Digital vs Boxed

I love boxes , manuals , maps even stickers but unfortunately the only PC gaming store near me got burnt during riots and all those boxes need storage capacity which i don't have . Also with the pass of years (although i do have a couple of suitcases for CDs) the surface of CDs get scratched or break in travels so i am mostly into digital right now.

the only PC gaming store near me got burnt during riots

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People were unhappy with the quality of games?

If downloaded games transferred the savings to the price, I would go download, but I find it weird that most of the times they have the same price (if not higher) than their box counterparts.

I remember reading an article about down loadable music (I don't remember where), the conclusion applies to games too: it's a matter of convenience vs. ownership. Digital downloads are convenient, but if playing the game or accessing the game in the future is reliant on some online service, then you don't 'really' own the game. I prefer ownership.

The box art, manuals, etc. is also a BIG plus. When I'm in between games, I really enjoy going through my shelves of unplayed games, picking one and spending a night or two reading though the manual. The same goes for books and music.

Boxed all the way. I don`t prefer collector`s editions as they usually don`t contain any really useful stuff. And don`t like budget versions without printed manuals and maps… just regular (first) editions.

Prices for digital (even weekend deals and promotions) are usually total rip-off. Still I do have some 20 titles from steam

wolfing said:

Yes but most boxed games nowadays only come with the DVD. A very simple manual comes as PDF in the DVD (manuals of old are now called 'Prima Strategy Guide' and cost an extra $15 or so), and no maps.
But having said that, I still prefer buying a boxed over downloaded since for retarded reasons, downloaded versions cost the same as boxed.

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I agree.

But I also appreciate Digital versions. I got Titan Quest for $4 on sale one weekend just a few months ago. Once or twice I picked up the boxed version in some store and considered buying it but I really wasn't interested in the game enough to spend even the $19.99 it was going for. $4 for the digital version though was just perfect.

I happened to buy Jade Empire in a store a few weeks later for $5 and was considering days later whether I should throw the box out which was taking up space on my book shelf (what a crappy game)!

But just as with Emusic, if I like the game (or album) a lot I will then go out and purchase a boxed version. With music it happens all the time - at around $2 to $3 for an album, if I like it I won't mind searching for a used copy in mint condition or just buying it new on sale somewhere.

With digital software, most of the time I'm downloading it because it's not something I would normally get or something I have very low expectations for. In the case of a collection of decade old games (M & M which I got recently at GoG), digital downloads are perfect.

But I would never buy a digital version for a new release of something I really want in my collection.

And I still think games offered digitally at full price are a rip-off.

I know the distributor has to pay for bandwith but I'm pretty sure the cost of materials, printing and manufacture (box, manual, disc), physical distribution (shipping), warehouse storage fees if necessary are well above any bandwidth costs.

The real question is who is getting away with the "theft" - does the game maker charge say Steam or D2D the same as they charge retailers of boxed version? Or do they charge less but the on-line retailers keep the retail prices the same?

Relayer said:

The real question is who is getting away with the "theft" - does the game maker charge say Steam or D2D the same as they charge retailers of boxed version? Or do they charge less but the on-line retailers keep the retail prices the same?

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I don't think it really matters. Everyone seems to love blaming retail for keeping the prices high but that is just not anywhere near the whole truth in my opinion. Or has anyone seen Valve saying that they would just love to lower their prices (an interesting bit on Valve right here) but that retail isn't letting them? Has anyone seen publishers seriously complaining about retail holding them back in their price reduction strategies? See. I didn't think so.

In reality download services, retail and publishers alike are more than happy that the market has accepted the high prices for digital.

All of this reminds me a bit of the time when publishers announced that they would get rid of the big retail boxes and that most future games would ship in DVD case format and of course they'd pass on any savings to the consumers so games would become cheaper. Right. That has never happened. The prices for games stayed the same.

There are many, many conflicting interests involved in all this but I think that everyone has one thing in common: No one seriously wants to sell games cheaper than they are right now.

Moriendor said:

All of this reminds me a bit of the time when publishers announced that they would get rid of the big retail boxes and that most future games would ship in DVD case format and of course they'd pass on any savings to the consumers so games would become cheaper. Right. That has never happened. The prices for games stayed the same.

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Well, in all fairness, that to me is exactly what happened. If the price remains from 15 years ago, including inflation, that means the prices for games have indeed decreased.

Right. That has never happened. The prices for games stayed the same.

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Well, not that I'm championing the publishers but that is lowering the costs really. Look how bad inflation has been (at least here in the States) over the last 10 years. That games still costs $50 actually is a lower price that it was 10 years ago.

I would like to go all digital but I'm scared to. I don't like buying expensive games from small sites, nothing says they'll be there tomorrow. Steam is the only download service I trust to be there forever but I hate having to log in and be tracked every time I want to play a game I own.

That and I've heard Steam takes a huge share of the sale, I have no idea if it's disproportionate to other download services, or how that compares to the markup from retail. I should really learn the truth of that instead of avoiding the one service I "trust".

I'm 50-50, if it's a game I think I'll still want to play in 10 years, boxed. However I love download services have infinite shelf space, there's a lot more options online than I can find locally and you're more likely to get older games cheaper.

I bought starlords a loooong time ago, the game looked extremly complicated.... however the manual was just included as a pdf on the CD... I opened it and pressed print and went to dinner.... when I got back from dinner my printer was still working............ talk about a manual! I kind of understand why it was not included with the CD

wolfing said:

Well, in all fairness, that to me is exactly what happened. If the price remains from 15 years ago, including inflation, that means the prices for games have indeed decreased.

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I just knew that someone was going to point that out . But I'm sure we can agree that the reasons for the prices staying the "same" have nothing to do with the savings on the publisher's side related to the change of the format. That was the point. When the format changed, they promised short-term effects on the pricing as in the prices going south and that just never happened in any way, shape or form. They never passed on their price advantage to the consumers so it doesn't surprise me that they are unwilling to pass on any savings related to digital distribution either. Everyone seems to be comfy in the $49 zone regardless of format or distribution channel.

I will buy whatever one I will get for the best price. For instance, I got Drakensang for $5 on direct2drives recent sale, as well as Titan Quest. But I have gotten great deals on boxed versions from ebay also. I check several places and buy the best deal.

I really thought about buying a physical copy for Risen as I was quite excited about it, but woke up stupidly early sunday morning due to jet lag and thought I didn't want a boxed copy as much as i wanted to play something there and then.

Boxed copies are nicer and certainly no more expensive, but convenience is a big plus for me so realistically I'm mostly a download person. I've even gone over to downloads over vinyl for music in spite of a definite preference for vinyl so convenience wins every time really.

Boxed. I never buy games digitally.

I'm a bit torn here, I think.

I prefer a boxed edition of the game, preferably a Collector's Edition of some sort - at least for role playing games. However, I've bought the game Fate as a digital download. And never regretted it

As for other rpgs, Eschalon - Book 1 can be bought for 20 US Dollars as a digital download at the developer's website. Unluckily for us gamers the boxed copy of this game is sold out; it could be gotten for 40 US dollars. The digital distribution here meant and means, I think?, that gamers save a lot when they buy this game digitally, not boxed.

On a more general, yet related comment, I also play adventure games. Many adventure games these days are only being offered as digital downloads.
Developers of adventure games have a hard and difficult finding publishers for retail boxed versions of games en their genre.

Culpa Innata can only be bought as a digital download, so can the game Yormujak's Ring. And they are being offered at a considerable less price than the normal retail price.

Digital distribution in this instance means that we as gamers have access to buying games we else wouldn't have the chance to buy.

However, I dislike EA's (and Bioware's) and other big corporations take on this. They want to make games into software as a service where everything gaming related is hidden in 'clouds' e.g. we don't save to our own computers HDD but to a server they control.

This means, if I'm not mistaken that EA (and Bioware) just can decide to delete any player made stuff like mods they don't like or characters they don't like. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to this, but I do believe that Bioware's social site is the first (small) step towards this goal - especially since both Ray & Greg, the two co-founders of Bioware agree with EA's head honcho that full digital is the way to go.

I still hope I'm wrong, though....

Not entirely on topic but $20=20€ is robbery .

btw Fate is also available in various boxed editions. Just ordered Traitor Soul pack (including original Fate and Undiscovered Realms) from US for 13 EUR including shipping.

I've almost completely gone digital now. I do like the boxes, and have a ton of collectors editions with art books and random plaster artefacts, but the last years I've run out of space. At some point I found out I had to chose between buying books and buying boxed games, and I love books more than I love boxes. Also it's nice to not have to change disks.

I don't have much space but I do want them boxes. It's a different experience when you can actually hold something you paid your hard-earned money for. I tend to feel that it becomes a more personal experience when you get something boxed. There seems to be a stronger sentimental value to the game than just having it stored on your drive.

Just as a sidenote : German digital distrubitor "Gamesload", a daughter company of the Deutsche Telekom AG, will soon act internationally. I a job offer I read today stands they are "expanding their portfolio to all 27 EU countries and Norway".