Future of Games

[FlameChrome]

As we see now, digital has quickly risen to the number 1 way to buy games, unless you wanna buy used or really want a physical copy.
Do you think physical will eventually die out completely? Or is it here to stay forever?
Anyother predictions yall got for the future of gaming? be interesting to hear

 

[machomuu]

I mean, it's kind of hard to say on whether physical would die out but personally speaking I don't see it as much of a loss.

I think with the existence of things like Limited Run etc. they've already become more of a novelty and/or collector's item than something with actual function- the actual function being putting a game into a console and playing it and also not being at the mercy of that digital copy being taken away from you. Though I'd imagine in the vast majority of people's cases, if buying a physical copy meant you were given a digital copy as well they probably wouldn't do that anyway until they're forced to.

Aaaand I'm fine with that. I mean, I like looking over at my shelf and seeing games games games, it feels good, but with the death of game manuals I find it a lot less satisfying than I used to. Not having to deal with places like gamestop or buying games from general stores is nice too. And more importantly, indie games are the future. That's what I honestly want to focus on. Because there's very much two camps when it comes to making a game: video games as a product and video games as an art. These two things can overlap, of course, but an independent developer is a lot more likely to create a game that embodies the latter. It's not because they're more creative or anything like that, it's just because they're basically selling themselves when they create a game. They often don't have huge teams or an incredibly high budget or a lot of time, and they don't have a publisher, so they can only ever rely on an idea and how that idea is presented.

I'm spiraling here but the reason that I make this point is because physical releases for independent games is a luxury, but at the same time there are more and more titles being developed every day and it's only becoming easier to make them. AAA games on the other hand only become more expensive and time consuming to make all because of a standard that doesn't well and truly exist but everyone wants to appeal to. And I guess I'm just hoping one day, as a result of this inevitable high ceiling that's being set up, the industry comes down and invests in the quality of the experience over the quantity of money seeped into each game.

 

[Devalue]

Expects physical to hang around. Found a Twitter thread talking about Animal Crossing's sales (on May 7, 2020). Claims 50% of those sales were digital. Sees room for physical and digital, provided that was truthful and indicitive of the larger market.

Predicts more games to cater towards nonplaying audiences. Refers to things like Jackbox games, Party Mode in Ultimate Chicken Horse, and Crowd Control modes in some romhacks. Allows people not playing the game directly to influence it. May not necessarily be a major feature. Imagines that being attractive to people capable of reaching large audiences. Engages the audience more. Advertises your game better than a commercial.

 

[Hermione Granger]

I ended up getting a digital copy of Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition when I purchased the physical version after I inserted the code that was included in the case, guess you could have said I was lucky.

 

[Quto]

..... I have a whole spiel about it; but to be frank and save some folks the trouble, I'll put my rantings into a spoiler and give you a whole 'Didn't Read, Long Post' answer.

Physical will get phased out permanently, when? That's rough to say and there will be heavy draw back's to it.

My Spiel below, you we're warned.

Spoiler:

As convenient as it is, I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the idea of digital.

Though my reasons differ; don't let this discourage you.

One of the biggest problems I have with digital or DRM is you technically don't own any of it... To an extent. What I mean is you don't have much of a say in what you do with game anymore than what the developer wants and what the storefront want's. A prime example, you get a game from Steam for a few buck's. So it's in your library; you then have a friend who loves that same game, but due to a cruel twist of fates, he can't really afford anything else than what folks can get for him. You want to give him a copy of this game, but it's at the full price of... Let's say about $70 for shits and giggles. You can't really do much about that, so you have the idea of putting the game on a flash drive and passing it to him. He tries to run the game on his game PC his friends bought for him with part's the generation before, but it still works and he discovers he can't play it without steam installed. He installs Steam and still can't play the game because he doesn't own it over Steam.

This is technically a form of piracy, though where the lines are drawn just to help out a friend, the digital age kinda looks roughly bleak. I know Steam has the entire borrowed Library thing, though the idea is you can't really share your games or borrow another player's game since how these stores setup their methods to protect their titles.

Moving on to what you own, digital is technically far more fragile than a physical copy. If the distributor goes out of business and the server's die out, you have no real method of retrieving the title you invested money into. This kinda happened to me growing up when Indie Royale was a thing. I had about $150, give or take, invested in bundles they had in seperate accounts with the receipts to prove it along with sound tracks from up and coming indie game developers, bands, the whole thing and a slew of game's. Most of which I activated in Steam with a handful of exceptions being that Steam did not carry those games.

When Indie Royale shut down and was bought out the same time as Desura, an Indie Game store front like steam, but dedicated to Indie games alone; all of that went out the window along with promises of re-opening it all under One Play along with the library of game's you already bought from Royale. The Oneplay site died out and got replaced with a gaming streaming service, so I can't go to a lawyer or anyone for a refund to get my digitally purchased property back and since Indie Royale was based in Austrailia, that in itself is a whole bag of issues.

Nintendo, Microsoft, and the other big giants will be around to honor libraries of what you purchase, it's everyone else that becomes a much large problem in the long run if they can't sustain themselves.

My last thoughts are if a game is pulled from a store front, you don't have the ability to access it or buy it at that version to play through as most folks want the newer thing. For speed runners and other gamers, some older builds have some play value to them.Which is a big loss for most folks who deep dive data looking for advantage's.

-The last bit about buying physical for me is I get to enter society a bit, chat with friends, talk to people in the game store and after I killed my social anxiety with enough beer, comedy, candy and/or sheer will power, I try to make friends and connections with other gamer's. It's mostly that last bit we lose as there's a big difference in how we act from being online to being in life and if I want to meet a miss right or proper woman willing to pick up a game controller and be my wife or something else from it someday, it's something I gotta do... especially when every dating site wants large premiums up front in cold, hard, cash to hook-up or talk to anyone.... and while the gaming store is not IDEAL, it's a start to push me into the world.

I have a steam account for newer PC game and I got a GOG account or Good Old Games for most of my digital Library and I try to get my game through GOG first before I go to Steam. Aside from how much I hate digital, Gog has a setup where you can download the game's into installer files as back-ups and do what you want with them without the use of their client. I use this already to pass out old classics to friends who need a game as they have no money in life to live on; mostly dumping everything they have to help feed their new-born. Ontop of that, I have a collection of USB's iin 32GB format with each game I buy off of Gog backed up on them in case Gog goes belly up, I have my library handy and ready. Even the games Gog publishes on their store front are mostly tuned up to work on newer machines, so even older titles can work well on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer.