Hardcore Gamers Still Prefer Physical Media

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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A report from Wedbush Securities has found that the switch to digitally downloaded games isn’t as popular as predicted and acceptance is slow in coming. It looks like gamers are just not willing to give up their physical media anytime soon.

“It's true that the casual gamer might probably opt for the digital choice; it's generally faster and easier, and they don't care about having a game library, but the hardcore do”.
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Disagree entirely with this. I may not be a hardcore 24/7 WoW type hardcore gamer but I've bought every single BF/ME/CoD (except MW3 :rolleyes: ) that has come out. I love having my games on steam and can't wait until ODD's are a thing of a the past. If you need one, get an external and I'm sure you'll be able to use for many years to come...
 
After 15 years of gaming, I personally no long feel the need to own the physical medium. Downloaded Skyrim.
 
From the article:
Many investors believe that consumers are abandoning packaged products in favor of mobile and social games, and think that the publishers who have lost share will never recover. We think that this thesis is only partly true; in our view, casual gamers are likely to shift their playing time from packaged products to mobile and social games, but hard core gamers are far less likely to do so.
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Translated: hardcore gamers do not play Farmvile and Angry Birds. This says nothing about things like purchasing on Steam vs. retail. Very misleading article title.
 
The articles indicates the report only considers gamers as people who play games on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and DS.

Of those systems only a DS is in this house and I know you cannot download all the available titles for it, your only legal choice is physical for many games. I don't own those others systems but are all the titles available for download on those systems? I didn't think they were.

If battlefield 3 was available for download on Xbox 360 at release would there have been as many physical media sales?

All the PC titles I want are available for digital distribution. I love my steam library. I like PC games, and I guess according to their report I'm not a gamer.

Seems wrong to say people don't want something because they don't already buy what isn't available to them.
 
I wish news articles had edit buttons :p
In addition to the console comment, it makes even more sense when the games that are available in physical and digital media are often priced differently. I have rarely seen a good deal that was not matched or beaten by a retailer selling the physical copy. Why buy digital if it is going to cost me more?
As for PC games, 95% of my purchases are digital now. Only time I get physical copies is if I wanted a collectors edition.
 
I hate "Physical Media" i mouths more prefer Steam or so, tho i wish all publishers would unite, and have one store, ware you can have all your stuff from and not different ones all over.
 
I think it depends on your preferred platform. Consoles are primarily physical media. PC's i'd like to believe are primarily digital media by now. I used to love buying physical games. I liked the box-art and what not, but then I realized the ease of use of Steam in particular. No more hunting down your physical media... i mean the game is installed why should you NEED a disc to run it? I used to install NOCD cracks on all my purchased physical media games just to get around that, but then they no longer work if you patch or update them, then you have to find another one. Steam FTW.
 
I kinda prefer digital downloads now, with Steam anyways.

Thankfully I have a fast connection.
 
love steam and digital downloads. plus i dont have to keep an area for storing games...who knows how many physical games i've lost in my gaming career...
 
Why do I think this is one of those analyses that completely ignore steam entirely? Or just focused on Consoles? Misleading article is misleading.

Either way, utter bullshit. Steam holds my game library, not a dusty cabinet thank you very much
 
MajorDomo said:
A report from Wedbush Securities has found that the switch to digitally downloaded games isn’t as popular as predicted and acceptance is slow in coming. It looks like gamers are just not willing to give up their physical media anytime soon.
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It should be noted that ISPs with craptastic bandwidth rates and data caps discourage digital distribution.

I prefer physical media simply because my ISP is crap.
 
I suppose when I purchase an XBox, then I'll fit into that hardcore category within the scope of the article. I'm hardcore and hate physical media.
 
Well, I guess I'm just old school, but I still like having the physical copy for my collection if I can. Fact is though, I haven't bought a physical copy in a long time. Steam is just too easy and the prices are too good to pass up.
 
The article was 100% about consoles and handhelds. When taken in that light, I can see how the console gamers might be more inclined to want hard copies rather than digital in many cases.

If they were talking about the PC, I would disagree with them. Steam is printing money, and so is *rigin.
 
Of course people want a tangible physical testament to what they own, No media, no control. What needs to go next is this "must have internet connection to play" crap.
 
Crotan said:
Why do I think this is one of those analyses that completely ignore steam entirely? Or just focused on Consoles? Misleading article is misleading.

Either way, utter bullshit. Steam holds my game library, not a dusty cabinet thank you very much
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Well, you read the article and not just the headline. I think Al is trolling us on Easter :p

I own a PS3 for streaming from my server and Netflix/Amazon which is the complete opposite of what the console is used for by the "hardcore gamer" apparently. I used to love buying games in the box, pulling open the flaps, getting that distinct crack of plastic opening the jewel case and then popping the disc off the center retaining post for the first time. It was an awesome lead up to the loading and watching the progress bar of installation while dancing discs in and out of the optical drive. Getting to load the game for the first time and install the patches from the publisher's website you meticulously researched and downloaded. Or, if you were lucky the game had an in game patcher which you could just feast your eyes on another glorious progress bar of "Downloading" and transitioning to "Installing". OH! And when such an epic and grand game like Company of Heroes was done installing and patched after 7 hours and about 28 "Ok" and "Install" clicks I was ready to....go to sleep....

Thank god Steam is here! I loved you physical media but your time is over.
 
mwallek said:
Of course people want a tangible physical testament to what they own, No media, no control. What needs to go next is this "must have internet connection to play" crap.
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A physical testament to what they own? Some people aren't so concerned about a testament to their "ownership."

Long after men etch their names into history, those names vanish into dust. You live in the midst of an exceedingly large galaxy.
 
i still like physical media, its still tangible. say in ten years time i want to play it again i will be able to with the right hatrdware. could be a problem playing older downloaded games in the future if the company that published them no longer existed.
 
The other day I found a box with all my old console games in it. I can't tell you the last time I played any of them. Digital distribution makes sense because it cuts out a bunch of extra crap that none of will want and or need years down the road.
 
I am fine with downloads as long as the game can be resold or given/inherited to family or friend.
I doubt you can do that with Steam for individual games. I am not even sure you can change the whole account to a different name, email, and credit card information.

Anyway, this report considers console games only, that's probably why Steam is not mentioned.
And it has absolutely zero proof that "hard-core" gamers are sticking to boxes and casual gamers are moving to mobile and social games (they say that's what they "think".) They just base this assertion on sale figures, not a survey of gamers. For all we know, it could just be that there are less gamers on consoles and more mobile/social gamers, but I doubt it's the same population that is migrating from one platform to another.
 
Because digital downloads keep their price for way way longer. Even the divine "AAA titles $5 1 month after launch, yo" steam (which never actually happens) is higher in price compared to boxed copies soon after launch, and launches with price parity. I know that I can look around for $29.99 titles on steam and find the physical media for $15 buy it, add the key/copy to steam account and throw the box/disk away if I want. Digital downloads coming from one source like steamworks titles/publisher places don't really have competition so the companies don't really reduce prices for years and years after. Boxed copies have loads of stores selling loads of titles which they are trying to get rid of after the initial burst to free up warehouse space.
 
Metrocall said:
Disagree entirely with this. I may not be a hardcore 24/7 WoW type hardcore gamer but I've bought every single BF/ME/CoD (except MW3 :rolleyes: ) that has come out. I love having my games on steam and can't wait until ODD's are a thing of a the past. If you need one, get an external and I'm sure you'll be able to use for many years to come...
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Thats kind of strange. Why do you wish that ODD were gone? :p With internet speeds for 99% of the population still lower than DVD transfer rates...(unless you have 160mb/s+ internet...20 proper mb/s+ internet [screw megabits])
 
I have managed to throw all my hard copies away and replaced them for $5 on steam.

I can't stand having hard copies laying everywhere.
 
I think I still prefer physical media over digital only because I've got fond memories of unboxing from only a decade ago. I mean, it was common for most games, Tribes, Homeworld, and many other awesome games came with entire books and histories to substantiate the game with lore. Now, that kind of stuff is "collector's editions"... *sigh*
Plus there's that sort of nagging fear that if one of these digital download platforms go bust, what's going to happen to my games? I'd much prefer physical media for that reason.

Oh and didn't read the article, just going off the title....
 
I still prefer phsysical copies in most cases. Only reason I have a Steam account now is Skyrim forced it upon me.
 
uh I consider my self to be a "hard core" gamer lol, and the only time i really go after physical disk's it for collector's edition, for the extra goodies not the disk it self

i love steam, and steam sales lol
 
siliconnerd said:
Translated: hardcore gamers do not play Farmvile and Angry Birds. This says nothing about things like purchasing on Steam vs. retail. Very misleading article title.
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Right. The title is very misleading. The article also isn't about PC games, but about consoles vs. web-based games. And, "physical media" has nothing to do with it. It's about the size of the game, hardcore gamers want games that are bigger than Farmville. Duh.

The real hardcore gamers are PC gamers, and they hardly use physical media, any more.
 
zeroumus said:
whoever wrote this fails at understanding what hardcore means
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Bingo. I can't think of any PC gamers I know that still buy the physical media. Console gamers are casual gamers in my book.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Thats kind of strange. Why do you wish that ODD were gone? :p With internet speeds for 99% of the population still lower than DVD transfer rates...(unless you have 160mb/s+ internet...20 proper mb/s+ internet [screw megabits])
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Do you include shipping/driving to the store in that transfer rate? Scratches to the discs as well were never any fun.

Also I mean to say for laptops but without edit I just didn't bother.
 
I like the security of the physical media. The only download service I've used is Steam, and if that's the model, I could be okay with download only. IIRC, Steam allows you to back up your stuff and I like how re-establishing the service (after a Windows install) is simply a matter of accessing the Steam startup icon. I don't know about the others out there, but those two are key. If not, fuck the rest.
 
Download acceptance is slow and coming. I guess this person has never looked at STEAM sales or even talked to Gabe Newell.

Moron.

Also, I still prefer a physical copy if one is available. However, I find the availability STEAM provides me a good alternative. I'm not interested in limited installation numbers, and for the most part, STEAM delivers on that (not having install limitations).
 
I've been gaming since the Atari days. I had 2 different Atari consoles and moved on from there. Physical media can kiss my ass. Do you know the kind of shelf space I would need for my current Steam library? Only thing I get physical is the ocassional CE of a game.
 
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