The tipping point for downloads is nigh (1 Viewer)

At least for one major publisher, Capcom:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-05-26-capcom-will-reach-the-tipping-point-for-digital-in-fy2016

More to follow

Meh.

Over the next year, Capcom will attempt to bolster its revenue streams by engaging with Steam just as much as it does consoles, monetising its catalogue titles more frequently and tapping into the long tail of sales that Valve's platform affords.

This will also mean a relative paucity of AAA packaged games. Capcom will launch 29 games next year, but Street Fighter V and a Monster Hunter title for the Nintendo 3DS are unlikely to be joined by other boxed big-hitters. Instead, the line-up will be dominated by digital releases of every size and shape: from ambitious free-to-play games like Deep Down, to HD remakes plucked from its 35 year history.

Click to expand...

This doesn't mean that they're going to stop making AAA boxed games, it means they're going to make crappy games and not bother boxing them. It's more about a business model (free-to-play, remakes, microtransactions, etc.).

Yeah no.

Not a surprise for Capcom. Other than Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter (And they haven't done much except to damage the Resident Evil franchise in recent years), they don't have much else going for them except their legacy.


Digital distribution is ideal for leveraging the back catalog of a publisher. Something like Resident Evil HD would be a far tougher sell at $30 or $40 at retail, than as a $15 download that would be an impulse buy for a fair number of customers.


More a sign of their health and that of the traditional Japanese videogame industry, than anything else. Along with Sega and Konami (How are Square and Namco doing? I suspect they're not doing a whole lot better), they're quickly heading down the path of irrelevance.


Other than Nintendo for an obvious example, traditional AAA game development in Japan seems to be in a pretty sorry state these days at the old stalwarts over there that dominated console and handheld gaming for many years. Mobile style projects, rereleases, and smaller scale projects are where the future at this time lays for companies like this as they deal with limited resources.


Despite hits like Resident Evil 4, they've had too many misses and just haven't been able to adapt well enough to the changing console environment and the evolution of gaming habits in their homeland.

REHD was a big success for Capcom, but Revelations 2 was a big flop. It sold decently, but the way they handled it (pricing variations, preorder bonuses, crap game) was bad. I think RE0:HD could be a good thing and I'm fine if they want to re-release the rest of the series as well. But there's a big difference between "releasing an HD upgrade of a 15 year old game digitally" and "the next Street Fighter will be digital-only." We're not there yet, and nothing that this article said is going to change my mind on that.


However, what we'll see is the same thing as with SF4 where there are regular updates to the game, only those will probably be digital-only. So you buy the game for $60 this year and then get either free or cheap ($10) updates annually. That's not too bad. Because of how digital rights work on consoles, it is still a bit of a hard sell to get consumers to buy a game at full price that is not intrinsically theirs. Granted, it's a bit of an extreme example, but the whole mess over PT just goes to show how much control the publisher and platform holder can have on a digital game. Sony could go out of business tomorrow and I'll still have my hard copy of Alien: Isolation here for me to play. But that digital one you paid for? Gone forever. If the cost of a digital game is lower (under $30) or if it is designed to run as a basically online-only experience (Destiny) then people will be a lot more forgiving. But the prospect of paying for something then not actually having it forever is tough. I don't see Capcom or anyone else really forcing this with $60 games any time this generation.


What concerns me is that the people making these decisions at Japanese companies are opting not for download-only business models, but for mobile-focused business models (which happen to be download-only by nature). They don't care about distribution or printing costs, they care about getting in on that microtransaction and episodic content business. Konami has a couple cash cows, but they're totally willing to abandon them because they required big up-front investments. Metal Gear Solid V could very well be one of the last non-sports AAA games they even make for a console anymore. That sucks.

Morgan Jolley said:

But the prospect of paying for something then not actually having it forever is tough.

Click to expand...

But it worked out so well for DiVX!

And OnLive!

I think Sony's strategy with PS Now is actually much better than if they let people buy the games and have access to them forever. Why? Because this way, people aren't going to be livid if a rights issue takes their games offline permanently in a year or if Sony somehow falls apart as a company and cancels the service.

This is all completely avoided if the games are good enough AND cheap enough that losing them to the aether of the cloud doesn't matter. For example, if I lose the $5 Super Mario Bros. (NES) from my 3DS forever, it's not a big deal. But if I lose my $60 Assassin's Creed game before I can finish it, I'll be pissed. (Just an example. I actually got SMB for free on 3DS during the Ambassador thing and only paid $20 for AC:Unity.) This price/quality issue is what Capcom is basically going for: take an old game, remaster it in HD with the most minimal of effort, release digitally at a budget price, make tons of money. This is the "pay up front" portion of mobile gaming's business model, only applied to a console.

I was thinking more along the lines of Resident Evil 6 as being the primary problem that has befallen this franchise in recent years.


That one, despite apparently being a halfway decent game, pretty well was a disaster since people's expectations are much higher than a mere C range title for this franchise.

Gooood.... Goooooooooood!
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/2...all-2-wont-have-physical-media-inside-of-them

...on PC. No word on console.

EDIT: Are they actually putting that in a box on a shelf, or just making the PC version a download code card? Considering its basically an online multiplayer game, it makes sense to require an internet connection which means you can download it, but I hope they're not actually pressing plastic cases for that.

Sam Posten said:

Gooood.... Goooooooooood!
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/2...all-2-wont-have-physical-media-inside-of-them

Click to expand...

Not good at all, if it's supposed to mean anything for the future.

I wonder why a boxed version at all? I thought that retail had largely left all but a few casual releases behind on PC years ago.

I imagine this is meaningless even on consoles. It's online only as Morgan said, so even a diehard retail fan like myself that wants to own their videogames and not just lease them, is unlikely to care much in this particular instance.

If anything, retail is proving to have more life left in it in the console world than publishers expected. Just look at Capcom, the initial topic of discussion in this thread, for an example. Seeing a lot more of their releases like various Resident Evil remasterings hitting retail these days where as a few years ago, Capcom was on the verge of being a digital exclusive publisher.

Or the NX which is widely rumored to be utilizing cartridges. Towards the end of the last decade, many were betting that the upcoming generation of systems would be digital only. And not only did that end up not the case, but the NX is set to start the next generation with physical media support and Sony and Microsoft are both refreshing their existing platforms with the Blu-Ray drive intact.

Even seeing the rise of niche retail releases for many games that even 10 years ago, would've been digital exclusives across the board.

I just find it funny that Sam wants digital-only games, but not digital/streaming-only 4K UHD video on PS4 Pro

But seriously, regarding the idea of "leasing" games because they're digital, I think that you are kind of leasing a game if it's online-only and multiplayer. I can pull out my original Xbox and play Star Wars Battlefront II, but in a few years I won't get much value out of the current Battlefront once EA's servers no longer support it. So Titanfall 2 probably fits squarely in that same situation.

Not only do I not mind digital for an online multiplayer only game since it's nothing when online goes away anyways (As you said), but I think I'd prefer it for the convenience.

A nice single player game that I want to own a hard copy of isn't something I'll necessarily be revisiting with regularity for 20-30 minute here and there after finishing it. But if an online game grabs me, it's nice to have it accessible at the press of a button whenever the mood strikes without having to get up and swap discs.

Assuming it's also a digital exclusive on console (Which I very much doubt), I suppose this situation only is a loss for those that like to trade in their games or those with highly restrictive data caps that prefer to rip retail discs whenever possible.

If Sony, for some reason, decides to be done with games forever and shuts down their servers and my PS4's HDD crashes, those digital copies of games I own are gone forever. If it was a game that I bought for $5 during a sale, no big deal. If it as an $80 day one premium edition, then I'd be pretty upset.

But if I have a hard copy of that game, then I buy a new PS4 or replace the HDD and it just works. THAT is why I, personally, prefer discs.

I've been consistant on this since Steam launched over a decade ago: Digital gaming has no downsides to anyone with a modern network. All upsides. Digital films I want on disk only because it provides a significant quality upside. If streams could do uncompressed video and sound I'd be on board for that. As is I only want disks for about 25% or less of my consumption: blockbuster films. If a movie is not a blockbuster then downloads and streams are a-ok with me.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself;
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I was just teasing with my comment! Hell, I want digital movies but not digital games, so what does that make me? (Even though I buy movies that I absolutely love on disc...so yeah.)

I think digital games make a ton of sense on PC because its one giant every-evolving platform. But for consoles, not as much. For example, Xbox 360 and PS3 games bought last gen may not be on PS4 or XB1 right now, and if they are released only as HD remasters then that means you need to re-buy them. Adding in the risk of servers going down, losing access to the account you bought the games under, etc. and the digital versions are much easier to really be lost. Plus, if you want to, you can always trade in or re-sell the game on disc. If its a rare game then this might be a good idea (in 10 years).

For video, I think digital copies are great because you can access it anywhere you have internet. The barrier for access is a low-power device (phone or cheap tablet) and wifi. For example, I have The Force Awakens on bluray and it came with a digital copy. Redeemed it on Google Play Video and now I can get it literally anywhere. This is different from games simply because of the ubiquity of film/TV/music media and the quality of streaming technology. Maybe we'll hit a point where PS is a service and I can access my current-gen collection of games through the internet literally anywhere.

Oh wait, Remote Play on PS4 works on Xperia phones. And Xbox remote play works on all Win10 devices. I guess we're there?

Honestly, the biggest reason I prefer physical media for games but not as much for movies is because a $60 game becomes a $20 game on disc MUCH faster than digital (note: I don't play PC games, so Steam sales are not taken into account) whereas a $30 movie will release at $20 "on sale" and go down to $10-15 within 6 months. $20 is not a huge financial investment, but I only buy movies (which I'll likely watch once or twice) if I REALLY love them, so I'd rather just see stuff on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Games, however, I will buy on a strong whim for $15-20. That digital game will still be $40 when the disc is on clearance for $15 at Best Buy and Amazon price matches them.

Sam Posten said:

Digital gaming has no downsides to anyone with a modern network.

Click to expand...

Digital has plenty of downsides.

For one easy and quick one, you're unable to purchase a title when it's pulled due to a publisher disappearing, litigation, expired licenses, a publisher wanting to push you to a newer and more expensive title, etc.

And that's happened how many times?

Sam Posten said:

And that's happened how many times?

Click to expand...

I do love physical media, but I also tire of the "parade of horribles" about digital, and about the quest for some kind of "real" ownership.

Let's be clear -- our spouses will be getting rid of all this crap when we're gone. Somewhere there are millions of eight track tapes in landfills. Not to mention VHS, Laserdiscs, DVD's, and so on.

Buy what you love and enjoy watching, and having. Collect it if you like collecting. But don't worry about "future proofing" anything -- it's almost a guarantee that 25 years from now you won't be watching your blu-rays on your main system. They'll be an interesting artifact, perhaps alongside other things to come.