Downloads would be cheaper they said.
- Thread starter arknor
- Start date
Pretty much. Steam is about convenience where after a few clicks the game is in your library and downloading. I can confidently say that anyone with a 10Mbit+ connection will always choose the download option rather than get a physical copy. With a boxed copy you have to get a hold of it and then faff around installing it from the disc. People are lazy and would rather not bother.
There're also some other factors like the 30% revenue cut Steam takes and some publishers not liking that taking from their profits so put a little extra on top to compensate. Only really happens with AAA titles or any game with a greedy publisher paying out to shareholders.
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Look at new MATX cases, they don't even have dvd drives in some. I don't have one in my new one because I didn't use the one I had in my old one.
Physical is dying and should be dead by now.
Physical is dying and should be dead by now.
How fast is your internet in the Holland? As it used to far ahead of the UK years ago.
Everything wrong with the gaming industry today.
I saw TB's port report and damned near fell out of my chair. lol
Okay, then lets take everything you've said:
No. The proof being that a company like GMG is able to sell physical stock for 75% the price of virtual stock, database stock.
Very few people are going to GMG for physical media, because there are companies far far bigger in size and market share who better their physical pricing and sell physical goods as a primary service, whether thats GAME, 'The rainforest site', Shopto etc.
GMG arent competing with those companies for physical stock, and yet their quantities allow them better rates than they're able to agree for digital stock? Production costs, transportation, warehousing, and far smaller purchase orders, and yet they cant beat the price for a database of keys? Yet the middlemen, the ones involving the transportation, warehousing, store rental & running costs, shelf space, shops 'free shipping' and the middlemen taking their cut, are getting physical stock into the hands of GMG & co for 3/4 the price of a database sent electronically.
No. Middlemen are inflating the price - EVERY phase required for physical media unnecessarily inflates its price.
Everything loses value, theres incentive to sell physical & digital when its demand drops. Yeah, theres bigger incentives to push out physical media, but why does that matter on day 1? If you order 1000 copies of a game believing you'll sell them, there is demand, then why do you sell it cheaper than RRP, and then why cant you do the same with digital media? The answer is because they're not the same, theres rules for one, and rules for another. They sell below RRP day 1 because of competition, and yet we never see that for digital content, the advertised price is always RRP.
I believe the words you're looking for are 'allows publishers to price fix under the table'.
Ask yourself how a digital distributer like GMG is able to undercut the price of a product they've got little consumer demand for, when the identical product sent digitally, is listed at RRP, like EVERYWHERE ELSE.
Its not simply influence (nor have i seen you refer to publisher 'influence' or pressure as a reason - but maybe you have), not in the reality of things, although i have absolutely no doubt that legally its nothing more than a suggestion. It wont say you have to sell it at RRP, but they'll remind you that retail stores are important to them, they need to be protected, and the last thing they'd need is for people to start selling something for a price they cant possibly match, so we have to make sure that doesnt happen... but certainly, sell it at whatever price you want, and we'll continue selling you stock for as long as we want. Maybe things just wont work out, for whatever reason.
The fact that GMG run 24/7/365 discount codes, and advertise them on their homepage is fairly blatant too. Why not just knock the 20% off GTA5 etc and be done with it? No, lets just stick with advertising RRP price, no reason.
I dont believe you're efforts & intention to bring awareness to people are that different to mine. I just think you're argument is heavily flawed, and that argument works fine for the majority (if not all) of physical stock, but up against digital media theres a different set of rules and retail rules dont apply. There will certainly be better pricing available for bulk orders, but that wont be reflected in the price its listed at.
'Price fixing' is the sole reason for the disparity between digital & physical pricing. Theres nothing like the costs involved, and yet the one with a list of expenses is consistently cheaper than the one with none/very few. If the people controlling who gets what, and the terms on how they decide who they do business with, arent the reason that the cheaper medium ends up being the most expensive, always RRP on release, then i'd love to know what the real reason is, because it sure isnt middlemen getting a better deal, or the urgency to get rid of the quantity of stock they decided to buy.
You cant stop a publisher deciding who they chose to sell to, and they cant dictate how much something must be sold for. The publisher cant stop a retailer selling its own stock at whatever price they want, but they can stop supplying them meaning potential customers will just buy stock from someone else.
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It's £15 at G2A
Brilliant
. It might be a fiver down your local market or on fleabay. Just like them, G2A aint buying keys, therefore distributors cant stop their supply. If someone wants to buy a load of cheap proxy-acquired keys at discount, and sell them on a open marketplace, distributors/publishers cant stop them. Thats why they're cheap, not because Rockstar have allowed them to sell worldwide keys freely, just like Nuuvem have to IP-check/block customers outside the region. Kinguin, G2A, they're just a marketplace with buyers and sellers, they're not the ones buying keys.Its hardly some crazy conspiracy theory, just open your eyes and its plain to see whats going on. This exact same practice has been going on since Steam opened its doors, and yet people still attribute the cost to vastly different theories when theres no feasible reasoning for them.
If Steam appear to be unable to sell games below the RRP upon release as a general rule of thumb, then who the hell can? Meanwhile, GMG can get discounting on retail copies that typically knocks 25% off the digital cost. Yet we have people suggesting physical media is (in ANY way) cheaper because of bulk discounting!
They dont want digital distribution to be cheaper. Its simply not in their best interest... yet.
Its not rocket science folks, those retail stores, which the vast majority of us have stopped bothering with for 90% of their purchases, the dinosaurs of a digital era are effectively the ones holding the distributors to ransom, and the final kick in the nuts for our PC master race... its indisputably the consoles sales which are responsible. Upset the retailers, allow people to buy their games digitally without getting off their backside, while pricing both at their actual cost to customer, and those retailers are dead - game over.
While the gaming industry still values people who walk into a shop and hand over cash for games, that industry will pander to their needs. Give them time, and they'll walk away without a care in the world and sell direct to the user themselves. No middleman, minimal costs beyond data, and they dictate what you pay, and when the prices drop.
I think the reality is that the average PC gamer is buying digitally, whether thats paying RRP (EU or out of region aka Steam-account-deletable) or waiting till the price drops and buying it then. We're done buying physical copies, even when we can pre-order and have it delivered on the day of release and add the key to our accounts and sticking the rest in the bin for 25% less, yet we've grown accustomed to just going to steam and paying RRP and then moan when its an outrageous... but plenty still dont care and essentially encourage & validate those actions with their wallets.
Really??
You and others are inconvenienced by paying 75% the price and having the game hand delivered to your door on the day of release?
After release, rather than waiting a day or 2 - fine. But pre-orders, £30 vs £40... thats not convenience, thats a fine blend of ignorance and laziness which takes years to perfect
