Who needs preordering when you have digital purchases?


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Now that we can purchase games directly on Xbox Live or PSN (or Steam if you're a PC gamer) I really do not see the need to pre-order a physical copy through a store anymore. The last 2 games that I bought (MLB 14 The Show and Watch Dogs) I purchased directly from PSN. Bypassing the pain in the butt of going to <enter brick and mortar store here>.

 

Your thoughts?

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Well short of Sports games, no chance to re-sell it once you've completed the single player/story or bore of it.

Yup. That and it's faster/easier to copy the disc to the HD than download.

And really don't have to pre-order. Does give you some freebies but never had a problem finding plenty of popular copies of games on launch day.

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Now that we can purchase games directly on Xbox Live or PSN (or Steam if you're a PC gamer) I really do not see the need to pre-order a physical copy through a store anymore. The last 2 games that I bought (MLB 14 The Show and Watch Dogs) I purchased directly from PSN. Bypassing the pain in the butt of going to <enter brick and mortar store here>.

 

Your thoughts?

 

In the time it would take me to download the next-gen games, I could have walked to the store and back. Plus it is cheaper in physical stores AND I can trade them in afterwards.

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Now that we can purchase games directly on Xbox Live or PSN (or Steam if you're a PC gamer) I really do not see the need to pre-order a physical copy through a store anymore. The last 2 games that I bought (MLB 14 The Show and Watch Dogs) I purchased directly from PSN. Bypassing the pain in the butt of going to <enter brick and mortar store here>.

 

Your thoughts?

 

I still rather buy physical, for a few reasons.

 

 - Much cheaper to buy physical, stupidly (I paid ?48 for watchdogs on PS4, it's ?60 on PSN) including launch day delivery

 - When I'm done, I can lend the game to a friend or trade it in

 - It's quicker. I have a 150Mbps connection here, yet I can only download from PSN at ~4-5Mbps (meaning that watch dogs would have taken around 13-14 hours to download). My disk copy arrived at 9am sharp.

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Yeah I guess for trading a physical copy is required. I don't trade my games though. I like hanging on to them for dear life lol :rofl:

 

In the case of MLB 14 The Show and Watch Dogs it was cheaper for me to purchase them via PSN than via Best Buy.

 

As for the the download time, it was minimal given my Internet package.

 

I just find digital purchases much more easier. If I can I'm going all digital from now on.

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As for the the download time, it was minimal given my Internet package.

It certainly varies, Sneakernet is still king for big downloads in a lot of places either due to speed restrictions or download limits. Stuff like Splinter Cell: Blacklist took 24 hours to download from Uplay, whereas I could have gone to my local game shop, bought a copy and installed it in a couple of hours.

I'm a PC gamer, and I think I speak for a lot of PC gamers when I say that we adopted digital downloads in a big way. However that's mainly down to the cause and effect of DRM. Ever more painful DRM on PC's made services like Steam look like havens of usability by comparison. Eventually a lot of PC players grew tired of having to work around overly-intrusive DRM schemes and just opted for the digital version. Our ability to "trade in" a game was long gone years ago :(.

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I rarely trade in them in so digital never bothered me, and for certain games I'll always try to buy them digitally whenever possible.

 

The other thing is that my PSN account is US based as I originally made it when living with my parents in NJ.  Games are $60 in the US and $70 in Canada (no tax in the US as it's digital, and 15% in Canada where I live).  So I'm almost paying $20 more to buy a physical copy that ends up being less convenient for me.

 

That being said, the majority of the games I buy digitally are ones during the flash sales, so I'm rarely spending more than $5 for full games.  The only one I've gotten so far this gen is MLB14, though Destiny will be a digital game as I can see myself putting 100+ hours into it easily (put around 200 into BL2, mainly due to co-op, and I'm more excited for Destiny).

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Downloading does indeed depend on multiple factors. I've been lucky thus far with PSN. Very fast. Xbox Live on the other hand, I don't know what's wrong but it's painfully slow. Takes forever to download a simple game patch.

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i don't buy retail games in more than 10 years...

 

edit: sorry i've lied: i've bought the StarCraft 1 pack retail in 2009 (it was dead cheap), but in 10 years that was the single game i've bought in retail form; every other game i just buy in digital fashion (usually after a good deal).

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Now that we can purchase games directly on Xbox Live or PSN (or Steam if you're a PC gamer) I really do not see the need to pre-order a physical copy through a store anymore. The last 2 games that I bought (MLB 14 The Show and Watch Dogs) I purchased directly from PSN. Bypassing the pain in the butt of going to <enter brick and mortar store here>.

 

Your thoughts?

 

You don't pre-order on PSN or Steam? For me it's part of the fun of gaming, the ritual of buying (or licensing...) games, the anticipation and knowing there's new releases to look forward to. Plus sometimes the pre-order bonuses are nice, though they've gotten kinda skimpy lately. No more buy AAA game X on Steam and get the whole franchise for free, it seems. I also enjoy showing my support for a game in advance, as you know these days every sale is tracked. And for physical retailers, i really treasure my relationships with them and value their services. We're all in this together!

 

So basically it's just a fun thing, part of the experience. From a strictly common sense point of view you are perfectly right, just click purchase on the store when the game is posted, and you're good to go.

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I've pretty much cancelled all of my amazon preorders and am going all digital for 3 reasons

 

1. The only games that I actually traded in last gen were ones that appeared on Playstation Plus

 

2. It is easy enough to get discounted PSN codes over the internet and I have yet to pay full price for a PSN title. Watch Dogs for example cost me about ?46 and it took about 25 minutes to download on our connection. 

 

3. We preordered the Destiny Bundle for some co-op fun and as a result, it is going to be massively cheaper in future to be able to buy one digital copy of a game to use on two consoles than it will be to buy two physical copies. Plus there is the added bonus of not needing to switch discs. 

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I don't remember the last time I pre-ordered. It's not like the stores (retail + digital) run out of copies anyway.

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I still rather buy physical, for a few reasons.

 

 - Much cheaper to buy physical, stupidly (I paid ?48 for watchdogs on PS4, it's ?60 on PSN) including launch day delivery

 - When I'm done, I can lend the game to a friend or trade it in

 - It's quicker. I have a 150Mbps connection here, yet I can only download from PSN at ~4-5Mbps (meaning that watch dogs would have taken around 13-14 hours to download). My disk copy arrived at 9am sharp.

 

Couldn't have said that any better myself, digital downloads are ridiculously overpriced here in the UK.

 

Plus lets be honest with Xbox Live and PSN giving away free digital games every month, sooner or later you will probably end up with a digital copy of the game anyway.

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I only pre order is there is a good bonus to doing so, that being said it's been a few years since there was a game with a worthwhile preorder bonus

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I like the digital games better because I am lazy... I don't have to get up and swap disks just click a game and boom you're in.

 

Must admit in shame that i feel the same. Discless games are so much easier. To quote Souls speak - hurrah for fatty!

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I still rather buy physical, for a few reasons.

 

 - Much cheaper to buy physical, stupidly (I paid ?48 for watchdogs on PS4, it's ?60 on PSN) including launch day delivery

 - When I'm done, I can lend the game to a friend or trade it in

 - It's quicker. I have a 150Mbps connection here, yet I can only download from PSN at ~4-5Mbps (meaning that watch dogs would have taken around 13-14 hours to download). My disk copy arrived at 9am sharp.

I'm only quoting as I agree with you

I'm betting GTA and Destiny will be cheaper physical than digital, (I'm basing this on launch titles like Need for Speed Rivals, Killzone Shadow Fall, and Wolfenstein on the PS4, (incidentally, I bought the a special edition of that).  And they were cheaper to buy physical copies than on the playstation store.

 

I usually would get the special edition if it's possible and financially viable.

 

I found these retailers in the uk offering a varied price on an upcoming game (GTA5, PS4 version) which is, at the time of posting this, cheaper than the playstation store (I cannot confirm or deny for the xbox as I don't have one)

 

http://www.videogamebox.co.uk/Grand_Theft_Auto_V_GTA_5_PS4_p/200069836767665765.htm?gclid=CLjL9u7khL8CFUjlwgod46AAkQ

http://www.game.co.uk/en/grand-theft-auto-v-301149?pageSize=20&searchTerm=gta 5&catGroupId=

 

Therefore I for one, hope physical lives on, and continues to be a better option, as I fear once all games become digital only, they can charge whatever the hell they like, and what if the server and backups fail, would one who replaced a console then have to repurchase everything again? (rhetorical)

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Perhaps that's so they can control the population size hitting their servers all at once (since ToR is an MMO). Sell to too many people and the servers can't cope then those extra people wouldn't be capable of playing anyways.

 

So which is better? personally I'd rather not be able to buy a game then to buy a game and not be able to play it.

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Oh yeah EA wants to control the population size, they need more living space. Who designs their pre-order system, Frau Engel? :rofl:

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I still like the feeling of having a physical copy of a game in my hands.  It is handy to be able to download it directly, but on our internet speeds here it takes longer to download a full game than it does to drive to a store and buy it and come home.  Also, if something happens to my console, Sony stops supporting it on PSN, etc., I can always go to a 2nd hand store and get an old console and use my disc to play my old classic games.  The original XBox is no longer supported on XBL.  What would have happened if people's game libraries had been digital when their console has to be replaced and they can no longer log into XBL to re-download them?  Also, I have so many games, I would have to have a hard drive with several terabytes of space to keep them all, :P

 

It also encourages game purchase.  It lures customers in with hype and gives them a few extras in exchange for an almost guaranteed sale.  Gamestop helps with that by calling you the day prior to the release of a game you pre-ordered.  Helps you remember when a game you are looking forward to is about to come out, and helps game publishers secure sales.

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It also encourages game purchase.  It lures customers in with hype and gives them a few extras in exchange for an almost guaranteed sale.  Gamestop helps with that by calling you the day prior to the release of a game you pre-ordered.  Helps you remember when a game you are looking forward to is about to come out, and helps game publishers secure sales.

 

Agree that buying a physical copy and going to the store is still very festive, and has that exciting "new game" feeling to it. This is also with downloads, but to a lesser degree.

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