It looks like a digital only future is on the horizon

Cakebatter

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Gamestop was actually good for the industry. Gamestop increased the cashflow of gamers, injecting more liquidity into the gaming market. For example, Lets assume a gamer has yearly game budget of $400. With games prices around $60, that gamer can buy around 6 games a year. When that 7th must-have title releases, dude only has $40 left, so he goes to Gamestop and trades in 3 older games for $25/each. That gives this gamer $75 + $40 ($115) he had left over, to buy 2 new games (1 full price and one slightly discounted). That's an additional $115 the game publishers and developers wouldn't see otherwise. In the current digital space, publishers are forced to discount games much sooner, and hope a gamer is still interested in a 6-9 month old title, despite new titles having come out in the mean time. If its a game like CyberPunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption, or Elden Ring, the discount attracts extra buyers. If the game is in the vein of Ghost Wire Tokyo, Death Loop, or Guardians of the Galaxy, they aren't going to really see a large bump in sales. After 2-3 months from release, the gaming community decided those games were meh to trash, so the best opportunity for a sale was during the release window. Gamestop provided a way for gamers to buy additional games during that crucial release window. This isn't to stan for Gamestop. They have crappy store policies and are awful to their employees. I'm just referring to their game trade-in service.

That all said, I don't get how gamers who haven't bought a CD, LP, or Blu-ray in the past year complain about the shrinking physical game availability. Gaming is obvious going the way of the music and movies. All the gamers I see complaining about Gamepass ironically subscribe to Netflix and Disney+.
 

WhenWeWereKings

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The majority of my content from last generation is digital only. Ghost of Tsushima, FF7 Remake, Last of Us Remastered and Last of Us 2 are the only physical copies I bought last generation. I own no physical content from this generation, so far.

Every digital copy I own, I bought on sale. Red Dead Redemption 2 Special Edition and Spider-Man Miles Morales Ultimate Edition are the only digital games that I spent more than $30.00 on.

True, you may get a used physical copy at a lower price sooner, but if you are patient, you can find great digital sales all the time. My backlog is so extensive I don't buy day one releases anymore so I can wait.
 

Bubba T

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Breh they stopped putting instruction booklets in games like 3 generations ago :mjlol:

Ngl Zelda was the first physical game I bought in years and I was like “why isn’t there an instruction manual or at least a pamphlet advertising something” :russ:
 

Bubba T

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2 reasons why I don’t like digital.

1. It takes too long to download games.

2. You can’t buy reduced price or used games anymore and now have to pay whatever it is online.

PlayStation store takes hella long to put games on sale and some games are old and still are actually full price when you can it way cheaper if you get the disc version.

Its kinda weird how some gamers are sensitive to pricing but want to lock themselves to a single storefronts pricing.
 

bigdaddy88

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i mean i u like to read about future trends u know this will happen. Eventually streaming/renting music , movies, etc will be the norm. :manny:
 

winb83

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I don't mind the digital future, but they really need to change the pricing structure of games. There's no way I am buying some of these games for $70. The only games I will buy at full price are games with longevity like Diablo, fighting , racing , and RPGs
They will. As time goes on the price will probably go up. Because they can get away with it.
 

winb83

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Now imagine if everything was locked behind a subscription :damn:
If everything was locked behind a subscription then I could drop in and out of subbing as I see fit and pay less overall while getting access to more. If I want 8 games I have to pay $560 or I could pay $10-20 one month and get the same level of access.
 

Gizmo_Duck

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If everything was locked behind a subscription then I could drop in and out of subbing as I see fit and pay less overall while getting access to more. If I want 8 games I have to pay $560 or I could pay $10-20 one month and get the same level of access.

Imagine thinking that would continue being an option, and at that price point ,if there were no other :pachaha:
 
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