Listening to Episode 64 of Jumping the Shark recently, I got to thinking about the move away from physical game media and towards the digital distribution of content. It seems that read-only hard copies of media are edging towards obsolescence. I tend not to buy DVDs and BluRays that I can get from Netflix on a couple days’ notice, I store all my music on a home media server while the actual CDs collect dust in the attic, and I bought Portal 2 through Steam and ended up with a playable game on my PC while friends were still waiting for their Amazon pre-orders to arrive.
The obvious big players in this realm are Steam, XBox Live Arcade, The Playstation Network, Direct2Drive, and Impulse which was just purchased by Gamestop from Stardock.
XBLA and PSN are obviously tied to their respective consoles, as is the red-headed stepchild of console download services: WiiWare. While each has some excellent games, (Shadow Complex, Pixeljunk Monsters, LostWinds) we’re still in the infancy of digital distribution in that these services are currently used primarily for inexpensive games. And while download-only games like Costume Quest and Hoard can only improve the popularity of these services, it’s probable that in the next generation of consoles, there will be no physical media aside from optional flash cards or external drives.
Steam is the behemoth of digital distribution. It’s tied to Valve, which in my mind stands alongside Blizzard and Bioware as the best of the best in terms of game production. Steam has an amazing feature-rich client complete with achievements and a well-integrated friends list. And best of all, Steam games work. Always. I’ve had $10 of credit on Direct2Drive for nearly a year now after a refund following purchase of Cold Fear, which flat-out wouldn’t launch on my PC. Cold Fear and Dark Athena are the extent of my experience with Direct2Drive, and I believe I bought Galactic Civilizations 2 from Impulse following the announcement that the game would be launched with no DRM. I bought that game mainly to support DRM-free software. Didn’t like the game so much, but Impulse functioned well. I think I also bought the first Penny Arcade Adventures game from Greenhouse.
The move away from physical media has many implications. First off, it murders the used games market. This explains why Gamestop, whose primary market is used games, was so eager to jump on the digital distribution wagon. And speaking as someone who gets a lot of his games used from Amazon and EBay, my overwhelming instinct is to flinch and yell “BAAD!” at this inevitibility. But then I look at Steam Deals. I’ve gotten a lot of the games I have in my Steam collection on the cheap. Bioshock 2 for $5. Beyond Good and Evil for $5. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom for $2.50. I don’t remember how much I paid for New Vegas and Metro 2033, but they were cheap too. Digital Distribution doesn’t have to mean that games never drop in price, although it may mean that. It all depends on the distributors.
I’ll leave you with one final thought here. Please never say “Digital Download”. That term bugs the crap out of me. It’s redundant. All downloads are digital. Thank you, and goodnight.
