A little off-topic regarding Games - I saw an odd product in a bookstore a few months ago. They had a spinner of miniature books with classic binding, at least from a few feet. Looking at them it turned out to be printed plastic moulds and what did they have inside? A QR-code that guides your smartphone to a custom ebook reader of the publisher. You are supposed to install a custom app which provides you with a purchased book in a non-free ebook format and the fancy packaging was only to put on your shelf at home. Very odd, though probably the strangest part for me is to see it in a regular bookstore. Clearly, they can earn some recurring revenue by customers perusing the one spinner for new releases at times, but only some. Most will get the next ebook per direct-online, probably triggered by in-app ads and newsflash items.
On another note closer to the above discussion of product costs:
I recall reading a Game magazine article about big publisher new Game releases, the big ticket games, maybe six or seven years back. It was astonishing just how much turnover of an anticipated new big ticket game appeared in the first month. I don't recall the exact numbers, but they dissected the achieved turnover of a new boxed game per month prior (pre-ordering) and after release; by far most was sold in the first quarter (some differences if the release was mid year, with coming holiday season always spiking sales).
You can add different perspectives to that. E.g. it means they certainly had a hard time predicting the exact amount of physical media they needed to meet the initial sales surge, while not over-producing boxes they have to discount later. The article argument went that after the pre-ordering 'early-birds' might have shared their views, it may continue to sell or just the opposite. Likewise, if they were too frigid in ordering boxes, production slots may be full and they run out of stock in the holiday season, the competing publisher pushing their new title meanwhile, etc. Just some thoughts on the production of physical media, which does require a lot of coordination to get right. I'm more firm with music media (produced in the same factories) and there was a long trend of facilities fading away. Add to it that switching a CD/DVD production line from one release to the next is, of course, standard twice-daily procedure, but the smaller the quantities, the higher the unit costs.
The sad point with music as well is that the online salesfront always earns more than any artist (take aside the top ten). I do resist streaming, because it does not cater for my consumption pattern (I started to prefer listening to full albums many years ago and am a snob for audio quality; no mp3). For a long time, there was a GOG equivalent startup called bandcamp. They are still thriving, but are on the way to revamp their business model / revenue splitting with artists after having been bought out by VC. The fairness towards artists they always put forward is not gone, but I've noticed some respective clauses in their TOS do. On a positive note, they continue to provide non-DRM media downloads for your own library in the highest quality - something few (any?) of the mega-music store/streaming-apps do. But I digress. The main point was that online stores do add to the flexibility of publishing - music or games. They do offer small game studios reliable avenues to reach their customers, and to my understanding Valve can take credit for democratising and offering fair conditions particularly for the smaller independents. The more critical points for games will indeed be to operate the additional infrastructure needed for multi-player, which is a dimension needed for some genres to stay relevant, as you explain. Sadly moderation appears more and more needed as well (not in terms of inproper gaming, but mainly scamming and speculation with in-game items - see the currently vaded NFT market, simpler scams, same principle), another point that makes it increasingly difficult. Though it is probably due to the thirst of publishers for the extra recurring revenue to prolong an otherwise short half-life of their big up-front investments. I do not know a lot about gaming, but it's a very interesting thread you started to educate,
@kibasnowpaw.
That QR-code “book” is a perfect example of how strange the line between physical and digital ownership has become. It looks like a miniature classic book and is sold inside a normal bookstore, but the actual content is not inside the object. What you are really buying is access through a QR code, a publisher-controlled app and a proprietary format. If the app or service disappears, the decorative shell remains on the shelf, but the book itself may effectively be gone.
It is very similar to games sold as a code inside a box. The packaging creates the appearance of a physical product, but the customer may receive nothing that can actually be installed or used independently.
I understand why publishers prefer digital distribution. Manufacturing physical games requires forecasting demand, reserving production capacity, pressing discs, printing covers and manuals, assembling cases, transporting stock, supplying stores and dealing with unsold copies. With major releases, so much of the revenue arrives around preorders and the first weeks that ordering the wrong number of copies can be expensive. Produce too few and the game may be unavailable during its most important sales period; produce too many and the remaining boxes must be stored, discounted or destroyed.
Digital distribution removes much of that risk. A publisher can sell another copy without manufacturing another disc, case or manual. It also gives small developers a realistic way to reach an international audience without financing a large physical print run or persuading retailers to give them shelf space. Steam deserves credit for making PC publishing much more accessible and giving independent developers infrastructure that would previously have required a major publisher.
But those savings should benefit the customer as well.
When I buy digitally, the company saves money on physical manufacturing, storage and distribution. In return, I often lose the disc, printed material, transferable ownership, resale value and sometimes even the ability to install the game without a launcher. The company receives greater flexibility and control, while the customer is told to accept fewer practical rights.
A better compromise would be to provide complete offline installers in the way GOG does. The publisher would not need to manufacture anything for me. It could provide the installer, patches, manuals, bonus material and any required serial codes, and I could decide how to preserve them. Someone who only wants convenience could keep the files on a drive. Someone like me could pay for the blank disc, case and printing and make a personal archive copy.
That still would not make my archive disc an official physical release. I could not honestly sell it as a genuine retail edition, and it would have no legitimate collector’s value. It would remain a backup of a digital purchase rather than a manufactured product. That is one of the limits digital ownership still has, even when the files are DRM-free.
A genuine physical game has value beyond the entertainment it gives its first owner. It can be sold, donated, inherited, lent or given away. It may only be worth a few coins, but it is still a transferable object. The same copy can continue moving between people for decades.
That second-hand market is important for people who cannot afford new games. I bought Crysis for 1 DKK, approximately €0.13 or $0.15. A person with almost no disposable money can still legally obtain and experience an older game because somebody else’s physical copy remained in circulation.
That copy might be sold at a flea market, given to a friend, inherited by a family member or donated to a charity shop. It still has a purpose after the original owner is finished with it. Even a game with almost no monetary value can have cultural and entertainment value to the next person.
An account-bound digital game is different. It has value to me while I can access and play it, but it normally has no separate resale value under my control. I cannot remove one game from my Steam account and sell or donate that individual licence. When I die, the library may effectively die with the account, even if thousands were spent building it. The files may continue to exist on a corporate server, but the individual purchases cannot continue through society in the way physical books, music and games can.
That is a major historical change. Physical media created a secondary economy. People with limited money could buy used products, and owners could recover some of their original cost. Collections could survive their owners and become part of another person’s collection. Digital account licences largely end that chain.
It also changes the psychological relationship with a collection. A physical game is something I can hold, clean, catalogue, repair, display and eventually pass on. A digital game is mostly an account permission. It may be more convenient, but it feels temporary because its continued existence depends on the store, account system, licence terms and sometimes external authentication.
Bandcamp has been valuable for similar reasons. Its important feature is not simply that it sells music online, but that customers can download high-quality, non-DRM files and keep a local music library. I can purchase an album, store the lossless files myself and listen without requiring the shop to remain involved every time.
That is very different from pure streaming. Streaming can be useful, but the listener depends on the service maintaining the catalogue and its licensing agreements. Albums and tracks can disappear or be replaced. For someone who prefers listening to complete albums and cares about lossless quality, permanent downloads make much more sense.
The danger comes when these useful independent platforms are acquired and their business priorities begin to change. Even when the service continues operating, revenue sharing, terms and long-term goals can slowly move away from what originally made it attractive. That is another reason local downloads matter. Once the files are safely archived, a future policy change cannot remove the music already purchased.
Multiplayer games create more complicated costs. Servers, databases, anti-cheat, customer support, moderation and fraud prevention require continuing work. Scams, stolen accounts, automated farming and speculative item markets make moderation increasingly necessary. I understand why a persistent online service needs continuing revenue.
But recurring revenue can also become the reason the game is designed around central control in the first place. Limited-time content, artificial scarcity, currencies, tradeable items and fear of missing out can keep players spending long after the original purchase. NFT projects were an extreme version of that mentality, but many ordinary in-game economies use some of the same psychological pressure without involving a blockchain.
The infrastructure may be necessary, but publishers should still explain clearly what the customer is purchasing, what depends on external servers and what happens when the service ends. Where it is technically practical, games should retain offline modes, LAN support, direct connections, peer-to-peer hosting or community server tools.
Digital distribution itself is not the problem. It has created real opportunities for smaller developers and removed many expensive barriers. The problem is when every saving and advantage goes to the seller while the customer loses ownership, resale, preservation and control.
Give me the convenience of digital distribution, but also give me a complete installer. Let me preserve it and make my own disc at my own expense. That would not replace all the benefits of an official boxed game, but it would at least leave me with something more permanent than a line of text attached to an account that may disappear when I do.
