Still buying games on Steam? It’s so 2000!

The times you had no option but to queue up at your favorite retailer to get a copy of the latest blockbuster are long gone. Digital distribution, spearheaded by Steam and its competitors have been offering a decent alternative to retail stores for some time now. But games on demand are coming to you this winter. Yes, you, lucky Americans. For the rest of the world will wait a little longer. As usual!

Before we focus on where we’re headed, let’s consider for a moment the more traditional options we have to buy a game.

Retail stores: R.I.P.

As in other industries, brick and mortars video games resellers face a tough competition. Their important overheads (the rent mostly, shop assistants too) makes it hard to compete with newer methods of distribution that don’t require much more than a server farm and a webmaster.

Power to the players? Say it like you mean it :)

For us gamers, buying a game at a shop means standing up on our feet – an incredible challenge not always worth rising to – and actually going to the store. Plus you are not even sure the game will be in stock. Not to mention you have to make sure the store will be open when you get there.

That definitely does not fit the needs of the lazy gamer or those of someone desperately wanting a new game in the middle of the night. It does not do any better for those you had to come to a family trip to the middle of nowhere. God help them!

Switching to the point of view of game studios, retail stores have other drawbacks that won’t make any developer or publisher advocate their cause. I’m referring to piracy and the used games market. While it’s quite obvious that piracy does not do a lot of good to the video games industry, it has to be mentioned that when a used game is bought by a reseller and then sold again to a customer, only the reseller makes a profit out of it. No to mention that is generally not a good bargain for the customer. Good riddance!

Still, there is one thing that could very well save retail stores: accessories. Indeed, we’re not quite ready to stream a guitar hero controller, even with a broadband connection :)

That being said, if retail stores only sold this kind of games – Music/Quiz/Fitness games – would they still be making a profit? Damned overheads! And Microsoft’s Project Natal might even deprive retail stores of that final stream of income on the long run. Tough times for retailers!

Digital distribution: the clock’s ticking!

Buying a digital copy of a game

Digital distribution, although not necessarily cheaper than the distribution technique it is competing against (Europeans buying games on Steam got that), offers many advantages. Here are the highlights:

• The store
  • You can compare prices between different platforms in a jiffy
  • Downloading takes less time then going to the store and back
• The catalogue
  • Games are always in stock
  • You can actually buy old games
• The gaming experience
  • Games self-update
  • Community/Social features

But there’s a downside to all this: what happens if the platform is down?
I guess you’ll have to be patient to buy/download a game. As for playing a game that you already have, Steam’s offline mode will make your day. To be fair, I have never witnessed – or even heard about – Steam being down. I have no experience when it comes to other platforms and would really appreciate to have your feedback on Impulse or Good Old Games for instance.

All in all, digital distribution outmatches retail stores by a long shot.

Subscriptions, a cheap alternative

Well subscriptions are, in every aspect, a cheap alternative. Paying a monthly fee will grant you access to a games collection that is enriched as time goes by. However, the latest games are generally added to the catalogue some time after they released anywhere else. This does not make it a viable option for the most enthusiastic gamer.

For instance, Unreal Tournament III, released in Nov 2007 – some 18 months ago – is listed as coming soon for the Metaboli’s most expensive offer.

Gametap, while being twice cheaper, offers similarly ageing games. Still, there is a noteworthy pack: the free pack. You can find very decent games, including Tim Schafer’s Psychonauts, a game I was truly happy to having spent €50 on.

Last but no least, if you decide to cancel your subscription: you will not be able to play the anymore, the games are not yours to keep!

Games on Demand: the future of game distribution?

Well, buying a digital copy of your game is not hype anymore. What you may be doing in the near feature, is playing games on demand. That’s right, just like that movie you ‘rented’ not so long ago.

The concept of Games on Demand have been brought to light by Onlive, a company that offers a service – currently in private beta – that will stream games to your low-end PC or Mac. Or even to your TV!

As it is a cloud computing solution, all the computing is done in server farm; you don’t need much more than a monitor and a gamepad, a low-end computer is supposed to do the trick.

That service has a great potential: you would not have to buy expensive video cards or gaming consoles anymore, games would run smoothly at max settings on any system – since all your computer/TV does is display what has been computed on a server.

Some important questions have yet to be answered:

Will game publishers tag along?

Apparently so. Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Take Two, among others, have already signed partnerships with Onlive. Why wouldn’t they? The benefits of games on demand to gamers are obvious, the technology seems effective. Not to mention it could very well be a way to lower the royalties publishers pay to console manufacturers. Indeed, Onlive has released/plans to release a development kit (SDK) that will allow studios to design games especially for Onlive.

Sounds great. What does it cost?

The price certainly is the most decisive success factor. According to a teaser video on Onlive’s website, games will be sold, although prices are currently unknown. There is no clue if a subscription system will be offered to enthusiast gamers.

What happens if the servers are down?

Well, everything comes at a price. For all its advantages, Cloud Computing has one major drawback: you depend (1) on the data centers running properly and (2) your internet connection’s speed and stability.

A consideration all the more important given the recent downtimes Google and Amazon have suffered lately.

How will the hardware/console manufacturers react?

Nvidia already signed a partnership with Online, probably to supply, at the expense of AMD, the video cards (or GPGPUs) that will power their high-end servers.

Console manufacturers might want to do something to prevent that model from reaching a mass market. It is not so much because they make money by selling consoles – they usually don’t. Rather, it is because they make a profit by selling expensive (read high margin) accessories and charging game publishers for royalties.

I don’t know about you, but I’m eager to see how things develop!
Do you think the games on demand model will prevail?

F5’ed.