On June 23, Japanese media published a new survey of Japanese players recently. The results show that although major game console manufacturers now have their own dedicated platforms for digital games, digital games are rendered as a future trend, which is not out of date. Today, 70% of players in Japan still stick to the physical version and resolutely do not touch the digital version.
As early as GI Live: London in 2021, Sam Naji, a video game consultant at Global Sales Data, analyzed PS5 game sales from November 2020 to the end of August 2021 and found that physical sales are higher than digital sales. 51%, even the month with the lowest sales of physical games is more than the month with the most sales of digital games.
In 2018, an analyst predicted that the game industry will achieve 100% digitalization in 2022. Now, halfway through 2022, physical games are still selling well, and players have proved it with their choices: our love for physical games will continue for a long, long time.
Just like e-books and paper books, people often have this discussion: buy digital games or physical games? Will physical games die one day?
The sense of ritual of choosing cassettes on the bookshelf
The advantages and disadvantages of physical games and digital games are actually very obvious. Physical games have a certain collection value and can be circulated. When you don’t want to play, you can easily shoot back blood, while digital games have no collection value and liquidity. , physical games do not have to worry about insufficient host memory, but digital games are more convenient, do not need to replace the cassette when changing games, and the price is relatively low.
With rising costs and the proliferation of second-hand transactions, game makers have been vigorously promoting the use of purely digital games.
In response to this, Microsoft has launched its new patent that allows gamers to convert physical games into digital versions, which is mainly convenient for users who want to switch from optical-drive consoles to optical-drive-less consoles.
On the one hand, this patent can realize the conversion of games between different devices, and on the other hand, it can solve the anxiety of players after losing the optical drive, and build people’s confidence in the digital console without optical drive.
However, under the news released by Youyanshe, the comment with the most likes is this one:
Many people like physical games because it can satisfy their “collection addiction”. Who doesn’t want to have a study room full of cassettes on the bookshelf?
Imagine standing in front of the bookshelf on a weekend afternoon and thinking about which game to play today, and then removing the cassette from the bookshelf and putting it into the card slot.
In the same vein as “buying a book is like a mountain, reading is like a thread”, many players will buy games that they would never play for a variety of reasons: collector’s edition, limited edition, or just because the box looks good.
Hoarding is probably the instinct that comes with the genes of every creature. Collecting a full series of “The Legend of Zelda” cassettes is such a fulfilling thing. Even if you don’t play, you must be happy with ashes. of.
Collecting physical games can not only get psychological satisfaction, but also be looked at by fellow players, which is not directly brought by the digital version. For example, a friend of mine has always known that she is keen on figurines, but it was not until she saw that the figurines in her home were neatly sized up into a high wall, and she had a shocking sense of reality.
Of course, manufacturers also know this preference of players. Since the digital version cannot be pushed, they should work harder on the physical version. Many physical versions of the game will come with some gifts with the card to attract players to buy.
For example, in the physical version of “Into the Dungeon”, in addition to the game itself, there are stickers, original music, setting sets, limited skins for the physical version, and a lot of DLC. In addition, there is also a cardboard model that can be made into the game. The appearance of the bullet mascot, the price is only 200 yuan, the price is very high.
The most worthwhile independent game “Hollow Knight” on Switch, its physical version is divided into basic version and collector’s version. Large game map, a collectible storage box, an art memento, a cleaning cloth, and a hollow brooch (including display stand).
A series of additional products make the collection value of physical cassettes higher, so players are also willing to pay higher prices to buy. Of course, what you can buy for physical games is not just the content of the game, but players want to get more than the game. Some experiences, whether it’s these carefully designed little peripherals, or psychological satisfaction.
materialized happiness
While both digital and physical games are essentially the same, physical games do have a special soul. YouTube channel Daryl Talks Games likens physical games to a symbol of memory — a tiny piece of plastic. The card, which may have been worn down to battle-damaged quality, also recorded the traces of time that we left behind when we held the console.
When you pick up that old yellowish box of The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim, you recall far more than your time as a dragonborn adventurer, you see a small fragment of your past life, a An element of your complex identity. When you look at the box, cassette, and manual, you will feel as if you are back to the way you were when you first got it, where and with whom you played at that time, what kind of life you lived at that time, and the memories of this and that keep coming back emerge in front of you.
In addition, he also mentioned that physical games can make consumers feel a kind of psychological ownership, that is, how much psychologically they feel that something really belongs to them.
The purchase of the digital version of the game is actually a subscription right, which is far inferior to the physical version, not to mention that there has been a precedent for Sony to close the game store and no longer support old console models such as PS3/PSP/PSV.
If one day your console model becomes the tears of the times, and even the games in it no longer support the service, are you still willing to choose digital games from the beginning?
Such a sense of psychological ownership is enough to make up for some of the inconvenience of physical games. Even if the manufacturer closes down one day, it will not affect your continued use of the cassette game in your hand.
Some players said that buying 100 games on Steam is not as satisfying as 10 physical cards. After all, the games on the computer screen can’t be seen or touched. Do you still remember them when the computer is turned off? Physical games always remind you of their existence.
But with the development of technology, everything is becoming more digital. Will physical games one day become a niche hobby and collection like records?
In recent years, major brick-and-mortar game stores have been hit to a certain extent due to the epidemic, digitization, competition in mobile games, etc., which makes people worry about the future of brick-and-mortar games.
5G networks and cloud gaming services continue to reduce the importance of physical terminals. The new crown epidemic has also accelerated the transformation and digitalization of physical games. During the epidemic, large supermarkets such as Target were closed, and GameStop, the world’s largest game retail store, was boycotted for insisting on operating.
The president of Take Two, the game developer who developed the “GTA” series and “NBA 2K”, also expressed the same view that the epidemic will accelerate the transformation of physical games to digital.
However, in the short term, there should be no need to worry about the death of physical games. Recalling that when online shopping was just emerging, some people thought that physical stores would disappear, but now the combination of physical and online shopping is just better. Although the real economy is indeed squeezed, However, there has not been a situation where one side replaced the other.
Physical joy, such as physical games, will not be easily replaced. As long as people are still playing console games, physical games will always have a market.
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