First off, I love the idea of downloadable games as a concept. Being able to obtain an entire entertainment experience through digital download is one of the greatest forms of purchasing for the consumer thanks to the internet.
The Good!
No physical hassle:
You don't need to have a physical disk or box, you don't need to physically change disks to play a game and you can purchase new games from the comfort of your home and simply wait for it to download. This is especially useful for individuals who perhaps don't live near a convenient gaming shop to buy games and would need to make an effort to go out and buy some. Even better is that digital games can be much cheaper to purchase since the publisher doesn't have to pay the cost for manufacturing the physical disk, the box or pay for shipping to retail outlets. Steam is a platform for gaming on PC that regularly sells all sorts of games for fairly cheaper prices than console counterparts.Good gateway for Indie Devs:
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| Undertale is a charming indie success thanks to digital distribution |
Bringing back older games:
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| Reliving old memories on new consoles |
The Bad!
Stupid Pricing:
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| What is with this pricing?! |
I mentioned earlier that digital games "can" be cheaper than their physical copies due to lack of manufacturing costs but sometimes depending on the platform you are buying the game on the prices can be extortionate for seemingly no reason. Earlier today I had actually went into a physical gaming shop and saw that Call of Duty Black Ops III was going for about £24.99 brand new for PS4 which is pretty normal practice for a game to drop down in price since its initial launch. At launch a physical copy would go for about £54.99 and it's now been 6 months since then so a price drop was inevitable. Later the same day I hop onto the Playstation Store to compare the price and a digital copy of the game is STILL priced at £54.99. Now I already think it's bad enough the game was that price digitally at launch despite the publisher not needing to factor in manufacturing costs into the price for it like they would a physical game, but to have it still remain that price 6 months on while the physical copy of the game is sitting on shop shelves for under half the price it just makes no sense to me. For customers buying downloadable games on console, they have no choice but to buy those games from the console owners themselves. The PS4, Xbox and WiiU don't exactly have any competition on their own systems for digital pricing so they seem to just charge whatever they feel like even if the price is ridiculous. On PC game outlets however, prices tend to be much cheaper because the likes of Steam are in competition with other online retailers like GOG.com (Good old Games). These outlets regularly have sales and discounts in place to try and draw customers in where as console stores don't need to worry about competition because they're customers can only get digital games from them.
Memory storage:
Now while the lack of physical boxes and disks taking up space is a benefit of digital games, there is a problem however with the sheer size of the memory these games take up. This is less of an issue with games that are generally smaller or more simplistic in design to take up less memory but for a vast majority of Triple A published games they can take up obscene amounts of space on your gaming system. It isn't unusual for most high graphic big budget games to take up 20GB of data or much more meaning you have a limit to how many digital games you can fit on your system with more demanding games taking up way too much space. In some cases for bigger budget titles it's better to get a physical copy just so it doesn't take up insane amounts of space.
Easy for bad games to flood the market:
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| Uncrowded is an example of a lazy game pumped out via digital distribution |
While it's much easier for low budget or new gaming developers to help get their product out to the public via digital download, it also means it's very easy for poor quality games that no publisher would touch with a 10 foot pole to be puked out all over digital game outlets. For every diamond game like Undertale or Hotline Miami, there's about 100 rubbish Uncrowded's. It's not uncommon for lazy cash grabbing "developers" to make some horrible, unfinished or buggy mess of a "game" (if you can call them that) and put it out onto gaming outlets in the hopes that some unknowing suckers buy their pile of dog poo game for very little effort on their part. Even worse is unlike physical copies you can't take digital games back for a refund, or at least you used to not be able to a lot of the time. More and more online retailers like Steam have caught on to the blatant ripoff artists conning people out of their money with poor quality products they spewed out onto the market and now offer customers the option to refund games they buy within a set number of conditions if they feel the product is unsatisfactory, misleading or broken. It still doesn't stop a lot of lazy designers pouring complete garbage games onto these platforms. Having to sieve through the rubbish just to find the occasional gem with actual effort put into it can be quite irritating.
Once again I emphasise that I do adore digital downloads as a concept and as an another option for players to choose how they purchase their games but the way they currently are being handled on multiple platforms is flawed. The situation is slowly getting better as online retailers and game developers are realising the potential for digitally distributed games and I do have hopes that in the future it becomes all the more convenient for the consumer. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going back to play Pokémon Red!
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