Gaming Will PC Games ever see physical releases again?

[CORE]

Physical Releases are phasing out I am happy enough with Digital as long as it is Digitally in my Possession!

 

[kuwanger]

By the way, I have room in my pc for an optical drive and I installed one when I built it a couple of years ago. I have a huge stack of physical copies to justify that drive.

Funny enough I have optical drives in all my computers. I virtually never use them, though. The main point of having them is to be able to burn CD/DVD if I have a need or the very uncommon physical disc. I don't imagine physical actually going away. Companies have wanted physical to die for 10+ years. Streaming has been constantly pushed, and it's always flopped either softly or spectacularly. Based on the price structure of physical--you want to give discounts there first to clear inventory--I'm not sure what will change short of MS, Sony, or Nintendo pledging to go 100% digital and possibly tanking one of their consoles.

I'm not saying there's not a risk. Just, I doubt it'll materialize successfully any time soon.

 

[JavaScribe]

a lot of things

Short answer: No.
Physical is digital but on an outdated storage medium. And it usually has DRM, just a different type. (Less cooperative but more easily broken, since it's offline or relies on defunct server networks.)
Now Stadia, that's not digital release. That's digital running on Google's servers with input and output at your house. They have to charge money to keep servers running. It's not free for them. And maybe you'd save more just getting your own device (a PC) to run it on, instead of using their devices, in which case, Stadia is probably not for you! So don't use it. It's that simple.

"keep rebuying stuff" Hhave you ever used Steam, sir? Try it some time, before you diss it for problems it doesn't have.


And don't blame "the current young generation." I won't speak for millenials (and neither should you, as it seems you're not one), but Generation Delta isn't even old enough to own anything yet. You can't say they don't want to own anything when very few of them are legally old enough to rent an apartment, let alone get a loan on a house.
(1. I'm drawing the generational line at "anyone who can remember 9/11 is a millenial or older" and 2. houses are freaking expensive, do you own one of those? How long did that take? Certainly not something you owned when you were 18. Maybe you were on the path to owning it, but it was probably the bank's.)

And why the heck are you buying a new phone in six months? Get a phone case, man! It's not that hard! It's cheaper than a phone, and you can put that money towards... a house? Flagships are expensive, I guess.

 

[Hawkyscrub]

Not sure if they will but if they will they might put Games on encrypted USB drives and put them in a box. This will result in a Higher price for the game.

Example:

Online price $39,99
Encrypted USB drive in a box: $49,99.

 

[Asia81]

Are empty boxes with the "plastic protection" (idk how it's named) somethin you can buy?
I think I'm going to print some deviantart cover.

 

[amzounslideslide]

It is too costly to produce physical versions. Buying games via retail is dying a slow death.

 

[Kwyjor]

The allure of a shiny thing on the shelf that you can pick up was a pretty good way to market something, once.

I'm inclined to believe that the decline of physical releases reflects a decline in high-profile PC game releases. More and more games are produced by smaller companies that can't afford to move physical releases on their own. But then again, back in the day a larger publisher might team up with such smaller companies to get their games into stores, so I guess it's no longer convenient for either or both of the larger publishers or the smaller companies to make such arrangements.

 

[Taleweaver]

I'm inclined to believe that the decline of physical releases reflects a decline in high-profile PC game releases. More and more games are produced by smaller companies that can't afford to move physical releases on their own. But then again, back in the day a larger publisher might team up with such smaller companies to get their games into stores, so I guess it's no longer convenient for either or both of the larger publishers or the smaller companies to make such arrangements.

Nice theory, but to me it's still more likely that virtual stores are just more convenient for both the creators (no costs for creating boxes, easier worldwide distribution, outsourcing anti piracy) and clients (massive sales, not having to leave the house).

 

[GilgameshArcher]

I believe companies prefer digital to keep more control and reduce the costs.

 

[almmiron]

90s & early 2000s:
-Physical releases was a thing on PC
-Write/Read speeds for optical media was sufficient.
-Games usually small, fittting ind dvd or even cd-rom
-Internet speeds was too slow
-games usually doesn't have so much updates

2005s - present
-Games so much bigger than 4gb to fit in a dvd (even now blu-ray drive in PC is a rare thing)
-Internet speed starts to grow faster
-to download a game and install is faster than install it from dvd in some cases
-gears of war 4 = 133gb
-updates bigger than the game, dlcs, etc.


I would think of a flash drive: put a game in a usb drive and distribute right?, well, a bluray with 50gb capacity is very cheap, but only 30mbps, but a usb 3.0 good flash drive that goes above 30mbps is very expensive.

My hope is to wait tnew type of optical media OR usb media that is very fast for our standards, and can be able to hold 150GB for a dolar. Maybe physical PC releases will come back.

Maybe sony is up to something for ps5? or microsoft for xbox4 ?





Thinking out of the box...What about some device linked to pci express lines? too fast?

 

[Kwyjor]

-gears of war 4 = 133gb

That is exceptionally large for a game, I think.