According to a recent article, the game Magicka is nearing 800,000 copies sold, 90% of which were digital downloads, primarily via Steam.

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36582/Paradox_Magicka_Nearing_800K_Sales.php

Do you think digital downloads are becoming more popular? Have you ever bought a game via digital distribution platform?

Digital distribution is already more popular than retail distribution.

No, I'll never stop purchasing retail copies unless I have no choice.

Do you mean to say that, for some AAA titles, the PC versions of games are selling more digital copies than boxed retail copies? Do you think Skyrim, for example, will sell more digital downloads than retail copies?

It seems hard to verify this because most of the sales charts do not include digital downloads.

Regardless of the truth, game publishers want you to believe that digital distribution is not only good for you, but is also very common and "normal".

The reason for this is that game publishers want to eliminate the used game market as they currently get $0.00 from each used game sale and have a lost opportunity cost of $49.99-59.99 for each used game sale. From a business perspective, you always want to eliminate used sales as they don't do you any good. As video games are completely digital, they are actually able to do it if they can get the consumers to adopt a digital distribution platform that gives the publishers control over resale.

Is it becoming more common? Of course, but the reason isn't because it is more popular.

Huh, Magicka had physical copies?


Personally, I wouldn't base overall adoption of "digital distribution" on the stats for smaller "indie" games, since they tend to have much higher % of digital sales (up to 100%, for ones that are ONLY sold digitally.)

Have I bought games digitally? Yes - mostly small or old (and therefore, both smaller and hard to find on disc) games. Minecraft, Bejeweled, Dungeons of Dredmor, Deus Ex..... I bought the Mac version of Dragon Age Origins digitally, because I had no other choice.

And yes - at least among the folks on internet forums, they're becoming more popular.... but, of course, those people tend to be the ones sitting on fat pipes, for whom downloading 10+GB isn't something they have to think about.

Me? I'm not a huge fan - if I can buy a game physically, I will. Especially larger games - I don't consider a 2GB download to be something to just casually do. Let alone 5-10GB.


My personal view is that the push for "It should just be Digital!" can't happen until my country (US) has a decent national broadband framework, with regulation as a public utility - until then, there are too many places where the "competition" of all our little ISP semi-monopolies just don't provide people with good enough service to support a all-digital world.

I don't doubt the fact that its popularity is rising, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

If I'm paying money for something I'd better be able to hold it in my hands. Its availability will never be in question and I don't depend on companies that generally only have one thing in mind, whose squabbles often result in customer inconvenience. I don't have to make backups (if that's even an option) for fear of losing them to a mechanical failure, service policy changes, etc. I take care of my things. If I were to live long enough, my discs and cartridges would probably still be working long after services such as Direct2Drive and Steam have kicked the bucket.

However, that's mostly for consoles. I actually buy most of my PC games on Steam seeings as I've never really liked collecting PC titles like I do console. There's also the fact that I can at least make backups of my Steam games and, if need be, restore them through various methods in the event Steam ever does tank. Still, I would go back and buy all of my Steam games at retail if I could, but I'd amassed so many games on Steam before I really started to care where they came from and it'd bug me to have half my collection digital and the other physical. Hypocritical? Perhaps. Oh well.

Digital downloads are the only way to go for me, they are better than discs in almost every way.

The only rdigital purchase I have made is XBLA games if they even count, Its not really becoming that popular I don't think but like mt_pelion said its because of pre-owned games that it happening.
I personally don't want to buy any games over the internet for security reasons, I'd much rather take a day out in the town and pick up my next big game instead of being a hermit all day

What's the difference, exactly?

Semantics. The use of "popular" suggests that there is a positive fame attached to the rise. People aren't really adopting DD because they "like" it but because the publishers are herding consumers into it.

I certainly can't speak for everyone, but in my case, I have adopted digital downloads because I do prefer them, not only for games but also every software applications that I buy, including some expensive apps like CS5.

I have neither the storage space, nor the interest in collecting boxes, discs, manuals, knicknacks, etc., that come along with buying physical copies, and it's nice to know that I never have to worry about losing or scratching discs.

Also, unfortunately my laptop does not have any internal optical drive, so in my case it is actually a bigger PITA to install anything from a disc than it is to download.

The only commercial digital distribution I've done is some songs because they have no DRM. I don't like the idea of someone else being able to http://www.pcworld.com/article/168654/amazon_removes_ebooks_from_kindle_store_revokes_ownership.html. I also am not fond of the fact that if I get banned from the service, I could lose everything as well. Granted, to get banned from the service you'd probably have to do something illegal, but what if your computer is compromised so it just looks like you did something when it was really someone else entirely? Malware targetting Steam users may not be common now, but can that be said for the future? It's a system of guilty until proven innocent, where the burden of proof is on you.

This.
Also using a game like Magicka for these statistics is kinda silly. Indie games have no real advertising besides internet and word of mouth, so of course they sell the most digitally.

More popular? PC DD has already been outselling retail since last year in the US and in many more PC centric european countries even before that, so it's not like it's a niche.
And even EA's CEO (the guy who actually knows their sales and revenue numbers, including Steam) has stated that by the end of this year EA's digital business will outweigh retail, which includes their console business where retail is much stronger.

I didn't even know Magicka was sold in any other form than digital download.

I was more surprised when I saw the Angry Birds retail box.

:huh: Really?

This is true, even within the US, there are a lot of eager gaming consumers who still don't have broadband available, other than 3G or 4G wireless services, which usually have some sort of monthly cap.

Yup http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81FyG4DsKGL._AA1500_.jpg

Not like publishers are giving us much choice. When was the last time you saw a retail store that the publisher kept games that were older than 2 years on the shelves?

To be fair, Blizzard does do that with their WoW, WC3, and Diablo2 "chests".

But other publishers don't seem to care about their games after the initial few months after release when they (think they) get the most cash. There really isn't much choice to find any retail games that aren't the usual titles. Can't find any Dreamcatcher-published games at my local GS. Most don't even carry Oblivion GotY anymore. Bulletstorm for the PC? Never even saw it on the shelf.

Here's one reason I dislike digital downloads. They aren't subject to normal supply/demand rules. I go on GS and I see the retail version of the game (say, the witcher) sell for $10. but, look, you can download it for $19.99, what a deal! :sarcasm:

Because shelf space, printing a new batch of games and shipping costs quite a bit more than having it sit on a servers HD. And yes the vast majority of sales are made within the first months after release.

Show me some actual data, otherwise I'm going to assume that it's relatively cheap for publishers to print their stuff, just like book publishers keep bookstores stocked with books that are 10's of years old, or other products are kept stocked on shelves (like movies and music). While citizens such as ourselves have to pay through the nose for shipping heavy items, companies get special sweetheart deals that reduce their costs considerably for bulk shipping. Same with mass printing, it costs per thing to print a lot of the media than to print only small quantities of the media.

Any maybe sales would stay up if they made the game available. I'll point to Blizzard again, they keep their games on shelves and they do keep selling.

EDIT: I"m looking at Amazon's PC games list filtered by "best selling"

Guess who sells more than Fallout 3 GotY? The Baldur's Gate 4-in-1 boxset.