The cost of 'digital copy' games!

chubsta

I love new technology when it makes my life easier, and being a little lazy after a hard days work i like nothing more than to curl up in front of my TV and watch a movie from my home system - just fire up the Apple TV, scroll through a list of movies and choose what i want without ever having to get up. Remember the bad old days of sorting through a hundred different videos and having to physically go put it in the players etc? Not hard work, but still work...

So, having just bought a Playstation 4 i thought i would much rather buy a digital copy of a game than have to have boxes and discs lying around, and then i saw the prices :eek:

I was interested in Star Wars Battlefront, a game that could be bought yesterday for around £35, but if i want a digital copy from the Playstation Store it would cost £54.99!

How the hell can they justify such prices, all it is costing them is some bandwidth at the server and that is it, there are no production costs, staff costs, transport costs, wholesaler, retail etc, so why is it so much? Does anyone know how the companies justify this - it is not just Sony of course, you see the same with movies, books, anything that can be digital usually costs the same as the physical item despite having a fraction of the costs involved.

SpammyTheSpammer

"... and being a little lazy after a hard days work..."

chubsta

SpammyTheSpammer wrote: »

"... and being a little lazy after a hard days work..."

well, after 12 hours on my feet outside throughout the night in the middle of winter i do kind of like to get off my feet for a while and just sit on the sofa, having to get up to change a game is just a tiny bit of hassle that i could otherwise do without to be honest.

ultimatefighter

It's because you have Amazon prices which are discounted based on a huge bulk purchase and the main site is wanting to charge full RRP. Laziness to go to the store or to NOT go to Amazon is being punished.

boo_star

ultimatefighter wrote: »

It's because you have Amazon prices which are discounted based on a huge bulk purchase and the main site is wanting to charge full RRP. Laziness to go to the store or to NOT go to Amazon is being punished.

I think they also want to avoid annoying retailers by offering competitive prices. If prices were similar I expect a lot more people would go digital instead of bothering with discs. The PSP Go was boycotted by some retailers for being digital only as they didn't want to dedicate shelf space to the device if they were only getting money from hardware sales.

I remember years ago when consoles were still using cartridges and moving to CD was the next big thing. They were just as expensive as cartridges which was explained away by saying that the cost of pressing discs at the time was still expensive (it wasn't really) but as it became commonplace, prices would drop. They never did of course.

It's even more amusing for us PC gamers though, many physical copies only come with part of the game, the rest downloaded from Steam. The latest Metal Gear Solid game had a physical disc which had a copy of the Steam installer, nothing else!

Laura_Scotland

I've noticed that with the Nintendo 3DS store too, they often have a notification about there being 30% off a certain game etc, but they're still more expensive than buying a physical copy!

bluenoseam

PSN & Xbox Live are closed networks so have no direct competitors & thus can charge whatever they want. As a result you'll find that the prices on them (when not in sale events) are RRP - the price the publisher wishes you to pay. Physical retail may have it's detractors but when it boils down to it they don't want any part of forcing their customers into paying the prices publishers want.

Other thing is if you get a turkey of a game there's sweet FA you can do about it, where as if I buy a disc then if it's a stinker I can at least trade it back in & recoup something.

Lumstorm

You really need to shop around for game prices there are sometimes bargains on the PSN but for newer titles they tend to be cheaper for the physical discs on-line.

Nilrem

One of the reasons the likes of the official distributors don't do prices as low as retailers is fairly simple.

The retailers don't like the manufacturer selling the products cheaper than they can and still be able to make a profit, and the manufacturer/distributor needs the retailers to keep stocking their products.

As is always the case, shop around and don't buy from first place you look.

boo_star

Nilrem wrote: »

One of the reasons the likes of the official distributors don't do prices as low as retailers is fairly simple.

The retailers don't like the manufacturer selling the products cheaper than they can and still be able to make a profit, and the manufacturer/distributor needs the retailers to keep stocking their products.

As is always the case, shop around and don't buy from first place you look.

I mentioned that in my previous post.

Frankly, once average (worldwide) internet speeds increase and data allowances become more generous (or realistic) I expect Sony and Microsoft will go online only.

Lumstorm

boo_star wrote: »

I mentioned that in my previous post.

Frankly, once average (worldwide) internet speeds increase and data allowances become more generous (or realistic) I expect Sony and Microsoft will go online only.

That would be the end of gaming for me it would mean sky high prices since there would be no competition and regional lock-outs and give the companies the ability to remove games from sale to stop the sale of older titles.