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The story
A game developer, posting on X (formerly Twitter), said they’re “not against physical copies” while laying out the industry’s current reality: “Digital downloads are mainstream now, and physical copies have a lower profit margin than digital, so they’re on a declining trend.” The remark sparked a wide-ranging debate on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board over whether digital downloads actually benefit users at all, and what gets lost if physical copies disappear. Posters traded concrete points — not having to visit a store, questions about storage space, and shrinking shelf space at retailers — with opinions splitting sharply between the digital camp and the physical camp.
Did people maybe take that as me being anti-physical? I’m not against it at all. I’m just explaining the current reality — digital downloads are mainstream right now, and physical copies have a lower profit margin than digital, so they’re on a declining trend. Given that reality and where things are headed, all I can do is my best within it.
Source: x.com / original post here
What people said
It's basically just "this is easier on us, so users can deal with the inconvenience."
Nah, downloads aren't inconvenient for users either.
Huh?
What part of downloading is inconvenient?
It's not charity work, you know.
Obviously.
If you want to go digital-only, go do it yourselves.
Why force everyone else to adapt to it?
Sounds like this is happening because users aren't buying physical anymore.
Without that, the risk is too high and I wouldn't bother.
I never buy on release day — I only start considering a sale once it's under half price.
Risk?
Risk of what?
Don't repeat the tragedy of New Gundam Breaker. (a notoriously bad game that burned a lot of day-one buyers)
Huh?
Steam refunds aren't meant to be used as a free trial, though.
No need to go to a physical store.
You can play right at midnight release.
No storage space needed.
At the end of the day, those are all things you already get just by buying digital — none of it requires discs to be abolished.
No swapping discs.
Never sells out.
Can't be bought early, which blocks pre-release spoilers.
Maybe they're just not a writer, but dumping a rambling, hard-to-follow wall of text like that is counterproductive.
If store credit/gift cards became the main thing, like overseas Amazon, they'd be freed from stocking and inventory hassles.
Re: #44
I don't get what you mean by "freed."
If that's really better, retailers could just stop stocking games right now.
You're really stretching to defend Sony's (SIE's) policy.
Electronics retailers still get the benefit of parents and kids coming in to shop, after all.
Though that effect's really only expected for Switch, since it has kid-friendly titles and customers who actually buy in-store.
In reality, places that carry games keep dwindling.
Even a major chain like GEO (a used-game/electronics retailer) is cutting the shelf space it gives to games.
No Yodobashi near you either? What kind of middle-of-nowhere do you live in?
You're overgeneralizing.
What's shrinking is shelf space for the "shitstation" (derogatory nickname for PlayStation).
If it turns out to be a dud, you can't sell it off on day one to cover your losses.
Doesn't matter much to me personally, it's chump change — I just chalk it up to bad judgment and move on.
If it's a dud, just get a refund.
You can on Steam, sure.
If you're buying digital, Steam's the way to go.
If it's going download-only anyway, you'd rather buy on Steam than PlayStation, right?
If they implemented a refund system like that AND priced it from the start with the 30% cut they used to pay retailers already knocked off, there'd be no problem.
Back in the day, even a game you could tell was trash within minutes meant the hassle of reselling it used.
Now two hours is enough to judge whether it's trash, and you get a full refund.
Though you'll get a warning for violating the refund policy.
Steam already has a refund system in place.
I know that already.
I'm talking about consoles (CS/console systems).
No need to visit a store → same effort as ordering online.
Play at midnight → with physical, there's even a chance of getting it early ("fla-ge").
No storage space needed → if game cases are a storage problem for you, gaming isn't really your priority anyway.
So yeah, zero benefits.
Lol, that's just an excuse from someone who doesn't even buy games.
But everyone still wants to release them anyway because the benefits outweigh that cost.
I'm not denying digital has gone mainstream, but the moment something goes digital-only, it gets buried under the mountain of other digital titles and stops selling.
So they end up running sales nonstop — unit sales might go up, but profit doesn't.
Isn't the point that they've been releasing physical up to now, but since users won't buy it, they might stop going forward?
Even if physical profits shrink,
their customer base probably can't shift to digital even if they wanted to.
Don't worry, the "shitstation" will just die off once retailers stop carrying it too.
The fact that hardware incapable of digital sales isn't selling well at all says it all.
Guess that's how it looks to someone who doesn't buy games.
If it's not charity, then why are they still releasing physical copies right now?
They could just go digital-only.
What's the reason to wait around for PlayStation to drop discs?
They're not releasing it physically, though.
Even for Capcom, their best-selling platform — PC — is digital-only.
Background and key points of this discussion
The spread of digital downloads has been driven by improved home-console internet infrastructure and the stay-at-home demand following the COVID-19 pandemic; for publishers, digital versions make it easier to protect margins since they avoid retail cuts and distribution costs. Users, meanwhile, benefit from being able to resell or trade in used copies, get refunds, and play without an internet connection — and in the thread, posters raised physical copies and the used-game market as a “hedge against buying a dud.” However, Steam’s refund system is a PC-specific feature; consoles like PlayStation and Switch have no equivalent, so the claim that “you can get refunds on digital too” doesn’t hold the same way across every platform — a mismatch that kept the discussion talking past itself. The shrinking of retail shelf space is also tied to changes in retailers’ own store strategies, and can’t be explained by publishers’ intentions alone.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “Developer: “Digital downloads are mainstream now — physical copies have a lower profit margin than digital and are on a declining trend”.”
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