Digital Distribution

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