Why Are Digital Games always full price vs. The Discounted Physicals?

[Killigraphy]

Publishers playing nice and or making retail feel special, instead of undercutting them...hence keeping both prices high....so in short, greed.

Steam undercuts everyone because they get all ze monies, they're the ultimate middle man, it also helps that indie games are the most consistent, so Steam has no problem posting the very cheap prices indie developers put up.

This is also why website likes CDke*s has a field day selling digital copies for damn near a steal. They "buy from Russia", so they're making a profit regardless.

 

[winb83]

Greed

No because people are willing to pay that price for a game point blank. Why should they lower the price of digital when customers will gladly pay it?

 

[Deltron]

few instances were digi is cheaper is the Mega Man Legacy Collection for 3DS, and I believe Terraia

 

[Liquid]

I remember a few years back when all PC games were $10 cheaper because they were digital. That went away fast.

Digital games should be cheaper. There is no production needed (no case, no disc, no insert). Companies just charge you the same price as the physical version, because they can.

Digital is still cheaper in the long run, but at the start? Yeah its BS that games launch at msrp $60. Should be $50

 

[Cobratron]

I'd rather have the disc anyway. I'm not a hardcore gamer and will wait for a new copy on Amazon to be $30 or less. Digital prices are ridiculous unless a sale comes up.

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

So Sony & Microsoft keep the Digitals at full price to let the Brick & Mortars plus Amazon eat off of physical copies?

No it's not JUST that... it's an entire system that can't be easily changed


first off, digital media isn't doing as great as people on here think.. they JUST beat physical media in 2015 FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.. mind you that was just video games... NOT music, NOT movies... they try to throw streaming in (digital purchase plus free/paid streams) still doesn't beat physical media.. so hold on to that for a second


so knowing that these stores still hold 49-60% of the market share... plus are the ONLY place you'll actually get a system.. it's not in the best interests to shyt on your distributors.. you don't want to cook up 100 kis of coke, give half to a guy in america for 5 mil and then the other half to a guy in china for 15 mil.. china dude is gonna say fukk you and leave you with all that shyt and nowhere to sell... and american guy is gonna tell you there's no way he can sell that much




now sony, ms, nintendo, etc all TRIED to do this... this is what happened with that PC shyt that breh was speaking on. best buy, walmart, etc said cool... go ahead and lower online prices and we'll go ahead and not carry any of your shyt... video games, tvs, radios, movies, NOTHING.... cause not only do you have coke to sell... you also got molly, weed, herion, and meth



that's why ms took it all the way and said cool... DD only system... but now we are back to the 49-60% of sales that are physical... customers didn't want to hear that shyt either.. and ms isn't going to shyt on over half their customers.. especially when another product out there isn't doing it either.. that's why gamestop started pushing the ps4 and shytting on the xbox one immediately after e3






so the only chance we have of any price breaks, is ALL the companies coming together to say, this next gen will be DD across the board... ms, sony, nintendo... retailers will stick buck, but digital will have caught up more, they'll have no alternative system to push, and the gaming companies will have to grease the consumers by GUARANTEEING lower prices at the same time they announce it... not that "we'll see" shyt ms tried to pull

 

[Data-Hawk]

Part of it could be greed . But digital copies still have to be hosted on a server. So the company has to pay people to manage them .

 

[MegaManX]

Now with Amazon & Best Buy giving us 20% off on new games, why doesn't this carry over to the digital version?

Why aren't digital games cheaper to begin with? The cost associated with them is obviously less. At times I want to buy the digital version, but I can't justify the price difference. What's the science behind this?

let me introduce you to STEAM. Where almost everything is on sale all the time.

 

[daze23]

Part of it could be greed . But digital copies still have to be hosted on a server. So the company has to pay people to manage them .

still probably way less then putting the data on physical discs, and using boats, trucks, etc to distribute it

 

[Black Ball]

let me introduce you to STEAM. Where almost everything is on sale all the time.

Don't really matter if you only game on a console.

 

[Smokin Rider]

I buy everything digital now even though I was against it at first. The comfort of not having to get up to swap discs to play games is

And no I'm not a fat ass either, less than 10 percent body fat so I can afford to be lazy when I'm home

 

[Tenchi Ryu]

It sucks cause Digital is my preferred method with game-sharing. Mortal Kombat XL is already 45 bucks on amazon physical, but the digital still 60.

 

[FlyRy]

It's the same way with movies. Especially older catalog titles. The physical is always cheaper.

Only within the past few weeks have new digital titles been cheaper than the physical one. Hopefully it carries over to games

 

[Zero]

Picture me paying retail price when I can't even hold the bytch in my hand

 

[Liquid]

still probably way less then putting the data on physical discs, and using boats, trucks, etc to distribute it

Has to be. All of those processes require manual labor.

I can't complain though. My average pay price per game on steam is about $7 or so. I don't pay much...I am cheap as fukk because I end up not even playing most of the games I buy

I bought Mad Max on steam...not sure why. I got bored with it on the xbox one, but figured for a $12 bundle, why not?