Digital Game Distribution: The Failing Frontier?

Ah yes, we truly live in a digital age. The music industry has managed to find its future in digital sales and itunes and spotify have been an integral part of that. The Film and TV industry has found a new lease of life in the form of Netflix and digital distribution. This is shown in how much money The Interview made from an initially solely digital release. Then we come to the gaming industry. The gaming industry along with all other media forms also has its places of digital distribution and has shown the same success as the music and film industries with the likes of Steam. More sales than you can shake a stick at and AAA games going for low low prices. That, however, is only half the story. With the gaming industry digital distribution has two sides – the PC side and the console side, and with the console side digital distribution cannot get off the starting blocks.

PC gaming has picked up in recent years with pre-built machines prices falling, and new individual parts becoming cheaper to buy. However, the vast majority of gamers remain on console, and for this reason it is baffling to see how digital distribution is being handled on console compared to PC with steam. The prices of new releases on console are astronomical. What would be a £40 game as a physical release can be anywhere from £55-60 as a digital download. Why?

It defies logic that a game, minus all the boxing and wrapping and shipping that is required with a physical copy can be £20 more expensive as a digital copy on console. The only reason i can come up with to explain this phenomenon is the ‘issue’ of pre owned games. The major game publishers feel they are losing money on games that are bought second hand and so must be trying to compensate for those sale by bumping up the digital prices for the games, which you are obviously not able to sell on.

But even with this explanation it doesn’t explain why PC doesn’t suffer the same burden of high priced digital games, especially on steam where it is quite easy to have a shared account used by as many people as you like with only one purchase recorded. Furthermore, music, TV and Film should also have this pre owned problem attributed to games, surely? There may be a lack of reasoning behind this bizarre phenomenon, but it does seem that having the appropriate digital platform such as Steam, Netflixs or itunes is key to providing better deals. Something that Xbox Store and Playstation store for whatever reason cannot provide. Only time will tell as to whether digital distribution of games on console will reach the heights and success of other distribution platforms.

Conor M.