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Spending on physical video game software in the US has been cut in more than half since 2021 and is now more than 85% below its 2008 peak. (bsky.app)
submitted 4 days ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[-] twinnie@feddit.uk 30 points 4 days ago

Everyone’s in here acting like this is happening because they’re getting rid of shops. The shops wouldn’t be going anywhere if people were using them.

People use digital media because it’s so much more convenient. I’ve moved house three times in the past four years and it was so much easier just having to move my console rather than lug a bunch of games with it. Plus I can buy them while I’m sitting on my arse and I don’t have to go to a shop or wait until the next day for a delivery.

People are using digital media because it’s convenient, not because the shops are closing.

[-] sheridan@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

I still buy physical copies for most PS4/5 and Switch titles because I'm worried about the possibility of losing access to digital copies in the future. I can also resell them, or loan them to friends. But I understand why most people have gone completely digital. I'm running out of shelf space.

[-] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I love both formats. But I'm a collector. Any big games or anything I'm buying at full price, I'm buying it physical. Baulder's Gate 3 kinda left my radar early because it was digital only (at release).

I also like the ability to loan out those types of games.

[-] ximtor@lemm.ee 1 points 4 days ago

This all day, i hate when something just is not available as a physical copy at all.

[-] iegod@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago

Spot on. I'm digital only.

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 3 points 4 days ago

Yeah, who the fuck wants to deal with discs and shit like that? I moved to all digital before you could legally do it for basically all my media. It takes physical space and why the hell would you put up with switching discs and stuff? Just make sure you have enough storage for your shit and done.

[-] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

I realized recently that the only dvd drive that I still own is in an old laptop that hasn't been used for years.

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 25 points 4 days ago

Turns out when you stop selling something and close the stores people could buy them in, they dont sell as much.

Manufactured decrease in demand.

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 21 points 4 days ago

Don't forget the rise of the 60+ GB "Day 0 Patch". You buy any physical game and you have to download the whole thing anyways when you get home.

[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago

This is mainly why I quit. And it especially used to piss me off cause it'll still demand you put in the disc to play even though the whole fucking thing installed and downloaded patches larger than the game. Might as well be all digital with oversize hard drives and be lazy with swapping games. I know still having to put a disc in for a fully installed game is a long time PC thing, but it really frustrated me.

I also went more Steam and cheaper sale games or key sites. Saw a game for like $3 on Steam and $30 on PSN too many times.

Aside from a few PS4/PS5 games I love or are rare, I'm only really physically keeping older stuff and have actually been playing a lot of older stuff.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 4 days ago

Should been made illegal to ship massively flawed games that needed 0 day patches, but our system is corrupt and businesses are allowed to run the world.

[-] tiramichu@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago

Exactly according to plan.

When someone buys a used physical game, publishers don't get any of that money, and the publishers want that money.

Digital-only is how they get it.

[-] slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Exactly, when people are given the choice, most of them prefer physical media

https://insider-gaming.com/disc-editions-make-up-82-of-all-ps5-console-sales/

[-] Ghyste@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 days ago

What do you expect when there's no physical media to buy anymore?

[-] banana_lama@lemm.ee 10 points 4 days ago

This is partially cause there's less physical media and if you don't buy it immediately on release it'll probably cost more

[-] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago

Physical software lmao

[-] Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Is a robot physical software?

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

No, that is generally what we refer to as hardware. Arguably the whole point of the term software is to refer to the bits that aren't physical in the overall system.

[-] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago

Lmao what is "physical software"?

[-] Boozilla@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago

People are struggling to pay rent and buy groceries. Entertainment will always be the first thing to cut.

[-] iegod@lemm.ee 5 points 4 days ago

This isn't all software, this is physical media. No surprises here.

[-] Boozilla@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

Right, and you can easily monitor sales and specials on Steam.

[-] slaacaa@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago
  1. Kill physical retail channels ☑️
  2. Sales through physical retail channels drop 🤯
[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 6 points 4 days ago

By design. Cut all the middle men (including thousands of jobs in logistics, distribution and sales) and absorb all of that trickled down wealth upwards in the form of bonuses to the gents who annihilated an entire industry, not by lack of demand, but because the incentive structure is completely opposite to the interests of society at large.

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

Indie developers couldn’t afford those systems to begin with, so there was nothing to cut. Then, some of their games got popular, and only a free of them still make boxed sets.

Don’t forget AAA is turning to so many F2P experiences.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 4 days ago

Well, yeah, but people say they won't pay 150 bucks for a game, so that stable 60 dollar price had to come from somewhere.

Honestly, it's a lot of whiplash to see people paint this as a big corporate conspiracy and then turn around to defend Valve who, let's not forget, invented the whole idea. It's not like chain gaming retailers were a particularly strong force for good, either, but they did pay wages to more people than Steam, I guess.

It'll be very interesting to see how much of this is people walking away from the Switch, coming back to the Switch 2 or just... you know, only ever playing Fortnite and Minecraft for their entire lives. The issues here are bigger and not a Sony conspiracy to steal trucker wages (although there's that, too).

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

Valve didn't invent the idea, piracy did. You could download full games years before any legal distribution channel allowed you to do so.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 4 days ago

You could download games from multiple publishers years before Valve did it, too. Doesn't mean Valve didn't come up with the first, largest digital distribution platform for games that was then the template for every first party (and most of the digital media distribution in other media industries).

Best I can do for you is let you have that and agree that piracy invented it and Valve monetized it, which is actually worse?

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

Certainly means that large companies didn't invent digital distribution as some form to eliminate physical distribution as an anti-consumer move. Consumers (via piracy) invented it for convenience.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 3 days ago

Well, I think there's a nuance between the notion of people hosting files and sharing them for piracy purposes, which is technically no different than hosting and distributing any other file, and a platform for digital distribution of media.

You could argue that peer-to-peer services with built-in search, like Kazaa or eMule came a lot closer and that's defensible, but the birth of modern platforms is less on the tech to host and share the files and more on the ability to do DRM and sell access tokens digitally. Modern digital distribution is less an iteration on piracy software and more a response to it to provide something that could compete on convenience while being monetized, having DRM and, yeah, cutting a lot of people out of the money loop.

And on all those counts... yeah, it was Steam. Valve did it first and did it effectively while music labels and movie studios were still hoping lawyers would fix things for them.

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

I am honestly surprised about this. I sort of assumed that whole sector had been at zero for at least a decade.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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