94% of game sales were digital worldwide in 2022 (1 Viewer)

[Bryan^H]

Over 94% of All Worldwide Game Sales in 2022 Were Digital – Report

Global digital game revenue for the year stands at $172.8 billion, as opposed to $10.7 billion of global physical game revenue.

gamingbolt.com

I've pretty much gone all digital too. Except for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo does not disclose their sales data for digital, but everyone I know (4 people) with a Switch still buy almost all of their games physically. That is the anomaly. I do it simply for the resale value.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

94% of all new game releases are mostly digital at this point. Buying discs is essentially buying a physical license to download content at this point.

And if you throw in apps and phone games as part of the mix, there's not even something physical in the first place for those.

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm guessing the "Limited Run" boutique model for physical games will become more popular in the future as the big game developers will release only their tentpole (massive money makers) games physically, and in special "collector" editions.

 

[Bryan^H]

94% of all new game releases are mostly digital at this point. Buying discs is essentially buying a physical license to download content at this point.

And if you throw in apps and phone games as part of the mix, there's not even something physical in the first place for those.

Exactly, which is very weird. And the resale value is garbage for disc based games. I buy 3 games for the Series X physically for $210...2 years later I'd be lucky to sell them for $30.

I bought Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, and Zelda BOTW at $180. Nearly 6 years later and I could sell those same games used for $120 or more. Not bad

How is GameStop still in business?

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Is this statistic only looking at games that have a physical release? Because 94% of games are only available digitally nowadays.

 

[Chip_HT]

For the most part, I still get physical games for the Switch to maximize the space on the hard drive and SD card.

Over on the Xbox, it doesn't matter because even popping the disc in downloads a gajillion GBs to the hard drive.

 

[Bryan^H]

Is this statistic only looking at games that have a physical release? Because 94% of games are only available digitally nowadays.

I believe it just covers the titles that are both offered digitally, and physically.

I'll look into it.

 

[Sam Posten]

100% digital since PS2 and Xbox 1!

 

[Edwin-S]

There is still one advantage to buying a physical disc. A person can lend it to a friend if they want to play a particular game. A friend lent me his copy of MW2, so I could play the campaign game. You can't do that with digital downloads.

 

[Bryan^H]

There is still one advantage to buying a physical disc. A person can lend it to a friend if they want to play a particular game. A friend lent me his copy of MW2, so I could play the campaign game. You can't do that with digital downloads.

Nope. Not that it matters anymore, but if the big two came up with a "game share" feature digitally, it would be nice. Refunds are back for digital in a acceptable capacity.

 

[Edwin-S]

I don't get what you mean by nope. A digital download can't be shared. A disc can, so the one remaining advantage of a disc is being able to share out to a friend.

Digital sharing services would be good, but they don't exist and never will.

 

[Bryan^H]

I don't get what you mean by nope. A digital download can't be shared. A disc can, so the one remaining advantage of a disc is being able to share out to a friend.

Digital sharing services would be good, but they don't exist and never will.

Nope, you can't share full games with people digitally on home consoles currently.
However,
Digital sharing is possible, and has been tried years ago.

How to gameshare on PS4: share your PS4 games with friends and family

Share play

www.techradar.com

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The article isn't too clear but it links to the GameIndustry article that says these numbers are based on revenue, not individual sales. So selling one $100 special digital edition of a game is going to skew the numbers more than a $5 copy of Anthem from GameStop. I wouldn't be surprised if the unit sales match closely to the revenues, but its still a bit misleading.

PC games are DEFINITELY skewing the numbers towards digital. Almost all PC games are solely digital because of Steam and Epic and GoG. 72% of console revenue was digital which is still huge but I could see the tons of cheap, digital-only games (Among Us, Rocket League MTX, etc) pulling the number that way. And let's not forget DLC.

I think gaming has hit the point where it's so mainstream that games are selling millions of copies and the value of individual physical games is basically nothing. A game from 1985 that only got 10k units is rare and worth a lot because of the rarity, but...is anyone going to pay anywhere near the original price for, say, a copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare?

Personally, I'm mostly digital by virtue of three things. First, I have GamePass Ultimate, Switch Online, and PlayStation Plus Premium, so I have hundreds of games available at any moment and haven't bought more than maybe 2 console games in the last year. Second, I've been playing my Steam Deck a lot and those games are only digital. Third, I will happily buy a digital copy of a game at $20-30 (on sale down from $60-70) in exchange for losing the ability to hand it off to a friend or resell it in the future.

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm not even sure when digital purchases became readily available for home consoles. I don't remember them until late in the Xbox 360 run (I bought at launch in 2006)

At any rate the gaming landscape has changed so much. Am I upset that I sold Devil's Third for the WiiU and Godzilla for the PS4 for a few bucks each to Gamestop? Absolutely, but those games are so few and far between, that I think the "rarity' of physical games like them averages out to still not being worth it anymore for resale.

Also when you can buy "exclusive" game (Deracine) from a cult like developer like 'From Software' ( very few obviously) new and sealed on E-Bay for $20....then you know the market for physical is changing drastically.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

There was a moment when you could get a PS3 digital game for 10% less than physical, and it also came with the PS Vita version as a digital download. Once Sony realized people would happily pay full price for a digital copy...the 10% discount disappeared. So some time around 2010-2012?

I remember seeing someone online talk about Bitcoin and meme stocks where they said something like, "I got in a cab in San Francisco and the driver immediately says, 'Hey, have you heard about XYZ?' And that's when I knew the chance to jump on the trend had passed and all the money was gone from it." Basically, when things become so lucrative that it's common knowledge, then anyone who is going to strike big is already deep into it and it's too late for everyone else.

That's what the market for collectibles has basically turned into. Any item that would be seen as collectible right now (old action figures, old games, old vinyl LPs) has turned into an over-saturated mass-market product. It's because people know that rare items have value that they start buying up new things and never open/use them...but there's SO MANY out there that the value evaporates. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing by any means because I would much rather be able to have quick/easy/cheap access to a classic game/movie/etc than have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars outbidding someone on ebay. But the end result is that the intrinsic value of physical media disappears.

The biggest draw to physical media for me, really, is purely that I like owning a physical copy to look at for some games that I really like. Oh, and weird contracts that make digital games sometimes just up and disappear for no reason, but that's when game companies start implicitly allowing piracy by leaving games with no other option.

 

[LeoA]

I'm not even sure when digital purchases became readily available for home consoles. I don't remember them until late in the Xbox 360 run (I bought at launch in 2006)

The original Xbox was the main pioneer in this. Xbox Live Arcade was born on there and many games received downloadable content like Project Gotham Racing 2's booster packs that added courses in Long Beach and Paris (Locations not in the retail game).

Digital distribution was present from day 1 on the Xbox 360, but it was limited to content expansions and Xbox Live Arcade in the early days to support owners that only had a 360 memory card (Back when MS foolishly marketed the 360 as being viable without a hard drive).

It was probably 2008 or so on 360 when we started seeing things like Xbox Originals, digital distribution for retail 360 software, and the introduction of the Xbox video store (Just going off memory, so I could be off a bit).

 

[Bryan^H]

The original Xbox was the main pioneer in this. Xbox Live Arcade was born on there and many games received downloadable content like Project Gotham Racing 2's booster packs that added courses in Long Beach and Paris (Locations not in the retail game).

Digital distribution was present from day 1 on the Xbox 360, but it was limited to content expansions and Xbox Live Arcade in the early days to support owners that only had a 360 memory card (Back when MS foolishly marketed the 360 as being viable without a hard drive).

It was probably 2008 or so on 360 when we started seeing things like Xbox Originals, digital distribution for retail 360 software, and the introduction of the Xbox video store (Just going off memory, so I could be off a bit).

That is what I thought. Xbox Live Arcade was so great. I wonder if my high score on "Yie Ar Kung Fu" still stands?

 

[Ruz-El]

With not even the switch cartridges containing the complete games and requiring patches and downloads I've pretty much stopped buying physical as well. It sucks. I like actually owning games and not having to rely on a server that wont exist in 10 years, but I guess that's the breaks now.
Generations of floppy disc games are pretty much gone now aside from those that have shown up on the internet archive and other browser-playable forms, it's weird to think the same could happen to our current gen but I guess that's the history of the form too.

 

[DaveF]

I went all digital with my Switch in 2018. I bought it play on the go and didn’t want to deal with tiny SD cartridges and risk losing them in airports and hotels. I bought a cheap big expansion card and can download my whole library at once. I accepted upfront that there’d be no used value in this, but it’s not like I’ve ever gotten much money in outdated console games. It’s a bummer I can’t loan games to friends, but again a tradeoff for a simpler gaming system.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

With not even the switch cartridges containing the complete games and requiring patches and downloads I've pretty much stopped buying physical as well. It sucks. I like actually owning games and not having to rely on a server that wont exist in 10 years, but I guess that's the breaks now.
Generations of floppy disc games are pretty much gone now aside from those that have shown up on the internet archive and other browser-playable forms, it's weird to think the same could happen to our current gen but I guess that's the history of the form too.

Just throwing this out there, but emulation has basically already covered the Switch. Either Nintendo will make their games available on future platforms through ports/emulation or the internet will take care of it. Game preservation, legal or not, will continue.