High street game shops coming to an end?

[bloodline]

As a developer I am very happy with the new download model. It basically cut piracy off in a single swoop, the downside is tht you sell your software for less, but you do make
More sales.

As a software user, I'm happy to not have to worry about losing my disks, or having a massive box to put somewhere... But I'm am at the mercy of the distribution platform... Steam and iTunes for me.

As a child I remember rushing to HMV to buy the latest Album by my favourite band and the whole ritual around experiencing new music, and as such I lament the loss of the "album", iTunes has killed the last vestige of music as an artform... It's nothing more than an entertainment commodity now.

I'm not sure how this new model will affect games, but be sure it have an effect :-/

[jj]

As a developer I am very happy with the new download model. It basically cut piracy off in a single swoop, the downside is tht you sell your software for less, but you do make
More sales.
 
As a software user, I'm happy to not have to worry about losing my disks, or having a massive box to put somewhere... But I'm am at the mercy of the distribution platform... Steam and iTunes for me.
 
As a child I remember rushing to HMV to buy the latest Album by my favourite band and the whole ritual around experiencing new music, and as such I lament the loss of the "album", iTunes has killed the last vestige of music as an artform... It's nothing more than an entertainment commodity now.
 
I'm not sure how this new model will affect games, but be sure it have an effect :-/

I know what you mean. I more or less buy all my music on iTunes these days, but I do still like to by the occasional album that I feel is specail to me on CD.
 
I even bought some newly released music on Vinyl the other day.  You really cant beat vinyl packaging it just feels so real.  Maybe it my age.

[jj]

What is all this crap where certain words automatically make links to other websites ?  How long we had this on amiga.org.  Dont like it

[Tripitaka]

I have a freind that is one of the store managers for game. It's a shame for him as he has a wife and kids to support and unemployment in the UK is showing no signs of falling.

I don't have a problem with the download model for games but it does p155 me off that I can't sell them on. Worse still however are the games that require an online check everytime you play them, fine unless your ISP is down for any reason.

As for cost, I own several games that I have retail packs for that I've paid significantly less than the download price for. Fear gold edition, Galactic civilizations 2, Defcom and Uplink all came from Amazon for about half the price of a download or less. Your also at the mercy of the company in question going tits-up of course. Having said that, it's pretty hard to scratch a download and make it unplayable.

All in all my Galactic Civ game has my favoured approach, retail pack plus download.

[Methuselas]

As a child I remember rushing to HMV to buy the latest Album by my favourite band and the whole ritual around experiencing new music, and as such I lament the loss of the "album", iTunes has killed the last vestige of music as an artform... It's nothing more than an entertainment commodity now.

This is why I haven't spent money to buy a new CD, since 2003. Sadly, it's only 'cos they keep jacking up the prices, due to "piracy". It's their price gouging that's piracy......

[Methuselas]

I even bought some newly released music on Vinyl the other day.  You really cant beat vinyl packaging it just feels so real.  Maybe it my age.

+1

[AmigaNG]

as some have pointed out, download content is far from perfect yet, the biggest problem for me is I live in a slight rural area so broadband speed if I'm lucky get just over a 1mb its really annoying as I can't really enjoy most online games, it just too slow, and to download just even the simple updates to games or the ps3 takes ages, reminds me of the old spectrum days, setting it up to load a game and then going for a bike ride or tidying up for half a hour and then finally I can play, this is what I sometime have to do with the ps3, not really progress is it.

Plus like people say the online prices are sometimes more than physical copies and there is going to be less competition if we just have one central store for each platform wich is what seems to be happening at least in the pc market their is a little bit of competition.

so I do feel physical media is still needed.

[motrucker]

As a software user, I'm happy to not have to worry about losing my disks, or having a massive box to put somewhere... But I'm am at the mercy of the distribution platform... Steam and iTunes for me.
-/

I agree with you. Steam is great, if will only stay this way. Music isn't as easy for me. I also use Goodwill (don't laugh, it's a good source here), ebay, etc.. I am glad I never pitched my old AR turntable .

[runequester]

The only commercial games I play nowadays are small indie games. I'd rather pay 5 bucks to a developer who actually get's my money than 40 bucks to some corporate behemoth.

[spirantho]

There's no substitute for getting a nicely packaged thingy when you buy whatever it is. Downloads just don't cut it for me.

But then, what can I say - I've not bought a CD for years. Bought tons of vinyl records, but no CDs. I think that says something about me (and many others here, it seems) - the packaging and the medium are part of the experience; they give a good album soul somehow, in a way a file downloaded onto your hard disk can't - just like a downloaded game is never as satisfying as, say, a shelf full of those lovely black psygnosis boxes you got in the 90's. Was I the only one who just couldn't get enough of Psygnosis packaging? Equally playing an ADF will never be as satisying as popping a disk in the disk drive.

Maybe I'm just old.

[jorkany]

What is all this crap where certain words automatically make links to other websites ?  How long we had this on amiga.org.  Dont like it

Check your browser, sounds like you may have some kind of "adsense" addon installed.

[TheBilgeRat]

Could be the old thing.  I buy Vinyl for things that I know will be mastered well, but I download other things that are wall of sound or with low dynamic difference.  As for video games, I am a steam/humble bundle user pretty much exclusively.  I do miss cartridges tho!

[Tripitaka]

The only commercial games I play nowadays are small indie games. I'd rather pay 5 bucks to a developer who actually get's my money than 40 bucks to some corporate behemoth.

+1

I'm looking forward to the PC version of The Wasted Lands from Red Wasp Design and Prison Architect from Introversion. Bethesda on the other hand can stick it up their skyrims.

[jj]

Could be the old thing.  I buy Vinyl for things that I know will be mastered well, but I download other things that are wall of sound or with low dynamic difference.  As for video games, I am a steam/humble bundle user pretty much exclusively.  I do miss cartridges tho!

Know what you mean. Made me laugh when they were selling the remastered pink floyd box set on iTunes. How that work

[TheBilgeRat]

Know what you mean. Made me laugh when they were selling the remastered pink floyd box set on iTunes. How that work

Well, because 48Kbit AAC is just as good as CD redbook donthca know !!!  :roflmao:

[chris]

Correct. From the developers perspective there's no difference whether you buy it used or pirate it.

I read a good article about this.  The argument for "pre-owned" is that the people trading their games in, then spend the money they've gained on buying more games (which they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford).  So, indirectly, developers do lose out if there is no 2nd hand market.