Read an article yesterday that basically stated that gaming companies know that physical media is pretty much dieing. People are using their phones to play games as well as PC's to download games in a digital format. It also went in depth talking about cloud gaming and how some are going to try to capitalize on that trend. Most of the conversation stemmed from Nintendo talking about their new console they are planning to release. The final statement of the article was talking about how gaming companies make money on licensing and the selling of physical media.

So as the question asks do you think Physical Media is dieing or is dead for gaming? Also do you think we just need to move onto intangible digital gaming media removing the option for physical media?

No... People really only buy dd games if it is at significant discount.

Yes, good thing too, I hate physical media.

I've hated it ever since I broke my third Morrowind cd

It is, but it'll never die off completely. People still buy records.



Funny, I've got three copies of Morrowind, two of which I've had since 2006. They're still in perfect condition.

Physical game purchases are only dying as fast as broadband internet access expands. That's why we still have it, and that's also why game companies begin to adjust towards models that are more supported through digital content. I don't expect the disk package to die in the next ten years, but further than that I won't predict.

How do you break your games?

I've only damaged a ps2 game (I chipped my FFX disk on the old fat PS2 with the auto closing disc tray. It automatically closed and I wasn't quite done putting the disc in the tray) and it still played (still plays to this day in fact).

Other than that I've never damaged a game let alone completely break it. I mean you seriously have to be trying to break the disc for something like that to happen.

Kinda makes me wonder what you did to make it break :shifty:

Yes, definitely. I still buy 360 games in stores, because the 360 download service is really overpriced, but almost all of my PC games I download from Steam. The only physical PC games I've bought in years are collector's editions. I love being able to download an iPhone game and be playing it within seconds, rather than having to wait days for delivery. It feels like the future.

At least for PC gaming, Digital Media can be dead. Look 15 years ago stores like EB Games, the entire store was about 90% PC games and alot of it was big boxes. Now you are lucky to have a small shelf with PC games in small boxes or just DVD cases now. Everything else is console games.

So unless consoles start heavily marketing people to buy download games, I don't see it happening for consoles, so they will still need the DVD or what ever else it will be in the future. Maybe they will use a flash drive instead but it will still be a physical medium.

The way Microsoft Hard Drives are so freaking expensive I can't see myself downloading games for the xbox, but with the PS3, you can put in your own Hard Drive in, so it can be what ever size you want so maybe for Sony it will be worth downloading.

Nintendo, is just a freaking joke right now for downloading stuff. I don't want to hear how the Wii II or what ever it will be called will surpase the 360 or PS3, until it happens they are joke for downloading games. So at least for the next 10 years, I don't see disks going to disapear. I am shocked games were still being made for the PS2 until recently so the PS2 shows you how long a console can last for.

So I don't see the PS3 or the 360 disappearing just yet. Even if the next xbox and PS4 came out tomorrow, games will still be made for the 360 and PS3 for at least 2-3 years just like how games were still being made on the PS2 and PS3. Not everyone is going to buy a new console when a new version comes out, so disks will still be used.

I can't see Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony giving stores like EB the finger and saying we don't need you anymore to sell games.

I don't know about the general public, but I like having a hard copy of things. :shrug:

Some people like to leave discs out I guess or smear them with butter and crap based on rentals of dvds...

My niece did break a game by snapping it in half.. it was in the console at the time.

I prefer real disks but 90% of my games have been downloaded.

I say perhaps. we can see the trend moving to cloud networking and pushes for quantum computing, bandwidth is another thing thats getting ready to be upped again as well.. I myself do like to havy physical copies of music, games, movies and so on.... so maybe there will always be at least a niche market for it. If companies can go without physical goods to make their money, i'm sure they will though, as it lowers their botom line and could help them get a green rating.

Probably. What's interesting is how this combined with the development of cloud gaming might spell doom for the traditional console market in the long run.

No...

Trade in and second hand games are probably more of an industry than buying brand new games.

if all media was DL... I would still be paying ￡20 for 3 year old games *cough far cry 2*

A friend broke one (he still won't tell me how), one broke when I accidentally dropped the game box and the third one broke in my dvd drive. Don't ask me how. :shrug:

Digital media is growing, not only because more and more customers seem to want it, but because it gives the publisher of the game more money. For each sold digital copy they generally get about 70% of the price, while with physical media they only get about 40%.

On the negative side of things, digital media is more expensive for the customer. The comfort of being able to buy the media straight from the home apparently cost more than what it cost to print the manual, box and so on, and ship it. Not to mention there isn't really any competition between the online game stores while the physical stores keep having price wars against eachother. Just last week there was a Steam sale on Mass Effect 2, but it was still cheaper to just buy it from the normal price in the local game store.

I rather like digital media when it's free from DRM though, I bought Witcher 2 from GOG because of it. But I'm not fond of the concept of online activation at all, which Steamworks and others use.


I guess I have about 2000 discs (games, DVDs and CDs), and the only one that broken is the second disc for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Monkey_Island. But that's because it had a tiny crack in it from the very beginning, which over time gotten larger and larger while in the drive, and now the disc is unusable. I don't really care that much though, it lasted long enough for me to play thru the game and it's not a particulary good game

Over here games are usually about the same price on Steam and in stores, excluding sales, where Steam goes way into the lead.

That's odd, I've ordered games from UK several times because it's cheaper than here, even including the shipping.

That is odd since here in Iceland games are usually cheaper if you buy them through Steam or GoG.

I haven't bought a physical copy of a game in a couple of years because of that reason.

That is mainly because of the price wars UK retailers fight.

With proposed download capping... I can see hardcopy sales getting a second wind

No, and here's why:
more US-based ISPs are introducing download caps. If your game takes up a few gigs, and you have to dl that plus patches plus DLC (and, for some games, there are mods, too!)... yeah, not happening.

I think an advance in the physical media (storage size and cheaper costs) would make them more appealing again. In the future, I can see us using data crystals. Or I've been watching too much sci-fi.

EDIT: DvDs are cheap, but we're reaching a point where some games (LA Noire) need multiple DvDs. Blu-Ray hasn't exactly taken off like DvDs did, and the picture is getting murkier with MS's new disc format (dual layer? I dunno) for 360 games that they announced. Nothin' like that so far for PC games, but beefy graphics is going to increase the data space requirement for the physical media. Computer HD's have zoomed up into the TB range, time for some new portable media to come out that can store a few hundred Gigs with the ease of a thumb drive or whatever. A lot of talk of cutting-edge things like solid-state stuff, (for portable media, not HDs) but that's hardly going to trickle immediately down to the mass production/consumer level in the next 5 years.

I like to think no, it is not. I personally prefer owning the physical copy of something, then a download.

I think we can at least agree that disk-based media is dying.

it's annoyingly slow and fragile

At least where I am in Ontario the situation is the same 99.99% of the time. I think there was like one game I found offline that was cheaper even than the online deal price, but it was a pretty [censored] game either way. I just remember it because it beat the online prices.