Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[Charlietus]

On its own, no. However, together with market forces, I think so. The publishers want everyone on digital, and you start to see games not even getting a physical release. As digital starts to get more content, those used to physical will start engaging with digital downloads. With less physical selling, stores will start stocking less, with shrinking gaming sections in stores and the outright closing of video game specialists.

There'll be download codes taking up less shelf space than a DVD case, which stores will probably prefer over keeping discs. You can have a fancy Mario cardboard presentation with a download code, something physical that promotes the game and functions as a gift. Besides, publishers aren't going to keep discs going just for grandparents (who'll die out over time and subsequent generations will know only digital). if the rest of the market moves to digital, grannies will just either have to adapt or buy their grand-kids something else. By now they are probably getting used to requests for V-bucks, Robux, and Minecoins.


Massively! It takes ~$5 dollar to print and distribute a disk which comes out of your $70 RRP. It's not about an inefficient new process but a process that's got a high base that can't be lowered, printing, shipping and storing physical inventory. Not to mention the dollar value of the upfront payments and the risks of incorrect production estimates.

This isn't a moral debate. This is a question about whether physical will remain or not, regardless of who it's best for. But understanding who benefits, we see some pros and cons for consumers, and only pros for producers. Given producers want an all-digital future, and consumers aren't that bothered by and large, it seems inevitable physical will die away.

Which will only facilitate the move to digital as gamers who value resale of physical will have that in digital and have one less reason to keep buying discs.

If I can get a physical box with a code inside that I can then resell on the free market thanks to new regulations, yeah why not.

You think that publishers are holding all the cards, but any game that abandons physical will get buried in controversy. Alan wake 2 was the first victim, and even successful games like BG3 are coming back to a physical release.

Imagine something like assassin's Creed not coming out in stores. Ubisoft wouldn't hear the end of it. Publishers don't want and don't need controversies, especially from such a big group of people.

Is this pretty much black mail? Yes. For a good cause (lmao)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You think that publishers are holding all the cards, but any game that abandons physical will get buried in controversy. Alan wake 2 was the first victim, and even successful games like BG3 are coming back to a physical release.

Controversy can blow over. It takes people time to adapt when change is forced onto them, but it's not like gamers will abandon gaming in droves once discs are no longer printed. As for BG3, it's an $80 collectors edition that isn't a classic shelf-liner, no? It's not like the game was lacking sales and needed a physical copy! If anything BG3 shows physical isn't needed.

Imagine something like assassin's Creed not coming out in stores. Ubisoft wouldn't hear the end of it. Publishers don't want and don't need controversies, especially from such a big group of people.

You ignore allll the other arguments and just come back to "some people want physical" as the reason it'll not go away. There are always a contingent of people who resist change, but that doesn't stop it happening unless they are a sizeable majority or have some other controlling influence. Good games will sell regardless what platform and devices they come from. Consumers are useless at boycotting things they want on principle. At the moment there's still enough physical interest for the publishers to keep going, but I think the general trend very clearly described by the evidence of financials and reports and the reasoning as to why physical won't remain.

Physical console games are quickly becoming a relatively niche market

Ars-exclusive analysis shows discs and cartridges becoming rarer and rarer.

arstechnica.com

To conclude, this long conversation started with you posting a tweet from Chris Dring saying the EU split was about the same as the Japan split, and citing that authority as pretty conclusive. That was just a throw-away remark in a tweet, not a report, and you need to look at more detailed info.

Top 20 UK video game sales are 38% physical

A new chart from the Entertainment and Retail Association has revealed the digital and physical sales splits for the 20…

www.gamesindustry.biz

Top 20 UK video game sales are 38% physical​

Diablo 4 was 85% digital, while Spider-Man 2 was just 46% digital
News by Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B
Published on March 6, 2024

Allll the evidence points to physical games decreasing in popularity, no? Whether you want it to or not, the reasons for going digital are solid and the evidence shows those reasons are directing the outcome. The only really hold-out is Japan but they won't be able to hold out forever. Or if they do, physical copies will only be made and sold there and the rest of the world will still embrace an all-digital future.

 

[Charlietus]

All that analysis from ars Technica and no mention of the fact that titles that would get physical releases are literally slowing down in release cadence since developing times are at a all time high, while there are more indie-small games than ever on the market. Not a very good article, ars Technica.

And as always, "top 20 games in the UK are 38% physical" while including PC.
Remove PC and Xbox (which is pretty much a subscription platform thanks to game pass) and what's the situation?
Just give us the splits for ps-nintendo Chris Dring, but maybe it's not as clickbait.

It's pretty simple for GSD and circana to give a clear image of the situation on a platform.

Take, for example, PS5, and get all games that had a physical and a digital release at the same time. Then add them all together, and give us the percentages on physical and digital. It's pretty simple.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Take, for example, PS5, and get all games that had a physical and a digital release at the same time. Then add them all together, and give us the percentages on physical and digital. It's pretty simple.

But sadly there's no such data AFAICS and we have to piece together the different clues.

 

[pharma]

Internet speed record of 420,000,000 Mbps achieved using standard optic fibre cabling, fast enough to download Baldur's Gate 3 in less than four milliseconds

A gaming PC with the fastest CPU, DDR5 RAM, and Gen5 SSD would be a massive bottleneck though, so there's no chance you could use this at home.

www.pcgamer.com

A team of engineers, though, have achieved a data transmission rate of 402 Tbps using standard fibre optic cables, so fast that you could download Baldur's Gate 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the entire Fallout 4 collection all in less than a tenth of a second.
...
But let's assume for a moment that you could have such a home broadband package. Could you really download multiple 150 GB games in less than a second? Sadly, no, as there are multiple bottlenecks inside even the very best gaming PCs, starting with the Ethernet port.

You might be fortunate to have a motherboard equipped with one that's rated at 10GbE or 10 Gbps, but that's slower than NICT's achievement by a factor of around 400,000.

Of course, nobody will be getting a 400 Tbps home broadband connection any time soon. The cost of the current setup is far too prohibitive for general users, but the development will certainly be of interest to the industry as a whole, as the amount of data being demanded on tap via the web is gargantuan.

I don't think physical media distribution is going away anytime soon but do think emerging tech might create alternatives for those who find it more convenient to have local ownership of games stored on their home computer.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Mind boggling speed, but...

"At an estimated peak rate of 402 Tbps or 50.25 TB/s, it's approximately 25% higher than the previous record, set last October."

So we already hit 300 Tbps last October, but the average household speed worldwide is 45 Mbps, so maybe 1 ten-millionth of the experimental possibilities. If you're being generous, the fastest average at ~250 Mbps is still 1.5 million times slower than this. In short, experimental results are pretty meaningless and we need to look at what technologies will actually be available.

 

[Charlietus]

Here in my city, they installed new fiber connections 2 years ago. They are not touching those cables for 30 years, probably, the money has been spent

 

[Seanspeed]

There are always a contingent of people who resist change, but that doesn't stop it happening unless they are a sizeable majority or have some other controlling influence. Good games will sell regardless what platform and devices they come from.

Except we're in an age where publishers are desperate for every sale they can get now. If publishers felt their games were selling comfortably well, we wouldn't be seeing the issues we are right now in the industry. And we've seen decent enough evidence so far that missing a physical version can absolutely hinder success in some cases. Not everything is gonna have 'breakthrough smash hit' status to rely on like BG3. The games industry is still far from any kind of meritocracy where good games always sell really well.

I just dont see we're yet at any point that physical can be really dropped. I definitely see things continually sliding towards digital at some rate, but I'm not sure at what point you're going to face a wall of more hardcore holdouts who will put up more than a little fuss about being forced to go full digital, if that's even a real practical option in the first place for them. What you're gaining versus what you're losing may not balance out.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Except we're in an age where publishers are desperate for every sale they can get now. If

If not having a physical copy means losing sales, sure. But more likely having digital only will see physical buyers move to digital purchases which are more profitable per unit.

I just dont see we're yet at any point that physical can be really dropped.

It's been dropped from PC and sales of games on there aren't really suffering, are they?

And researching, here's another piece of the puzzle:

I definitely see things continually sliding towards digital at some rate, but I'm not sure at what point you're going to face a wall of more hardcore holdouts who will put up more than a little fuss about being forced to go full digital.

That hold-out won't be able to stop it, unless they are whales who spend crazy amounts on physical software and who give up gaming altogether when physical distribution is no longer an option. Do you buy discs? What will you do instead of gaming if discs are unavailable? Take up golf?

Here's another one:

Digital Sales Make Up Nearly Half Of FY 2023 Switch Software Sales So Far
Up 21.5% year-on-year




Even if these aren't flagship first-party titles (and some are), the more users get used to digital purchases and a digital library, the more comfortable they'll become to losing physical altogether.

Edit:

 

[Seanspeed]

The whole 'PC' thing has been gone over plenty. It's not the same situation, cuz we have competition and generally much better pricing through digital. You dont get that on console, so the actual consumer benefits are much less appealing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You said stalwarts would refuse to swap to digital. You didn't qualify that by stating the circumstances by which they will swap to digital. So for what you said, PC shows everyone is happy to go digital. Now you raise the issue of 'if the digital market is considered acceptable'. Does the PC shed light on that? What Steam and the PC market is now isn't what it was when people started to give up on physical. Ideas around the value of physical such as second-hand sales were present then, but people swapped to digital. The issue of price? What were prices like on Steam et al over the transition period? Did digital offer notably cheaper options from the off? I see the very first game. Half-Life 2, was the same price digital and physical.

So looking at the totality of the transition from physical to digital in the PC space, what were the factors present there that enabled it which are absent on consoles, and will either the consoles or consumers adapt? Particularly given the ubiquitous use of monolithic mobile stores with no price competition and gamers being used to just paying what's asked without shopping around.

 

[Charlietus]

Something that I hadn't thought about is back catalogue sales. Publishers are releasing digitally most of their back catalogue, and unlike with physical, all past games remain on sale, easy to find for all. A physical game will make the bulk of sales at the beginning and in the following year, and with some time will begin to lose shelf space to other games.

That's another aspect that skews the data even more for the discussion, aside from digital only indie/games, the existence of digital only consoles that weren't a thing before and the PC.

The question remains, are people that are buying physical actually shrinking in big numbers? At least in Japan and Europe, it doesn't seem so, and in the us, I found some data:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ma...tforms-accounted-50-xbox-10-and-ps-40.809670/

And this probably is with those aspects that I put before in the message that skew the data, and even if it was just physical/digital spending for games released on both, would still be pretty promising.

Tho if you like physical and the Xbox platform, I wouldn't bet on physical remaining an option, even if not offering would still be a mistake.

 

[pharma]

Something that I hadn't thought about is back catalogue sales. Publishers are releasing digitally most of their back catalogue, and unlike with physical, all past games remain on sale, easy to find for all. A physical game will make the bulk of sales at the beginning and in the following year, and with some time will begin to lose shelf space to other games.

That's another aspect that skews the data even more for the discussion, aside from digital only indie/games, the existence of digital only consoles that weren't a thing before and the PC.

The question remains, are people that are buying physical actually shrinking in big numbers? At least in Japan and Europe, it doesn't seem so, and in the us, I found some data:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ma...tforms-accounted-50-xbox-10-and-ps-40.809670/

And this probably is with those aspects that I put before in the message that skew the data, and even if it was just physical/digital spending for games released on both, would still be pretty promising.

Tho if you like physical and the Xbox platform, I wouldn't bet on physical remaining an option, even if not offering would still be a mistake.

Interesting thread read. Good to see Alan Wake 2 coming out on physical shortly, delayed due to Epics licensing arrangements.

When Remedy announced Alan Wake II wouldn’t be released as a physical game ahead of its October 2023 release, it was a bummer. Not just because fans wouldn’t get to have something to put on their shelves, but because it was adding to a worrying trend for video games: game publishers are getting comfortable only releasing their games digitally, which sucks for fans who like physical merch, but is especially shitty for people who live in rural areas without great internet. But now that Alan Wake 2 has been out for a little under a year, Remedy is giving fans something to put on their shelves.

 

[Nesh]

Consoles are a safety for developers. If consoles become 100% a PC like SteamDeck or how some envision the next XBOX, and thus a fully digital PC devs will be f*cked with how easy it is to pirate games

 

[Charlietus]

News outlets not writing something about physical media that isn't misleading or straight up false challenge: impossible.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...ess-production-to-continue-until-unprofitable

They are laying off a third of the staff, not stopping the production.
Also, they have 12 active plants around the world. They opened a new one in Brasil for games disc production just a couple months ago.

Sony's new Brazilian production line will provide physical PS5 discs for Latin American players

Production will take place in Sony's Manaus factory

www.techradar.com

Clearly the actions of a company that is abandoning physical media.

 

[Davros]

Found this on my Hard Drive taken with my god awful hp camera that will only work with duracell batteries

 

[Charlietus]

Found this on my Hard Drive taken with my god awful hp camera that will only work with duracell batteries
View attachment 11581

PC gaming is widespread enough where limited editions of AAA games on Blu ray would sell decent copies. Physical on PC will never recover, clearly, but some people would absolutely buy those (Me)