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I am shockingly out of touch (Gaming)

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, April 22, 2017, 22:27 (2781 days ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Saturday, April 22, 2017, 22:31

The NPD group now more accurately tracks digital sales of video games. How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

In 2017 so far just 26%. This is down from 69% in 2010.

To me this is pretty incredible. Digital distribution is much more prevalent than I could have ever imagined. I'm the 26%. I still generally refuse to buy digital on a console, because an all digital console is a much higher risk than on the PC for locking you out of your games.

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I am shockingly out of touch

by cheapLEY @, Saturday, April 22, 2017, 22:44 (2781 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I'd have to look again, but that's a skewed number. If I'm remembering correctly, I think it was 26% of all revenue generated was from physical discs. That's including any DLC, microtransactions, in-app purchases from mobile games, etc. Nond of those can be bought on disc, so it's not an accurate statistic for judging physical vs digital game sales.

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I am shockingly out of touch

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, April 22, 2017, 23:22 (2781 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I'd have to look again, but that's a skewed number. If I'm remembering correctly, I think it was 26% of all revenue generated was from physical discs. That's including any DLC, microtransactions, in-app purchases from mobile games, etc. Nond of those can be bought on disc, so it's not an accurate statistic for judging physical vs digital game sales.

That still means that three quarters of the money spent on games is for bits delivered over the internet. In fact rereading my post, I got it right. How did I mislead?

How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

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I am shockingly out of touch

by cheapLEY @, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 14:10 (2780 days ago) @ Cody Miller

That still means that three quarters of the money spent on games is for bits delivered over the internet. In fact rereading my post, I got it right. How did I mislead?

I didn't mean to imply that you were misleading, but that the statistic itself is at least a little misleading. It doesn't tell us anything about digital game sales versus physical game sales. It's merely a report on total revenue generated from video games, including all DLC and in-app purchases. That 26% figure doesn't seem outrageous to me when you think about all the money that Clash of Clans on stupid phone games bring in, Overwatch loot boxes, all DLC for every game, etc.

That's actually what the news is. It's not that 26% is a crazy figure, it's that before that (last year it was 44%) they just straight up didn't take into account a lot of DLC and in-app purchases. The market hasn't changed that drastically from last year, they're just now reporting more accurate figures.

EDIT: Actually, your first post is a little misleading. You make no mention of what's actually going (more accurate tracking of DLC and in-app purchases), and instead say that they more accurately track digital sales of video games. While that is probably also true, that's a small part of the overall picture here.

You could always move into 10 Cloverfield Lane.

by DEEP_NNN, Saturday, April 22, 2017, 23:14 (2781 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If digital content ever became unavailable, it would be the only safe place to be.

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I am shockingly out of touch

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 00:27 (2781 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The NPD group now more accurately tracks digital sales of video games. How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

In 2017 so far just 26%. This is down from 69% in 2010.

To me this is pretty incredible. Digital distribution is much more prevalent than I could have ever imagined. I'm the 26%. I still generally refuse to buy digital on a console, because an all digital console is a much higher risk than on the PC for locking you out of your games.

Since I bought an Xbox One I have bought one, exactly one, game on disc.

Master Chief Collection.

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I am shockingly out of touch

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 00:51 (2781 days ago) @ narcogen

The NPD group now more accurately tracks digital sales of video games. How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

In 2017 so far just 26%. This is down from 69% in 2010.

To me this is pretty incredible. Digital distribution is much more prevalent than I could have ever imagined. I'm the 26%. I still generally refuse to buy digital on a console, because an all digital console is a much higher risk than on the PC for locking you out of your games.


Since I bought an Xbox One I have bought one, exactly one, game on disc.

Master Chief Collection.

Was that because you can conveniently return or sell physical copies?

:-p

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I am shockingly out of touch

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 02:23 (2781 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The NPD group now more accurately tracks digital sales of video games. How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

In 2017 so far just 26%. This is down from 69% in 2010.

To me this is pretty incredible. Digital distribution is much more prevalent than I could have ever imagined. I'm the 26%. I still generally refuse to buy digital on a console, because an all digital console is a much higher risk than on the PC for locking you out of your games.


Since I bought an Xbox One I have bought one, exactly one, game on disc.

Master Chief Collection.


Was that because you can conveniently return or sell physical copies?

:-p

No, but it might as well have given how often I've played it.

I really wish the implementation of that project had been better across the board, but I also don't think I'd have wanted to give up the possibility of playing the core Halo games on the newest console.

At some point, I won't have a working 360 and it'll be my only way of ever playing the games again.

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Have you played Reach lately?

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 12:20 (2780 days ago) @ narcogen

They patched the BC version. It now plays smoother on the One than it ever has.

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I should check that out. Thanks for the tip!

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 12:28 (2780 days ago) @ Kermit

- No text -

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Have you played Reach lately?

by cheapLEY @, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 14:03 (2780 days ago) @ Kermit

They patched the BC version. It now plays smoother on the One than it ever has.

How many times have they patched it? I was super disappointed by Reach's backwards compatibility, and even after the first big patch that claimed to fix framerate issues, it still ran like garbage. So unless they've patched it since then (which they might have, I genuinely don't know), I'm dubious about that claim.

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Have you played Reach lately?

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 15:45 (2780 days ago) @ cheapLEY

They patched the BC version. It now plays smoother on the One than it ever has.


How many times have they patched it? I was super disappointed by Reach's backwards compatibility, and even after the first big patch that claimed to fix framerate issues, it still ran like garbage. So unless they've patched it since then (which they might have, I genuinely don't know), I'm dubious about that claim.

I don't know, but I came across this video, and I've been playing it a little this weekend. Smooth as butter for me on the Xbox One S.

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So, it plays better than even on the 360 now? Cool!

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 15:57 (2780 days ago) @ Kermit
edited by Ragashingo, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 16:00

Yeah. It felt dramatically better to me as well. Nice to see the numbers prove it.

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Have you played Reach lately?

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Monday, April 24, 2017, 01:29 (2780 days ago) @ Kermit

They patched the BC version. It now plays smoother on the One than it ever has.

Nope. It would almost certainly be last on my list of Halo games to replay.

Not because it was the worst, really, it just doesn't really offer me much that I'm interested in. I don't have any nostalgia for it or any of the content in it. From the same era I'd replay almost any part of ODST first, and after that, Halo 3, Halo 1, and Halo 2.

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Have you played Reach lately?

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, April 24, 2017, 02:49 (2779 days ago) @ narcogen

They patched the BC version. It now plays smoother on the One than it ever has.


Nope. It would almost certainly be last on my list of Halo games to replay.

Not because it was the worst, really, it just doesn't really offer me much that I'm interested in. I don't have any nostalgia for it or any of the content in it. From the same era I'd replay almost any part of ODST first, and after that, Halo 3, Halo 1, and Halo 2.

Well, I couldn't feel more differently. For me it was a best of Halo collection in one game--the culmination of everything Bungie learned making those games. The story is often criticized, but I love its elegiac tone. I played through three and a half missions this weekend, and it confirmed my opinion that it's fantastic.

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I haven't bought a disc in years

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 04:16 (2780 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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I am shockingly out of touch

by Kahzgul, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 05:57 (2780 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The NPD group now more accurately tracks digital sales of video games. How much do they say now is spent on physical discs?

In 2017 so far just 26%. This is down from 69% in 2010.

To me this is pretty incredible. Digital distribution is much more prevalent than I could have ever imagined. I'm the 26%. I still generally refuse to buy digital on a console, because an all digital console is a much higher risk than on the PC for locking you out of your games.

The big pro of a disc is that you can resell it. The big pro of digital is that you don't need a disc, nor do you need to go to a store to buy a disc. That latter bit is pretty compelling. Also, some (not all) digital content providers keep an account history, so you can always recover your games if the console they're on is broken or stolen. With a physical disc, if it's stolen, it's gone forever.

Also, I'd like to point out:

- DLC is, by definition, download-only, so that skews things a bit.
- Microtransactions are all download-only, again skewing things.
- Cell phones are a *massive* market and none of them have disc drives.
- Not sure if this is included, but I presently pay $120 a year to subscribe to both Xbox Live and PS+. There is no "disc" for those services, so they could also be skewing the numbers.

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26% is way too high.

by ProbablyLast, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 10:58 (2780 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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No it isnt.

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Monday, April 24, 2017, 01:31 (2780 days ago) @ ProbablyLast

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I actually feel bad when I buy physical...

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Sunday, April 23, 2017, 13:47 (2780 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I only picked up Persona 5 as a physical copy because I wanted the collector's edition, but I wish that the game itself was digital.

Physical is ded.

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