Isn't that their main doorbuster? How can this be a good decision? I wonder if it's more anti-theft than lack of sale? Like it's been bean-counted that they'd save more money not ordering product, than product ordered-sold-shoplifted?
Unfortunately, digital sales are better for game companies in every way: no money spent on manufacturing and distribution, a wealth of data on consumer behavior because they know what every single person has bought and installed on their machine, and no used game market to compete with new sales.
The problem is most of that doesn't benefit the consumer in any way. I refuse to buy digital games, because you never truly own them.
Of course modern physical discs usually just direct you to download 100 GB of updates anyway, making me wonder if there's even a game on there. But that's a different problem.
I refuse to buy digital games, because you never truly own them.
In that regard, physical and digital are really no different anymore (at least for AAAs). Doesn't matter if you can still install the game if it relies on connecting to a remote server somewhere that the company can turn off whenever they want. IMO Ubisoft has been historically the worst for that, but pretty much every major studio is doing that these days.
Working offline modes for games with single-player modes, and self-hosted servers or P2P connections for multiplayer games are something that should exist in nearly all games but are increasingly disappearing.
Isn't that their main doorbuster? How can this be a good decision? I wonder if it's more anti-theft than lack of sale? Like it's been bean-counted that they'd save more money not ordering product, than product ordered-sold-shoplifted?
Or, it's just one step closer to commie land.
Unfortunately, digital sales are better for game companies in every way: no money spent on manufacturing and distribution, a wealth of data on consumer behavior because they know what every single person has bought and installed on their machine, and no used game market to compete with new sales.
The problem is most of that doesn't benefit the consumer in any way. I refuse to buy digital games, because you never truly own them.
Of course modern physical discs usually just direct you to download 100 GB of updates anyway, making me wonder if there's even a game on there. But that's a different problem.
In that regard, physical and digital are really no different anymore (at least for AAAs). Doesn't matter if you can still install the game if it relies on connecting to a remote server somewhere that the company can turn off whenever they want. IMO Ubisoft has been historically the worst for that, but pretty much every major studio is doing that these days.
Working offline modes for games with single-player modes, and self-hosted servers or P2P connections for multiplayer games are something that should exist in nearly all games but are increasingly disappearing.