Game Media

[piasabird]

I sure wish you could just buy a video game on a USB device. I am tired of scratchy and dirty disks. Why not just sell them on a USB Flash Drive? Games just ware out Optical Drives. Maybe we should push this as part of a Green Initiative. These drives just fill up land fills.

 

[Nintendesert]

Or just buy them online through one of the many digital distributors.

 

[TheVrolok]

This is why I'm a big Steam guy. I love being able to log in and just DL everything. Of course, I do keep an image of ALL my games installed/backed up in case the apocalypse comes and the Steam servers go offline.

 

[Zenoth]

This is why I'm a big Steam guy. I love being able to log in and just DL everything. Of course, I do keep an image of ALL my games installed/backed up in case the apocalypse comes and the Steam servers go offline.

Hehe, if the apocalypse comes I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't worry much about your games anymore when the buildings next to yours are reduced to cinders and your own legs are stuck under a ton of destroyed concrete while the remnants of your computer's smoke intoxicate your lungs.

But seriously however if Valve ever have a major problem with their servers I really do think that they would release some sort of a patch that would allow the last version of Steam to operate off-line and without any additional updates ever again, they can't just turn the switch off and leave everyone in the dust, or else I'm just being extremely naive and seeing things with pink glasses, if that's the case and if we could really "lose" access to our Steam games if Valve ever explode tomorrow then I would certainly become the saddest panda on this planet.

And, OP, digital purchases of games is your own solution, but in the end your logic isn't necessarily restrained to disc drives, what I mean is that digital gaming distribution or not all the software needs to be stored somewhere, either on HDD's, or on USB Flash Drives for instance... and that hardware also fills up land fills eventually, remember what science tells us all the time; nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed. You'll also throw your HDD or your USB Flash Drive away one day or another... you know... because we humans have that tendency to not being able to create things that last forever, it's been the case for a couple of hundreds of thousands of years now.

 

[smackababy]

The reason games come on disks is because it costs $0.38 a disk. I'm sure USB drives cost a bit more. So, unless you want prices to raise $10 or more, be happy most disks are merely used to authenticate the game not to actually be read.

 

[shortylickens]

This issue has already been discussed and resolved many times. First off, in bulk DVD's cost about a penny a piece. No 8 GB flash drive will ever possibly be that cheap.
And the game companies dont wanna sell on another physical medium. They wanna sell online, cuz they think it gives them better control.
It also gives them better markets. And in a roundabout way, is easier. They dont have to bother with store fronts.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Digital distribution is undoubtably the future... but you may be surprised how cheap USB drives have become over the last year or two. $1-$2 each depending on size, and you can pick up as few as 10 from an import exchange like www.alibaba.com for maybe $3 each with custom printing. At a volume of several hundred thousand the extra cost in materials is very low and may even be completely offset by the benefit to the stores in further lowering box size (already shrunk once to cut distributor costs).

I think the real answer has to do more with the behavioral econ when it comes to product size. Consumers have shown that packaging matters to them and a consumer who pays $60 for a game that comes in a 2" by 1/3" thumb drive is going to feel like they are getting less bang for their buck then if it was a traditional box with DVDs and box filler. Consider that the sales appeal of collector editions depends at least partly on the packaging alone.