Buying Video Games Will be a Thing of the Past

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Buying Video Games Will be a Thing of the Past?

Introduction

The industry of video games is at the edge of an evolution. It first transitioned into the digital space and today, gaming is expanding across devices and platforms making the industry to offer gaming as a serving and not as a good like before. Historically, gamers have been purchasing video games in physical copies in which people used to visit gaming stores and purchase their favorite games (De Prato, Feijóo, & Simon, 2014). But this is gradually changing because recently, there has been an increased gaming flexibility which allows gamers to play across devices and platforms. For some time now, there has been a transition of video games towards the digital model and gaming services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now, and Xbox Play Anywhere allowing gamers to play on multiple compatible platforms and devices. Previously, these video games were only on physical discs and gamers could only access them with their consoles. The ability to play on digital space and to play across platforms and devices has been ongoing for quite a while. Gaming being offered as a service though is a recent phenomenon, it is taking shape (De Prato, Feijóo, & Simon, 2014). Gaming as a service involves subscribing to game libraries and streaming the video games instead of buying them which creates a range of possibilities in multiple areas of the gaming sector. This essay will support the argument that one day buying video games will be a thing of the past.

Tech Companies Involvement and Streaming

Nontraditional gaming companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook are creeping into the gaming industry. The industry of technology is looking for a way to make streaming of video games as natural as movie streaming on Netflix or music streaming on Spotify (Johnson & Woodcock, 2019). Through Xbox console, Microsoft has gotten into the gaming industry. Two years ago, Project xCloud was introduced by Microsoft, it is a streaming service of video games allowing the users to stream games on the personal devices. Project xCloud became fully functional a year later and subscribers can access it on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Facebook, along with Unity Technologies started to develop a gaming platform in the year 2016 and a program known as Stadia was launched by Google (Bengtsson, Bom, & Fynbo, 2021). The program is a cloud gaming service by Google allowing gamers stream video games as they play. Users can access it on Google’s browser, tablets, phones, and PCs. The goal for Microsoft, Facebook, and Google is to allow gamers to stream video games even without a video game console or a computer. As the trend continues, buying physical video games in the form of discs or cartridges is becoming a thing of the past.

It would however be argued that the move towards streaming and playing video games online would limit the gamers and would not give them sole ownership of the video games as it would when one buys physical copies of these games. Also, it would require gamers to have constant and uninterrupted access to internet connection (Rienzo & Cubillos, 2020). In cases, of internet downturns, gamers would be interrupted and would not have a good experience playing. In addition, gamers would experience issues such as low hard drive space that is why they would prefer to have a storage medium. On the part of the companies, selling physical video games has been a source of their revenue for years and a move towards digital gaming would hurt their traditional source of income (Zeng, 2021). In response to this argument, proponents of streaming and playing video games online would argue that subscribing to video streaming services is the future and would benefit video game companies such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft as the cost of manufacturing, storing, and shipping of video games would disappear. Besides, subscription services allows for generation of revenues for the gaming companies throughout while traditionally, gamers used to but video games occasionally such as during holidays. Furthermore, the production cost of physical copies is quite high and consequently, it would lead to smaller profits.

The Evolution of Digital Technology

The advent of the distribution of digital games can be traced to the late 20th Century but recently it has come to be truly recognized as an alternative to buying physical copies. Today, consumers are in support of digital subscription and several factors attribute to this surge (Brock, & Fraser, 2018). The most influential attribute in the relatively lower price of digital games as well as its convenience. But still opponents would argue that there are a number of factors that prevent digital games from taking over the gaming market completely. Relative to physical retail, it is argued that the price differences are not that substantial to encourage consumers to prefer digital purchases over retail. This is coupled with other issues such as consumer-unfriendly practices and poor marketing (Brock, & Fraser, 2018). As a proponent of digital gaming services, one would argue that gaming companies are now more conscious of the expectations of gamers and could therefore maximize by releasing their games exclusively digitally. Another positive digital distribution feature is that smaller and independent developers have the opportunity to compete in the gaming market and be successful (Sepasgozar, 2020). In this digital era, it is evident that eventually, digital distribution of games will supersede physical game copies. According to David Darling, a veteran in the gaming industry; it is the same as flipping a coin, at some point, it is going to flip. He states that in six months things would change and everyone would be wondering why it did not change before.

Gaming the Digital Space

The first stage of the gaming industry transformation is transitioning from buying physical gaming copies to digital distribution. This form of distribution has helped in the introduction of major changes to the gaming industry (Rienzo & Cubillos, 2020). Digital forefronts have been created like the Steam and the Epic Games Store which sells vast libraries of games. There have been other developments which include the mobile games propagation on a variety of devices like tablets and phones as well as the subscription model’s expansion with services that facilitate digital game libraries and online multiplayer like PlayStation Now, PlayStation Plus, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Live. The video games’ digital distribution encourages competition and innovation among developers and the rise of this form of distribution comes hand in hand with an increase of power in various devices. Games had gradually moved from cartridges on consoles and physical discs on PC to digital downloads on PCs and other portable devices such as smartphones and tablets (Charness & Boot, 2016). Currently the mobile gaming market accounts for about 51% of the gaming industry’s market share with PC and console gaming comprising 24% and 25% respectively. Moreover according to a research conducted by Camps-Ortueta et al. (2021), the digital format of video gaming has grown to about 80% of sales since the year 2017. According to the report, thanks to digital online gaming, more than 220 million people in North America are mobile gamers and the market value of digital video game globally is more than 120 billion dollars. This demonstrates that the industry of digital video games has grown substantially over the years.

In this regard, opponents would argue that physical video games are much cheaper and safer compared to the digital mobile gaming. Gamers tend to incur more costs in terms of internet connection charges (Eliashberg ET AL. 2016). Internet service providers tend to impose huge data charges for online gamers depending on the time of play. Some games require that gamers have online accounts typically with monthly or bimonthly subscription fees. The second point against gaming in the digital space is security. Gaming in the digital space exposes gamers risk of hacking. Gamers are required to key in their personal information while signing up for a number of reasons (Zhang et al. 2019). There are risks involved especially when hackers manage to hijack the gamers’ personal information. Their information ca be used for illegal activities which could cause damage to the players’ reputation in a split second.

In response to this argument proponents would argue that costs associated with digital gaming are not that huge compared to physical gaming. In fact, there are costs associated with physical video games purchases and one of them is delivery cost and time. Subscribing to online gaming is fast (Zhang et al. 2019). Even with the additional data charges, gamers tend to socialize because gaming online allows communication between players who are geographically apart. This encourages interaction and a great team play.

Gaming as a Service

Today, there is a shift in the model in which games are distributed as a service and not as goods. This implies that today and in the days to come, gamers will exclusively buy video games through a model of subscription to a gaming library which is streamed on a mobile device (Cai et al. 2016). This is contrary to the one-time buying of single games which has historically prevailed as a business model. Successful companies in industries such as software and entertainment are also shifting towards provision of products as services under the model of subscription. Netflix for instance, switched from mailing to its customers physical DVD copies to enabling them to stream and download movies and shows under subscription tiers. Adobe and Microsoft also shifted from one-time purchase of Creative Suite and Office software to selling their products via digital downloads under the model of subscription as well (Cai et al. 2016). Looking back at how technology has evolved and the shift of focus in related industries as mentioned above, selling gaming as a service and not a product is the next logical step in the industry of video gaming. Hence the statement, buying video games is a thing of the past.

As a matter of fact, that transition to selling video games as a service in the subscription model is already underway. PlayStation Now by Sony for instance enables subscribers to stream games on their personal computers, iOS devices, and PS4. Shadow is another subscription service offering cloud-based gaming across macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, and Windows. Shadow, PlayStation Now, and soon-to-be live services like ‘Netflix for games’ by Microsoft, Google Stadia, and Project xCloud are all trying to make gaming more about internet strength and less about machines that gamers play on (Zhang et al. 2019). The rise of such services, there is a less requirement to have powerful devices just to play video games. In fact, with these services, more people can play a broad range of games. Such emerging service, both non-streaming and streaming, have managed to lower the barrier to entry and are also inviting more gamers to play. In addition, related industries have been touched by this innovation and can go beyond the stimulation of innovation and competition in the gaming industry. The early stages of this transition however calls for the need to have a stable and faster internet connection. Opponents would argue that these emerging services are yet to fully mature and until then, professional gamers cannot employ them (Zhang et al. 2019). Latency and input lag are some of the problems that online gaming services must get rid of prior to professional gaming accepting them. This means that ‘gaming as a service’ model will coexist with traditional models in order to cater to various market segments.

Conclusion

There are continuous advancements in the capabilities of internet bandwidth making the digital distribution to flourish. Thanks to these developments, more industries have incorporated this method and the gaming industry is not an exception. However, there are divided opinions in the gaming industry with respect to the distribution of games. Some prefer digital while others prefer physical distribution. In order to address the issue, the paper has evaluated it from the perspectives of both the industry and the consumer. As is discussed above, innovation is at the heart of the gaming industry, thus, new technology, new experiences, and new controls are inevitable. The world has continued to move towards spending time on their devices making streaming services to be the order of the day. From movies to music and now video games, digital game playing is becoming an important avenue for revenues. Gaming companies are looking towards leveraging on this. Soon enough, gamers will no longer have to buy video gamers, rather, they will only need to subscribe and access video games easily on their devices.

References

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