Gaming irks

[importaku]

It's just one of the ways they like to screw people over you are basically paying a premium for lazyness because people are either super impatient or heaven forbid they get off their ass and put a disk in a console, oh no i had to get up and press eject i'm exhausted at all that extra work. There is only one advantage & thats saving physical space but even that is a disadvantage as if your account is compromised you can lose everything there has already been news stories about EA totally deleting someones origin account with no notice and the battle they had to get their stuff back that they paid for. Publishers know people are lazy and don't mind paying that high price as they are weak and eventually give in, if people didn't they wouldn't be keeping the prices high as they do. They know once they have your money you can't do jack **** about it. If it's crap or broken it's not like you can sell it on, hell they will hardly ever even refund you if it's broken or super buggy they just promise patches and like idiots people keep falling for it time & time again. In any other situation where you bought something and it was broken you would be able to get a refund easily but not with gaming oh no it's a runaround with technical support until you eventually give up.

I hate the way gaming is heading they sneakily keep cheapening the experience to be like a throwaway item so they can make you pay for a service instead. They nickle & dime you for every single little thing, with each new generation i'm put off that little bit more. When gaming is totally in the realm of digital is the day i stop buying anything. With each new year publishers try to see how far they can overstep the line to ripping you off, don't be suprised when one day they decide to revoke all those digital librarys and you are left with nothing.

[randombs]

I like buying digital, but I haven’t bought a digital game over £20 yet. Also, there are hardly any games I’ve been played this gen or last gen that I can see myself playing ten years from now.

And when they do shut the servers down, someone will figure something out.

[Asura]

I know it gets mentioned all the time. I know I've probably griped about it before. But why the **** is the digital download of a game more expensive than the physical copy? Ridiculous.

I happen to know this one. It's for several reasons.

First, it's because some publishers have deals with brick-and-mortar retailers. They're not yet ready to completely cut ties as retailers do a lot to advertise games to non-core-gamers simply by their presence in shops. A few years ago, I think it was THQ - they tried to sell Dawn of War 2 for a lower price on Steam, and GameStop made a big fuss about how they would not be selling the game on launch day, with the express purpose of spoiling the release to show THQ how they needed the retailers and couldn't just go around them. It worked, so companies are still kinda reeling from it.

Second, it's a little more complicated than just looking up a game and seeing the prices differ right now. Sometimes the prices differ the other way too, where a retailer will sell a game for more than online, especially when offers are involved; it's really easy for a publisher to do an online sale (it literally requires a few clicks) but it's much more difficult to do an in-store one - plus as online sales have no overheads, offers can be better (like some games on Steam which are £30 will eventually be £4; PS2 games never got that cheap at retail).

Thirdly, tying into the offers point, online retailers actually have rules about this too. For example, Steam only allows companies to put games up for sale prices a set duration after launch, and they can only have so many sales per-quarter. This means it might be impossible to align the sale prices.

Fourth, it's that while the publishers have to support the brick-and-mortar retailers, they're trying to profiteer a bit. This is because there are some customers who can't go to stores but can access things like PSN; the typical examples that are given are soldiers on deployment and people working on oil-rigs or in far-flung places. This is genuinely just them charging more money because they can.

Fifth, sometimes retailers have stock liquidations where they sell items for less than RRP; sometimes they get a rebate from the publisher, but sometimes they just have to suck that up and make up the difference in used game sales and selling things like t-shirts and mugs (which is why GAME do a lot of that these days).

Ultimately it comes down to two things; genuine self-interest (publishers selling things for more online because they can) and the fact that online retail and brick-and-mortar retail may be selling the same product, but they're as different as, for example, Netflix and cinemas, or supermarkets and restaurants.

[Colin]

It was a rhetorical question.

[Asura]

It was a rhetorical question.

Yeah, I know it was a rant; I just felt like answering it.

[_SD_]

If you were to remove all the tat and merchandise from my local GAME, what’s left is about as big as the game section in the huge Tesco that’s directly opposite. There’s more places to buy a console from than just GAME, and I’m sure Mr Morrisons would be more than happy to sell you the hardware without having to faff around with the software.

I suppose the advertising aspect is something that would need addressing, but I reckon if the game companies wanted to go fully digital they could.

[Asura]

I suppose the advertising aspect is something that would need addressing, but I reckon if the game companies wanted to go fully digital they could.

Yeah; I don't have a good grasp of the cold, hard figures at that level, but I know that it's one of the reasons the publishers have pushed for lootboxes and live services. They're gearing up for that future.

[Digfox]

We certainly must be hurling towards the magical 50% figure for consoles downloads, having already long since passed that figure if you include PC and Mobile. Arguably they probably could switch off physical sales now for a small impact on their revenue. They have already been through some of the pain of less consumers trading in and transitioning to recurrent spending.

But certainly the pricing of games on Digital console games is making me squirm more than ever. RDR2 is £75 for the edition I want. The Division 2 £88. Spiderman £65. Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate for £80 (although FM6,7 and FH3 were also £80). That's before you factor in DLC, MTX and year 2 or ongoing season passes. For someone like myself that can be slow to get time to truly play a game - it doesn't make sense to purchase at these prices. Where Physical is still a thing I can sometimes save a few quid but having said that even the savings on Spiderman for example, aren't huge for the physical version. That said like a lot of people I have this mad, insatiable, desire to experience the game near release.

I also need to be careful with my because Spiderman being £65 is much more preferable than being f2p freemium or MTX ridden, gambling simulator that so many games have become.

In recent years one of the things I could do with PC games was use the secondary market (i.e. GMG) to save a bit of money, i.e. The Division Gold Edition £56 at release. And it was an official Ubisoft seller, so not even a grey market key reseller.

So I think that's the trick I have to become better at. To wait and not crumble buying them when it's most profitable for the publisher. In some cases waiting can save you money after you've read true impressions (i.e. Destiny 2) or it drops by huge amounts (i.e. Ghost Recon Gold Edition for £28 instead of £80 at the 1 year anniversary). That's what I quite like about the expansions to existing MMO's. In a lot of cases the prices are much more acceptable for the amount of hours of entertainment they give you (i.e. ESO £40 for the top-tier Summerset Expansion).

[Asura]

In recent years one of the things I could do with PC games was use the secondary market (i.e. GMG) to save a bit of money, i.e. The Division Gold Edition £56 at release. And it was an official Ubisoft seller, so not even a grey market key reseller.

Admittedly this was always the case for me. Back when I used to buy new AAA games with any regularity, you would buy them for £37.99, and usually trade them in for £22-25 quid. Net result was they were ~£20.

[Digfox]

Admittedly this was always the case for me. Back when I used to buy new AAA games with any regularity, you would buy them for £37.99, and usually trade them in for £22-25 quid. Net result was they were ~£20.

Definitely, I assume you're going back into the PS360Wii generation with that comment? But I think it's fare toi say they were cheaper. I remember buying new releases at sub-£40 with less DLC/MTX/Season Pass nonsense. I certainly purchased more games back then. Although I am guilty of mopping up more games in digital sales now.

[Asura]

Definitely, I assume you're going back into the PS360Wii generation with that comment? But I think it's fare toi say they were cheaper. I remember buying new releases at sub-£40 with less DLC/MTX/Season Pass nonsense. I certainly purchased more games back then. Although I am guilty of mopping up more games in digital sales now.

Yeah. I've yet to buy a full game on PS4 (I really just got it for PSVR and maybe the 2-3 stand-out games on the platform) and on PC, I tend to avoid stuff by EA, Ubi... I don't want to buy anything which involves looking at a flow-chart.

[Zen Monkey]

With regards to digital v physical, choosing digital hastens the march to the point where all production of physical games is dropped. In such a future you can buy games for your console from one place only, the official store, and they can charge whatever they like. It's an awful scenario.

[Neon Ignition]

I may have already listed it before but:

NSW in place of Switch or NS, awful shortening that just makes it look like I'm reading up on porn

The forever grating one though and even officially recognised is the appalling:

GCN

There is no point in the systems existence that it was called the Gamecube Nintendo. It's frustratingly wrong on every level and because it's a multi-syllable named system it doesn't need the companies name mixed in there at all. The Playstation is referred to by PS, not SPS. Dreamcast is DC, not SDC. Gamecube = GC

It's what Gemma Collins would want

[Dogg Thang]

GCN

Totally with you on this. It's like if someone put "CU" on every movie series or something.

[Neon Ignition]

And yet that still has slightly more basis for existing than the cursed GCN...