Has digital games reduced the price of gaming?

There are some older games that only have physical copies that I would like, like Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast, but these games are selling for close to £100 second hand on ebay. So even though I used to prefer physical games to digital, that's changing. I realise with all these digital stores, they are keeping prices competitive. If there is a very old game available in digital format, I find sellers on ebay who are selling the physical version can't extort buyers with ridiculously high prices. With digital games, the supply is endless and will always meet the demand for the game.

Also look at all those old classic PC games selling on steam. There's no way I could have played games like Half-Life, Thief etc if they were only available physically as their prices would have been too high. Thank you digital!

Do you guys agree that digital games has reduced the price of gaming?

Yes, but they've ignored it and decided to overcharge you anyways.

Used to spend tons on games, now I can buy games for $2

Digital prices have absolutely cheapened video games.

@worlds_apart: it depends. Older game prices have been brought down in price because of digital games. Newer games, the prices are the same or worse than physical games. Some games that are unique or have a large following and are basically monopolies tend to rarely go on sale. This is the case for final fantasy series, the dragon quest series, most Nintendo games, Rockstar games, etc. These games need more competition in the market place, so they are forced to compete with new up and comers.

Overall, digital games have definitely made gaming cheaper, with the exceptions above in mind.

Digital makes GamePass possible so it's a yuuuge bang for the buck win!! :D

Yep.

And I remember as well all this shit from Epic about how their lower cut would reduce the price of games.

The first PC game to charge £64.99 was exclusive to that store (from £44.99).

And now they are all gunning for £69.99 to be the new norm, which it will be, because publishers do as they please and get away with pretty much any shit they want to pull.

For da love of money🤑

@davillain said:

@SecretPolice said:

Digital makes GamePass possible so it's a yuuuge bang for the buck win!! :D

For da love of money🤑

lol :P

@davillain: lmao. Nice picture:

I don't pay retail for games. I wait for them to drop. I also only buy digital. Not sure if the digital scene is what has helped to drop games so significantly but I'm not complaining.

I enjoy being on the cutting edge of behind the curve. That's where the sweetspot is baby.

Digital has reduced the cost of games and accelerated price drops. I am all digital.

@blaznwiipspman1: True, you're not wrong. I remember when I bought the older Call of Duty games on steam, I'm talking about part 1 to 4, they were reasonably priced but still rather costly. I thought for sure they would be cheaper because of how old they were.

@uninspiredcup: it's up to the consumer to decide. I personally rarely if ever buy new games full price. I bought metroid prime remastered day 1, but that was already cheaper. I'm tempted to buy re4 remake day 1 as well. I'm 50/50 on doing it, probably going to swing towards waiting it out. I already have lots of games in my back log.

These publishers charge such high prices because the market supports it. There's lots of wealth inequality nowadays. The rich don't see $70 or even $100 as a big price. The publishers know this so they're trying to increase prices gradually. The wealthy will buy games full price and not care, the publishers will reap the rewards. The middle class usually ends up waiting. Publishers have lots of data on sales, what the market will bear and when to put games on sale.

We will see callisto protocol drop in price within another 2 or 3 months, followed by Harry Potter and more lol.

It's a double edged sword.

What happens when that game gets pulled from the digital store? or becomes inaccessible because of expiring licensing?

Ex. You can't buy a single Forza MotorSport game on the Xbox Store right now. They've all been pulled.

Digital games have reduced the price of most games, but like one poster before me said, it has not reduced the price of Nintendo, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc. games.

It would be nice if refunds and other practices that are available only to physical games are applied to digital games, but I feel that may require government or legislative action.

Game Pass reduced the price of gaming 😁

Humble bundle and other deals surpass any sales you can get with physical.

That whole argument falls apart when you consider the used market for physical. Cheaper than anything.

@nod_calypse: Nope! It doesn't but nice try though.

Digital has definitely made games cheaper. Even though we miss out of used games sales market (sell your old games to use the money to buy another game), it’s still cheaper.

Depends how or when you buy.

Consoles generally see better physical price listing over digital but this is mainly over distribution issues, in part publishers paid royalties to print them and they also have to keep money on hand for MSRP price adjustments for remaining inventory or liquidation, to issue refunds or partial refunds. Thus they are given priority to discount over digital for that reason. On PC though, digital has an advantage over consoles though, physical printing is more limited, and publishers aren't on hook to get back their royalty costs.

Games driven by their online elements see more aggressive discounting digitally mainly to keep up with community engagement, plus they keep up revenues with microtransactions and post release content.

In general though backwards compatibility of the Xbox and PlayStation consoles keeps the catalog of titles saturated to a point it does drive down costs a lot quicker than last gen. Probably also the greater for preference for digital content on consoles over physical helps publisher not print too many copies which in past kept the digital prices up.

Sometimes though I think if publishers over print or game sales don't meet projections, then digital price suffers to an excess of physical inventory. Callisto Protocol for instance, a game projected to sell 5 million but didn't even sell half that, probably has too many physical copies in circulation and also probably why it hasn't seen substantial digital discounts since its release.

Digital services like Game Pass and PS Plus Extra/Premium though are probably the best bang for the buck overall.

Alright, I guess. But it's still much cheaper to buy games through the used market physical than any digital deals.

I've personally paid less for games than I've ever had. Games now need so many patches and all I have to do is wait a few months after hype dies down to get it for 40 to 50% off all patched. People just need to avoid that consumerist trap of "needing" the newest thing right away.

That being said, I've got a Dragon's Horde of treasure in the form of physical games not available in digital. Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone 1 and 2, and Evolution on Dreamcast, lost kingdom 1 and 2 and Skies of Arcadia Legends on Gamecube, All 3 shadow Hearts games, the xenosaga trilogy, .hack 1-4, and Tenkaichi 3 on PS2. There's definitely some value in rare physical games that you can't get anywhere else.

Yes and no, it all depends on when and where you "buy" the game.