90% of Game Purchases Were Physical in Q3

If physical cost was even close (say within $5-10) of steam costs, I'd buy physical, but the costs here in AU are pure rape for physical games, starting at $89 and upto $119. Publishers tack on a +%50-100 margin for us having better beaches.
 
All PC = digital for me. Havent bought a boxed PC game in probably 2 years at least.
Consoles i buy all the PSn, but all my games are physical for the most part.
 
I haven't seen anyone mention this but that 90% figure includes console software as well. Seeing how you can only get about 99% of the games at retail right now the figure isn't surprising at all.
 
100% of my PC purchases have been digital, almost all Steam and two on GOG. I also have my Blizzard games registered on Battle.net and I'm crossing fingers that Starcraft II and DIablo III will be available via download.

I download quite a bit on XBLA, PSN, and Wii VC, but for normal console games they're obviously physical. If I could buy digital copies of those then I would do it with them as well. Unless I'm renting, physical media is completely unnecessary when it comes to games.

The only reason I keep physical copies with movies is because Blu Ray looks so significantly better than HD downloads and streams, otherwise I'd do that with all of my movies as well. Unlike movies, with games you lose absolutely zero fidelity by downloading, With very few exceptions (Uncharted 2 taking up more space than normal because its on Blu Ray, and I'm sure with compression it would be smaller) they're very manageable at 2GB-10GB in size.
 
I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy...Steam owns me.

Even if Steam were to go poof 2 years from now and none of the games I've purchased were unlocked, I probably wouldn't really give a crap except for the more recent game purchases. I play the game, get tired of it and move on to the next. I have a three binders full of PC games, from Warcraft and Rise of the Triad all the way up to I think Battlefield 2..and I honestly could throw it out tomorrow and not miss anything.
 
oscrogo said:
I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy...Steam owns me.

Even if Steam were to go poof 2 years from now and none of the games I've purchased were unlocked, I probably wouldn't really give a crap except for the more recent game purchases. I play the game, get tired of it and move on to the next. I have a three binders full of PC games, from Warcraft and Rise of the Triad all the way up to I think Battlefield 2..and I honestly could throw it out tomorrow and not miss anything.
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Discs and boxes are all garbage IMHO. Some people like collecting that kind of stuff but that sort of thing has no sentimental value for me.
 
The console accounts for so much more of the market than PC gaming.
 
Never ever bought a digital copy, 100% physical. Old school over here (damn I miss the BIG boxes with at least 100 page manuals). :D
 
Physical Packaging is useless.

A wasted resources used to transport plastic discs around the world with bits of information where once installed it sits on my shelf for two years collecting dust till the inevitable day I move and throw it out. I would need an extra room to store all the cases holding all the media and games my hard drive has collected. 100% Digital.
 
Kenworth said:
Exactly my thoughts and I don't know who would report digital distribution other than the EA store maybe?



How can you buy a physical copy of a mobile/smartphone application?! Am I missing something here? These numbers seem all over the place.
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The tracking firm said that physical console game purchases -- both new and used -- accounted for 90 percent of all paid video game buys during calendar Q3, 2009 in the U.S.
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you are missing....Console games only. No PC, no smartphones, no app for that.
 
oscrogo said:
Even if Steam were to go poof 2 years from now and none of the games I've purchased were unlocked, I probably wouldn't really give a crap except for the more recent game purchases. I play the game, get tired of it and move on to the next. I have a three binders full of PC games, from Warcraft and Rise of the Triad all the way up to I think Battlefield 2..and I honestly could throw it out tomorrow and not miss anything.
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I call BS.

You can prove me wrong by sending those games to my home address. ;)
 
I still buy physical media for everything I can. Much easier to do reinstalls and keeps me from worrying so much about the day when my ISP starts billing based on how much I download, which is most certainly coming at some point.

Same goes for music for me as well.
 
i like having a hard copy... not letting steam have the power to pull games from my account and such.. but i do own alot of games on steam... its some times the only way to go for all the old Sierra games
 
Limahl said:
I still buy physical media for everything I can. Much easier to do reinstalls and keeps me from worrying so much about the day when my ISP starts billing based on how much I download, which is most certainly coming at some point.
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Restoring your Steam folder for a game without having to worry about losing the license key is easier than some of the install executables though, too...

Auto-patch of Steam is quite nice...
 
All my games were digital... Steam & Fileplanet & Direct2Drive..

I hate buying games from stores...
 
Limahl said:
I still buy physical media for everything I can. Much easier to do reinstalls and keeps me from worrying so much about the day when my ISP starts billing based on how much I download, which is most certainly coming at some point.
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Reinstalls with Steam is much much faster and easier, just copy your entire steamapps folder to another HD and you're done. No CD keys to keep track of, no discs, no patching, nothing, its all automatic and taken for you. Much much faster than reinstalling dozens and dozens of games from DVD. I have about 150 games in my Steam account, and the fact that I never have to reinstall from disc or manage any patches myself is a godsend. Its honestly the main thing that has kept PC gaming as convenient as consoles.

Same goes for music for me as well.
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Physical discs for music and especially movies offer higher fidelity than their downloaded counterparts, so it makes more sense to have hard copies of them. Its debatable with music based on the quality of most audio systems, while its extremely obvious with movies when comparing Blu Ray against HD downloads. Downloaded games have no loss in fidelity, so a hard copy of a game has no advantage like with music or movies.

darkjedi said:
All my games were digital... Steam & Fileplanet & Direct2Drive..

I hate buying games from stores...
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Same here, Steam, Battle.net, and GOG all the way for me. The moment I can buy all of my new console games via download I'll do the same with them as well.
 
100% digital for over four years myself... last retail game I bought was AOE3 and I got it used off the forums.
 
I got the first 3 Fallout games off of steam and I spent probably a total of 4-5 hours trying to get them to run on my win7 x64 box. After all the crap steam/interplay put me through, steam still wouldn't offer me a refund for my purchase so that I could go get a physical copy *so I can use the user-made mods to make them work, since you cant with steam?*. They had the audacity to send me sarcastic messages about it. I'm pissed.
 
I like it when publishers go the extra length and include extras like maps, printed manual, tables of cars/weapons/classes etc. (depending on game genre), posters... If you just get a shrink wrapped DVD, you might as well download it.
 
This is really surprising to me. As everyone mentions.. Steam!

However I am old school, I like to own my games physically. I want to have the box, the actual nicely printed CDs/DVDs, the booklet, manual ie. I will keep shopping like this, as long as its possible. There is a somewhat irrational relationship with feeling ownership for something virtual for me still.
 
TheBuzzer said:
I wish when you buy stuff from steam you can get the boxes too or a virtual box gallery.
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Yea an additional charge at least for the box at cheap price would be nice, sorta like the options companies give you online with digital downloads.
 
PC 100% steam.

Xbox obviously all full games on disk, but I own as many xbox live games as full ones and they are all digital.
 
I will always buy physical. Steam servers are too slow for me to wait to install a game. And, having the box and DVD's are always nice :)
 
Was about 90% Steam this year. I bought a physical copy of Wolfenstein for some reason I cant remember, maybe it wasnt available on Steam right away. I definitely prefer digital now, even for brand-new games the preloading is great.
 
all steam games for me. I bought a digital copy of a game from someone besides steam once, will never do it again. Steam ahs the right model and Idon't have to deal with going to gamestop or BB. I did get some physical copies for christmas but those were gifts.
 
In the last two years I've bought games through digital distribution only. They have the manuals as PDFs and I don't mind not having boxes and such. Took me a while to get over it, but it's much more convenient. I don't have to keep up with discs and serial keys.

"Meanwhile, 79 percent of games for portables, PC/Mac, mobile, and smartphones were bought in physical form."

I believe the console bit, but that quote sounds like a load of horse shit. Nearly all smartphone products must be downloaded from online stores. I believe most PC gamers are downloading games now. The WalMart PC game section is much smaller than it used to be (and just not because of the changed box sizes).
 
Another steam lover. Love the easy backups, lack of CD-Keys, and built in community functions.

I just wish the DD vs Hard Copy savings were passed on to us, or at least to the developers in higher profits, but everything I've states the contrary.
 
I figure I would chime in here. I really haven't purchased that much in the last two years but what I have purchased has been 100% digital via steam. I use to be a disk person but for some reason I would end up losing the CD Key or something along those lines so now I am a firm believer in steam, I love it!
 
id say about half and half for me, i did spend a fortune on ps3 games.... but i also spent a fortune on steam last year too.
 
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