Business Approach for Video Game Physical and Digital versions *spawn*

[Davros]

but are sensitive to lag

Is fibre lower ping than cable/dsl ?
AFAIK if you really want the lowest ping isdn is the way to go.

Oh ps:
Do you know what British Telecom and a Pelican have in common ?
They can both stick their bills up their asses

 

[JPT]

Makes no odds. My connection is plenty stable enough. That is, there's nothing wrong with it in use such that I want a more expensive improved service. And notably, my friend's fibre connection is complete toss and utterly unreliable! Whether it's powered by maths or pixies, it works and is the best economy by far.

That's quite anecdotal, I got access to data for about 1M DSL lines, 300K Fibre lines and 300K cable lines, all belong to different customers of mine. And those numbers back up my claim I can not share the data with you, so you have to take my word for it. But on average DSL lines are worse than cable and cable is worse than Fibre, when it comes to having issues. Defining issues that is due to links and interference or signals being sensitive to disruption. Add in buggy hardware and the gap increases, due to much higher complexity of pushing broadband over copper/coax vs fibre.

Also when it comes to broadband, those silly speed tests that are online just show that your ferrari can go 200mphs in a straight line. It has very little relevance with the experience of driving a daily commute.

Now is it worth for you to upgrade from 18Mbps, most likely not, but when you have a bunch of more IoT devices and real-time sensitive stuff on your LAN. You will notice a difference between DSL and a fibre connection. Just because DSL is so complex to achieve the 20Mbps, while for fibre is more a case of limiting the speed down to 20Mbps. And there are so many point of failures and error correction schemes that goes on in DSL that when they hit they compound and adds latency and messes up the life of higher level stuff like udp/tcp really really bad.

 

[AzBat]

Thought this might be appropriate...

GameStop declines the Madden bundle
Last month, Microsoft partnered with Electronic Arts torelease a special Madden 16 Xbox One bundle. This bundle, which retails for $399, includes a 1TB version of the Xbox One game console, a free year of EA Access, and a digital download code for Electronic Art's hit football game Madden 16.

Well, it does if you purchase it from a retailer like Best Buy. If you buy it from GameStop, however, it's quite different.

It's still $399, but the digital download code is gone, replaced by a physical disc version ofMadden 16. And it doesn't include the free 12-month subscription to EA Access, Electronic Arts' digital subscription service. Similar to a subscription music service like Spotify, EA Access grants Xbox One owners a collection of about a dozen digital games.

GameStop's chief operating officer, Tony Bartel, highlighted this modified bundle during the company's earnings call last month. GameStop's CEO, Paul Raines, explained that GameStop would take a similar stance on any future bundles.

If ... the platform holders ... continue to put in free games as promotional items, we anticipate that at GameStop you'll see more physical bundles from third parties as opposed to digital bundles. ... We choose not to participate in the digital bundles.​

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...efuses-to-sell-this-kind-of-xbox-one-o-2.aspx

That's pretty sucky.

Tommy McClain

 

[MrFox]

80% to 85% of gamers prefer a disc version.

 

[BRiT]

80% to 85% of gamers prefer a disc version.

Only 20 to 15% of those gamers have internet.






Where are you getting your stats from?

 

[MrFox]

Only 20 to 15% of those gamers have internet.

Where are you getting your stats from?

From ubisoft and EA sales figures for AAA console games?
This research from a few months ago explained the reasons.
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/12/...nsole-gamers-still-prefer-physical-to-digital

The study shows console gamers like the convenience of digital downloads, but are concerned with what happens after purchase, and miss the feeling of ownership that comes with an actual disc. While a physical game can be resold if a user doesn't like it, that's not so easy at the moment if the game is digital and activated by a product key.

So what will trigger the digital revolution on consoles? The MarketCast report argues that it won't come until streaming services as reliable as Netflix are available to gamers, digital retailers begin offering easy-to-use resale options for unwanted old games, or the cost of digital games are lowered to below $60.

Both digital and retail are the same price during the launch period, and sales figures from EA and Ubisoft show a 80 to 85 percent disc preference on consoles full games. According to the above report, the primary reason have nothing to do with internet accessibility. Gamers understand the loss of value and the loss of control and ownership. Obviously this only applies to platforms that still have disc ownership/control, not PC or mobile.

 

[Cjail]

gamers like the convenience of digital downloads but are concerned with what happens after purchase, and miss the feeling of ownership that comes with an actual disc.

Too bad that there is no such thing as "feeling of ownership", you either own something according to law or you don't.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There is a feeling. Emotions aren't governed by the laws of the land. A physical disc has a visceral presence, a tangible thing that you bought with your money. A download only provides the experience and there's no intrinsic permanence. It's a sure thing that if you buy a game on disc today, you can keep that disc for the next fifty years if you so choose. The nature of a downloaded title is somewhat different.

Feeling of ownership may be irrational in some people's opinion, but it's definitely a part of the psychology of shopping and why people make the purchasing choices they do.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Ok, so here is something further to my point about the price of digital games being increased because of retailers.

Destiny, The Taken King expansion has Legendary and Collector's editions that are available on disc. They include the Taken King expansion and the two previous DLC expansions. The price of the disc and digital of the Legendary Edition reflects the exchange rate. It's $59.99 US and $79.99 CAD. But, there is a digital only expansion that includes just The Taken King. It is $39.99 USD and ... drumroll ... $39.99 CAD.

Now, someone please tell me why all of the digital editions that are also available on disc would reflect the exchange rate, but the digital only version would not?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Feeling of ownership may be irrational in some people's opinion, but it's definitely a part of the psychology of shopping and why people make the purchasing choices they do.

Everything I own physically I can sell, lend or swap. I can't sell, lend or swap any of the music/tv/movies/games I bought from iTunes and PSN. I still want to sell, lend, swap this type of content and one purchase lets me and the other does not.

Now, someone please tell me why all of the editions that are also available on disc would reflect the exchange rate, but the digital only version would not?

For import/export excise reasons perhaps?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Everything I own physically I can sell, lend or swap. I can't sell, lend or swap any of the music/tv/movies/games I bought from iTunes and PSN. I still want to sell, lend, swap this type of content and one purchase lets me and the other does not.


For import/export excise reasons perhaps?

You don't import/export digital copies, which is exactly my point. They raised the price of the digital versions to match the disc price, so they wouldn't undercut the retailers. The digital only expansion does not reflect the change in the exchange rate at all.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You don't import/export digital copies, which is exactly my point. They raised the price of the digital versions to match the disc price, so they wouldn't undercut the retailers. The digital only expansion does not reflect the change in the exchange rate at all.

You said "tell me why all of the editions that are also available on disc would reflect the exchange rate, but the digital only version would not?" so the disc versions are subject to exchange rates and customs and excise duties and the digital versions are not because they are not declared as exports. Having said that I am very conscious a lot of countries are currently engaged in international forums to discuss the exchange of digital information vis-à-vis whether or not it's technically an export or not.

 

[Scott_Arm]

You said "tell me why all of the editions that are also available on disc would reflect the exchange rate, but the digital only version would not?" so the disc versions are subject to exchange rates and customs and excise duties and the digital versions are not because they are not declared as exports. Having said that I am very conscious a lot of countries are currently engaged in international forums to discuss the exchange of digital information vis-à-vis whether or not it's technically an export or not.

Oh, this is because of a typo on my part. That should have read, "tell me why all of the digital editions that are also available on disc would reflect the exchange rate, but the digital only version would not?"

Edited my post to clarify.

 

[Cjail]

There is a feeling. Emotions aren't governed by the laws of the land. A physical disc has a visceral presence, a tangible thing that you bought with your money. A download only provides the experience and there's no intrinsic permanence. It's a sure thing that if you buy a game on disc today, you can keep that disc for the next fifty years if you so choose. The nature of a downloaded title is somewhat different.

Feeling of ownership may be irrational in some people's opinion, but it's definitely a part of the psychology of shopping and why people make the purchasing choices they do.

The truth is that we don't have the same "freedoms/options" when it comes to dowloads as we have with discs: no trade in, no rental, no backwards compatibility, etc...
Internet connection, price matter but that's the main reason why discs are preferred, at least on consoles.

Companies will have to take risks if they want to change the habits of the customers and make digital delivery more appealing but no company IMO can do it by itself, it just won't work or end in profit.

 

[JPT]

Is fibre lower ping than cable/dsl ?
AFAIK if you really want the lowest ping isdn is the way to go.

Delay is introduced in many places in the network and also depends on how you configure your links.
On certain DSL flavours you have the option to have extra "protection" on the bits and it adds ms to your ping. Google Interleave vs fast transmit, albeit any modern'ish DSL platform is on G.INP now, I hope.

Also the CPE and the DSLAM/Switch/CMTS/OLT might have specific design goals which goes contrary to low ping. Google bufferbloat if you want to see an example of that.

 

[MrFox]

There is a feeling. Emotions aren't governed by the laws of the land. A physical disc has a visceral presence, a tangible thing that you bought with your money. A download only provides the experience and there's no intrinsic permanence. It's a sure thing that if you buy a game on disc today, you can keep that disc for the next fifty years if you so choose. The nature of a downloaded title is somewhat different.

Feeling of ownership may be irrational in some people's opinion, but it's definitely a part of the psychology of shopping and why people make the purchasing choices they do.

It's not about the physical object. MP3s are fine with no physical media, and the initial XB1 proposition of disc-as-download-accelerator was unacceptable despite being physical.

The gamers didn't argue about the definition of ownership as redacted by lobbyists, put into laws by politicians, and enforced by lawyers in court. We always cared about, and argued about, the tangible aspect of ownership which is called control. That control is the same regardless of which country you live in, or which laws are currently in effect. It exists with MP3s, blurays, etc... but not DD games.

The shift to online DD was a revolution for indies, but the big titles are there to remove control from the consumer. The theory was that it would gain them more profit from: removing used games market, preventing or at least limiting friends and family borrowing the game, planned obsolescence, and replace the retail channels with a monopolistic console vendor to get the distribution profit. No tiers outside of their control (these tiers create a price competition against their own pricing scheme)

Let's say they'd sell the game online for less than the disc version to match the consumer's expectation of value. That wouldn't net them more money, unless they can successfully remove the existence of discs. They failed to pull it off this gen because some of us fought back and the gamers didn't want it, and they are now biding their time and will try again next gen. The younger people live in a world of ephemeral media, and they'll take it hook line and sinker.

TL;DR
When people talk about ownership what they actually mean is control.

 

[turkey]

The truth is that we don't have the same "freedoms/options" when it comes to dowloads as we have with discs: no trade in, no rental, no backwards compatibility, etc...
Internet connection, price matter but that's the main reason why discs are preferred, at least on consoles.

Companies will have to take risks if they want to change the habits of the customers and make digital delivery more appealing but no company IMO can do it by itself, it just won't work or end in profit.

No backwards compatability? Your 360 digital purchases are just as backwards compatible on the xbox one as the disk version?

 

[Cjail]

@MrFox
Speaking of control it's not like we can do anything we want with discs...people just like to forget it or ignore it.

 

[Nesh]

No backwards compatability? Your 360 digital purchases are just as backwards compatible on the xbox one as the disk version?

He is probably talking about BC with the games you have already purchased physically a generation before. You certainly wouldnt be able to play the 360 games you bought physically if the XB1 didnt have a disk drive.

 

[Scott_Arm]

They should just make a disc-less console but allow you to use 3rd-party USB disc drives. Pretty easy problem to solve. Have two SKUs, one with the disc drive and one without. Allow you to plug in a 3rd party drive if you have the disc-less SKU, where you find you happen to need one.