Will
everything become digital in the future, and
who would want this?
Throughout
the past decade there have been many technological advances and developments,
and the gaming industry was no exception. Along with new consoles, game
engines, coding and graphics, to name only a few, major developments have been
made through the digital distribution of games. Digital distribution is when
the game is either fully or ‘partially’ distributed/downloaded through the
internet. An example of this could be Minecraft, which has no physical copy of
the game available for purchase. I mentioned ‘partial digital distribution’ due
to sites such as Amazon, which distribute the game through an online service,
but the consumer still receives a physical copy of the game. Digital
distribution does not stop at full games either, with a majority of game
developers being bringing out expansion packs; it is almost one hundred percent
DLC (downloadable content). That is the current situation, and whether games
distribution turns totally digital is another thing. There are many people who
would encourage this and just as many who discourage this, and for a whole
plethora of reasons.
There
are a number of advantages to a fully digital games distribution system and
along with it, a lot of people who would prefer this to the combined physical
and digital distribution system currently in place. I believe that the people
who would benefit the most, in regards to money, would be the platform holders,
developers and publishers who are all involved in the release of a game and any
add-on content that is released at a later date. This is because , not only
would the companies still be making money from the game sales, add-on content
and other micro transactions, but also saving money from using less packaging,
having to produce less physical game copies, and not shipping as many games
around the world. However, it is not just the companies that would like digital
distribution to expand. More and more consumers prefer to buy their games
digitally, this could be due to some people preferring; especially as they get
older, not to have a collection of game cases due to possible ‘childish’
associations; or it could be due to convenience, some people may find it easier
to buy directly from the consoles online services and then store everything on
a hard-drive, rather than buying a physical copy from a shop or even an online
retailer such as Game or Amazon. These are only a couple a multitude of
reasons, but whatever the reason, the figures tell us that there are ever more
of these people utilizing digital distribution. As between April-June of this
year in North America, out of the total $2.88 billion spent on gaming, $1.47
billion of this revenue was sourced from gaming content in digital form (full
games, add-on content, subscriptions and mobile games). This is opposed $1
billion made from physical gaming software. This is a 17% increase in sales of
gaming in a digital format. This clearly shows that, digital distribution, in whatever
form, is becoming more and more popular. This is not just America either, it is
worldwide, with the UK, France and Germany generating more than 3 times as much
revenue in digital content than physical content, with a total of $983 million,
in the space of only a few months.
Even though there is a lot of support towards
a fully digital distribution system, there is still strong opposition, with
valid reasons for concern. A main argument being that the internet both in the
UK and US, as well as in most other countries, the internet just isn’t strong enough
to support a total switch to digital distribution. OFCOM has stated that the
average internet speed for the UK is 6.2 Mb/s and in the US 5.8 Mb/s. This is
nowhere near good enough to support the millions of gamers that will be
suddenly directed into using digital downloads. The sudden reliance on the
internet for downloading games would almost certainly be a major problem for
internet providers. The numbers increase would also be a problem for security.
To download a game through the games console digitally, credit card details
would be required. And with millions more doing so, it could be an even larger
catastrophe if a network was be become under attack, and details leaked. Sony
alone has over 70 million online accounts registered, which would massively
increase with more digital distribution, and so hacks would do more damage than
ever before. Less serious problems considered for a total turn to digital
distribution are the lack of both hard drive space and hype involved when
downloading games digitally. Storage space would vanish instantly if all of the
games we owned where put onto one hard drive, which would be the case with
digital distribution. To solve this, more hard drives would have to be bought,
or larger capacities included with the games console or pc. Both of which would
cost the consumer money. Finally, it is the lack of anticipation that is
produced when downloading a game rather than receiving a physical copy of a
game that I think will stop many people from supporting more digital distribution.
It is a common opinion that downloading a game just isn’t as exciting as pre-ordering,
buying and then placing the game you have waited months or even years for, in
the disk tray and watch it all begin.
I
personally believe that, even though the producers of the consoles and games
will make more money, ‘everything becoming digital’ seems extremely unlikely, at
least in the near future. I don’t think the platform holders or other companies
would want to take the chance of losing some of their very loyal audiences, and
would definitely not want to make too much of a move into mass digital distribution
until the internet is strong enough to support the gaming community’s downloads
and ensure that they receive a better experience then they are already getting
with the current distribution system.
By Jonathan Harvey
