The physical vs digital gaming tug of war

Physical cartridges have been a staple of my gaming life. I can remember being a kid and getting so excited to check out the box art when going through my Toys R’ Us. Being a child of the 80’s meant no internet, and a lot of leg work if you were interested in a game. Trade in’s weren’t a thing yet, so spending $39 and 49$ meant the world.
I can remember having to make tough choices on what to play next, because it meant that is what I would be playing for the next three to four months. Now a days, things are a little different and the consumer is more informed. Sites now give reviews in real time, there are Let’s plays, and for most of us we can “play” a game without ever purchasing.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is physical copies still reign supreme, however not for the reasons you might think. With manufacturing costs, game development time, and distribution; the cost of games has not gone significantly up, or at all. In fact, you could say that its gone down. Inflation dictates physical copies of games should increase incrementally to align with cost of living. However, developers are finding a consumer more informed, and less willing to part with their dollar as easily.
As a consumer we are now trained to look at reviews, see before we buy, and look for judgments from others to help with our decision making process. This, in many cases, causes studios to not only to lower the pricing of their game after some weeks on the market; but do so at a surprising rate. Games such as Watchdogs 2 and Dishonored 2 had been on the market for less then two weeks and were already being reduced (20$-25$ in some cases) for Black Friday in order to garner bigger market share. While both of these games had fair to moderate critical success, their value (in corporate America) is based on consumer success.

Digital gaming in its current state is immune to this. The manufacturing is eliminated, as is the overhead for storage, and production of a physical medium. With all this taken into account, why is the pricing of these games not reduced? The two aforementioned games did not in that time span take a discount in any respect on console digitally. They did, however, take a serious reduction on PC. The PC market has established online gaming without a tangible copy for years with sites like Steam, GOG, and CDkeys. What the sites lack in cost, they make up for in accessibility and numbers.
Brick and mortar stores are the culprit behind most of the cost of physical copies. There is a “cost to do business” with places such as Wal-Mart, Toys R’ Us, and Gamestop. They in turn have to make a profit from games that are over ordered and under-producing. The cut in cost is allowed by developers and company heads to recoup some version of profit, no matter the margin. While with digital copies there is no need to recoup that on console. Companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, are paying to have these games housed or held. The upfront cost of the game has already been established and so the selling of digital copies runs on the basis of pure profit. The philosophy being why not make the most you can. You will see sales for these game, but only months later once mind share has gone luke-warm to cold. Its at this point where your premium online services (Games with Gold, PS+) a lots you the benefit to spend money for the game just at a reduced rate. Allowing for the major companies and distributors to still make something.

Finally, physical games are a nice way to have a tangible piece for the price you pay. The are something that take up quite a bit of space on my shelves. Space that as I grow older gets smaller and smaller. I would love to be able to have digital console gaming to be a more accessible option monetarily for me. More space at less of a cost, could mean more games in my library. While we are not there yet, it seems as those we as gamers are getting there. The ratio of digital to physical copies is closing in on a 50/50 split. That number could be impacted even higher as consumers are downsizing physical space and allocating it to physical space. The hope is that business’s do the same monetarily in the console space. We want your games, as a digital copy beginner, we just want your prices too.