Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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.
Online distro favors devs / publishers for several reasons:
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
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!