I'll be very bold, but I do think that that 3% figure is right, no matter how much you twist and turn it... worst case being 3% of sales in count (which is quite pitiful), or 3% of revenue after expenses, meaning higher in count due to amortization of the prices associated with disc pressing (let's be generous, let's say, 15% of sales in count).
But no matter how we try to interpret the figure, it doesn't matter. They definitely did the math correctly, otherwise the shareholders would have most likely sued them into oblivion for not looking at their best interest in maximizing their dividends.
So yeah, no matter how much we hate this, physical just doesn't make sense for them.
But let's not kid ourselves, we all smell the foul play from continents afar.
I'm highly certain, that they themselves have fabricated the friction to make physical sales as unappealing as possible, for both players and publishers, and this way slowly eliminating demand for it.
I will be hardheaded, and not even waste half a minute of effort to look up if I'm right or wrong, because looking at historical (anti-consumer) behavior of these companies, I'm more likely to be correct in my guess than not.
They probably upsell the price per disc quite a lot, making it barely worth it for some very popular AAA titles. For indies, there is no chance, for sure.
So if you're not interested in AAA titles, you literally have no choice, your favorite game is digital-only.
And the pricing on the disc drive attachment is ridiculous. I have a feeling, that the digital-only variant carries what the disc drive version is supposed to be, so the disc drive version is double-billed.
We have seen this with the heated seat subscriptions with cars. There is no way that you are not paying for it already, they never give out free things, and never lower the price when it becomes cheaper for them to manufacture things.
The disc drive thing is almost the same thing, except instead of a subscription, it's just double-billing.
But tbh the real reason people are upset, is not actually the physical media going away. I do not know anyone who would choose physical over digital if the software is DRM-free, only collectors would.
The real underlying reason we're upset, is that they take away physical media, but not give the control and freedoms for the digital version, that are associated with game being on physical media.
If it were possible to lend, sell, transfer, and backup your copy, without being able to be rugpulled, then pretty much only collectors would bat an eye, and we wouldn't be here whinging over these news.
I'm still fighting with Nintendo to replace the wrong type of Hyrule Warriors I've bought (wanted the WiiU port one, not the BotW -style one), and nothing. I'm not even asking for a refund... both games are first-party titles, same developer, same price, and neither ever go on discount, so there is no real reason they do this to me, other than them being stubborn greedy assholes.
If this were a physical copy, I could've gotten back to the store I've bought it from, and it'd be immediately remedied. Pretty sure there are laws about protecting this type of freedom.
So yeah, the crashout is wholly justified.
If I can't even backup my own *save files*, do I even own my experiences, let alone the game software?
...but of course, for 9.99€ a month, you can safely(tm) upload your saves to the cloud :trollface:
As much as I dislike Valve, sadly they are still doing it the best. As long as you're not trying to scam them, they can be sometimes even better in customer support than physical retailers.
While others are "my two braincells fighting for 3rd place" type of deal.
There is also GoG, but big publishers are repelled from it, because they cannot feel like they are in control, and they cannot have that.
I wanted to insert something about boiling the frog, and people not affected laughing at victims until they become victims themselves and being too late to fix it at that point, but I've been rambling on too much wall of text, I have to cut it here. I could probably still ramble a 750GB HDD full
Source
