Video Game Hard Copies: Why They Still Exist

Digital marketing the future of video games? Let's just take it easy for a minute.

[thebudgetgamer]

They are still around because retail partners are very important to console makers. The same reason downloadable games are usually the same price or more than retail.

If you get rid of disk based games you cut retail out of a lot of money and they can chose to not carry your console, and we all know the fate of consoles sold through catalogs.

[Gaming101]

The author must be one of those people who believes everything he reads on the internet.

"People are always saying physical media is dead, so why is physical media still even around??????"

What a dumb shit.

Physical media thrives because it was never dead in the first place, stop believing every retarded pile of shit you read on the internet. You think people want to just pay whatever high price Sony sets for games like on PSN with no competition, thus making a monopoly on the supply of games with no ability to trade or sell them to someone else? Of course not! Digital media has very few advantages - one being that fat, useless lazy people don't have to get their fat asses off the couch and go to the store and buy a game, or even order it online. They can sit their using up tons of bandwidth and hard drive space on a game that they can never lend to anyone, or resell to anyone. Great.

[Xelmen]

Oh gee, you're breaking my heart with such hurtful language. I'll ignore the personal attack because it looks like, as all rabid animals should be, you've already been muzzled and chained to a small post in the corner where you can sit and growl at passers by, filling up your little neck of the world with the garbage that randomly escapes from the tightly bound stinkhole you have for a mouth. I've already bubbled you down, yet again, and I'm hoping we can eventually limit you to zero comments.
-notice-
Please read the article before you post trash in my comments section.

[Xelmen]

That's why I mentioned Gamestop at the end. At the same time, however, retail partners are screwing game developers out of a lot of money by selling used games, this is the main reason anyone wants to move to digital copy to begin with. It has absolutely nothing to do with the consumer.

[Hicken]

You seem bothered by what Gaming101 said. The truth, though, is that he's right.

Physical media hasn't gone anywhere. The entire time that digital sales have come to be seen as important- particularly in console gaming- physical sales have seen their highest numbers in the history of gaming.

Piracy is a problem, but you're oversimplifying the issue: the vast majority of pirates have no intention of buying, so talking about how much money the industry COULD BE making if only those people BOUGHT their copies is pointless. You don't hear the automotive industry talking about how much money they COULD BE making if people didn't steal cars, because they're not stupid enough to think that the people who steal cars are necessarily potential buyers.

GameStop is the poster child for the WRONG way to do business, as far as trading in games is concerned. But while the “trade in every game you’ve ever collected throughout your entire, pathetic, soda-drinking life in exchange for 1 and a half new games today!” scheme is truly how they work(and make their money, because there's no way in Hell they'd be able to run a business based purely off selling new product; you'd be a fool to think otherwise, and I bet you do, don't you?), the admittedly small value they give you for your 7 year-old game is STILL 75 cents more than you'd get for a digital version of the same title: NOTHING.

There are other factors at play, as well, factors which you neglect in order to make physical media seem outdated, inferior, and/or on its way out. Such as ownership: trading a game- not just for money- or lending it to friends and family just isn't possible with a digital copy; digital media corrupts more readily than physical media, and hardware failure can mean the loss of your whole library, instead of just one game caught in a disc tray.

But you'd ignore things like that, of course.

Edit: Oh, I left out the whole "feel" factor: just the SENSE you have of possessing something because you can put your hands on it. Being able to show it off to your friends when they come over. Organizing it how you want(I sometimes do mine by developer/publisher, just because I can). These things are far more appealing than staring at folders on a screen and thinking of that as your "collection."

[KaliSarKwan]

Alright, I'm cheating here, because I'm out of bubbles, but I feel I have the right to defend my creation.
This article is not trying to make hard copy seem outdated, because this was meant as a counter argument to all those articles that claimed that very thing. I prefer hard copy, and using programs like steam is infuriating. You're right Hicken, Gaming101's comment did upset me, not because of the attack, but because it was so painfully obvious that he didn't even read the damned article at all. You seem to have read it, given the fact that you quote it, and, unlike Mr. 101, accurately, but it seems I wasn't clear enough on my point, at least not for you.

This article is meant to point out of the not-obvious flaws in the pure digital copy idea. There. It should be plain now as to what this article is about. I would love for you to give it another try without the bias this comments section seems to have built up.

Edit: And I shouldn't have replied the way I did to Gaming101. I was wrong to do so, not just because of the harshness, and admitted immaturity of the words, but because it was a perfect opportunity to make a valid point, and I did not take it.

[Ducky]

So, the retail owners will decide to just not sell games/consoles if Sony/MS/Nintendo offer games for cheaper on their digital store? O.o

Seems like an odd thing to do as the retailers just lose out on customers. Market goes on supply and demand, and as long as there's a demand, someone will fill the vacuum.

Besides, you already have services like PS+ that are essentially offering games for 'free'. Retailers haven't done anything in response... and isn't Vita making digital games cheaper?
Seems more that it is just greed on the part of developers/publishers that keeps prices where they're at, rather than the fear of retailers.

[brettyd]

Hopefully they always exist.

[kingPoS]

Who doesn't like looking at a shelf of games and think to themselves (I'll always have this)
I also enjoy being able to physically put my games in their cases.
Nothing wrong with that!

It's to bad instructions are becoming pamphlets today.

[Batzi]

because we want them. I like the physical copy more and I am a collector.

[Xelmen]

Please don't simply give a half-assed answer to the question this poses, then leave. I've researched, wrote, and posted links all having to do with the complexity that actually goes into answering this question. I have covered the obvious (or, at least, the mostly obvious, left out everything too obvious) and I've gone into why a digital medium is favorable in the first place.

hint: it has almost nothing to do with the consumer, and almost everything to do with how much people are getting screwed.