Digital Games should cost less

[RockSauron]

Pretty simple. First off, they don't need to pay stores for being the middleman, they can just sell it themselves. Not to mention manufacturing.

Plus, if they really want to go into a digital future, they need to convince us. Lower prices would be better than whatever Microsoft was doing. If they really want us to embrace the digital age, they'd need to suck up and sell digital for less than retail. Not enough people will buy digital if its the same price as a game you can sell and trade afterward.

I can see why they want Digital- all the profit goes to them, and longterm profit for every copy ever sold- but they just need to make it worth our while. And this would be a good place to start.

 

[lindbergh]

The only thing about digital content is that you can't resell it to somebody else. But anyway, I haven't sold any of my games before. I just gave them to my cousin. Still, I'm more of the traditional type. That's why I prefer games that are stored in disks rather than just games that are purely downloadable.

 

[Gamer_Fries]

I am going to have to agree with you RockSauron.
While they should not cost too much less there should be a bit a reduction seeing as how there is no disc, case, or booklet. Which is one reason I love Steam, discount's pretty often and usually a couple months after a new release.
I think if they dropped it like $10 on a digital release it would make more people buy it, also the person would not be able to trade it later so the companies don't have to worry about someone else buying used.
Although I doubt that will be anytime soon, the CEO's still have to make their millions so $59.99 all across the board I guess.

 

[Esperahol]

... Hm you're right, but the reason you won't see this is the same reason they were pushing DRM so hard - it makes them more money to do so. At the end of the day it's just a business for these guys and they aren't going to disenfranchise themselves when they can just screw us over instead.

 

[RockSauron]

... Hm you're right, but the reason you won't see this is the same reason they were pushing DRM so hard - it makes them more money to do so. At the end of the day it's just a business for these guys and they aren't going to disenfranchise themselves when they can just screw us over instead.

But the simple fact of the matter is that selling digital copies for less will get them more money. Just look at steam.

If they really care about money, then they'll need to make a few sacrifices to make us WANT to give them more money.

 

[Medza]

The Steam model is what we need. Low prices increase the number of sales and therefore they still make as much money as they would before, but instead of 100 000 happy customers they might have 300 000 happy customers. There are some hidden factors though, for example if you have more people that own the game then you might need to hire more customer support staff. But all things considered, I still believe that the Steam model is the way to go because it really works out for everyone.

 

[Pickicool]

The games are cheaper, it's true. But the PS Store will always display the same price for not killing physical retailers.
I'd rather have a physical version when it comes to console. PC as on Steam, I prefer the digital versions for their price.

There are advantages and disadvantages in both cases. Personally, I believe that we can not kill the physical mode before a decade.
But it will come.

 

[Haze]

Although I also prefer physical copies, I agree with digital prices should be cheaper. I'm not saying it should be dramatically cheaper, but something like $10 off the physical copy price would be nice.

 

[Joker99352]

Yeah, they really should. It's the same reason that eBooks should cost less than physical books. I know a lot of effort goes into making games, but they're still going to make a killing off of the sales if they drop the price a little. Plus, digital games are always way overpriced unless they're on sale, and even then they're rarely cheaper than physical copies you can find online. Give us some incentive; otherwise, why bother?

 

[DrRipley]

I agree, they should be cheaper. I think PS+ is headed in the direction of Steam so that's probably good, if so, we can expect a lot of freebies and discounts year round. Hopefully this will serve as a better incentive and solution over piracy rather than just telling us that "piracy is wrong", and I'm sure doing this would bring more people into the online network which I bet Sony is aiming for.

 

[OniBlackMage]

I feel they would get people a lot more excited and on-board for digital releases if they did cut the price $5-10 for digital download (since $5-10 is what people save on used games usually and that's apparently a tipping point), and they can even bundle games for hot Steam-like sales. Everyone loves the Steam sales, and since there is no resale for digital copies, it seems a fair trade to offer them for less. Its something of a win-win that has been proven elsewhere at Steam and Good Old Games.

After all, they already give out free games to PSN+ members, so this can just piggy back off that. What PSN+ gets for free, you can buy for a severe discount for non-PSN+ members.