a big fan of steam (wasn't entirely thrilled when it first came out with HalfLife 2 but its grown on me and improved since then, especially now that I can download at 1.5-2.5+ mb/s).

Mobipocket and Sony

[krischik]

All true. Put my point still holds as Amazon Kindle uses a slightly changed Mobipocket format which is even more restricted. Of course if you break DRM they are both the same again.

Instead of all readers apart from Sony it's only Kindle and nothing else. That is certainly not an improvement.

Besides: why am I not surprised that the Sony reader won't read Mobipocket? Well obviously, because it's Sony, the company which brought us the memory stick and atrac3.

Re:Mobipocket and Sony

[Digital_Quartz]

Actually, shockingly Sony is turning out to be the open one here, since they've added support for epub, an open standard based largely on XML and XHTML.

I know; it's like the sky is purple and pigs are zipping through the air.

There WILL be physical game packages.

[Fantastic Lad]

So long as there is a need to keep the people sedated and distracted, there will be video games. The manner of distribution hardly matters. Though while dedicated video game shops at the mall may change or vanish, (un-likely, given the reality of console games), I certainly doubt we'll stop seeing physical game packages any time soon.

Since racks of video game packages are shiny and alluring with all their colors and public profile, I suspect, like magazines, they'll remain in the public perception even after they stop making immediate sense. Mind control works best when you saturate awareness from multiple vectors.

Think of it this way: If I were a huge game manufacturer, I'd be sure to want a highly visible rack of my game packages standing a few feet away from the wall of new lap tops at the local computer store. --If you think of every game box primarily as an advert rather than a product conveyance, then it not only fits into the budget, but if I sell enough of them to cover the printing bill, then the advertising pays for itself directly. --While every laptop consumer is a potential game customer, not all of them read game magazines. The video game rack for many is probably the most important way of getting product awareness into their heads.

Yeah, it's cynical, but so is the whole concept of advertising. Heck, most magazines stopped earning any real money from their point of sale cover prices long ago. They exist because they are good advertising vehicles.

-FL

Re:Game retailers .. antiquated - What is their Ro

[Gizzmonic]

No, your mom has to special order your adult diapers because they don't make them in your size! Because YOU'RE OBSCENELY FAT AND INCONTINENT!

How does that taste, fancy-pants? I just burned you to a crisp!

so a book store sells me the what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some place that i then have to have internet to get the game?
HUH, i don't want to have the internet that much in the future, the price is too high, they( ISPS) cap us and now game stores sell me a game that i cant walk out with i have to go online to buy/get it?
FAIL, EPIC EPIC MASSIVE DUMB STUPID FAIL.

The future is that only people on the internet will hackers and rich kids.....
NOT everyone's mommy n daddy makes enough to apy 100$ a month for internet