However that ‘unlimited space’ in digital is also a problem. It has ”discoverability issues” for gamers, ”unless you already know” what you’re after. Retailers ‘catching up with fast food’.
For years fast food joints have asked ‘would you like fries with that?’, and now retailers are beginning to offer DLC codes in store, or even pre-orders for them.
”The digital shelf space is unlimited. A game can be active for a long period of time, whereas at physical retail it might get pushed out for a newer title. So players who learn about a game later can still find it online digitally and you miss that long tail at retail,” said Ubisoft’s Chris Early in an interview with MCV.
”But there are discoverability issues, unless you already know what you’re looking for. That’s one of the biggest problems. How do players, amidst that ever-growing digital shelf of full games and add-on content, discover what’s really best for them?” As the releases are digital there can be many more of them at any given time - they get buried.
”That’s one of the reasons why we think physical retail will never truly go away, because there’s still some value to the discoverability and aided selection process,” noted Early.
Retailers are starting to embrace their own digital pursuits to tap the market’s new direction.
”We’re starting to see is retailers who want to be involved in the digital space as well. They’re either opening their own digital platform, a portal for selling digital goods online, or they’re trying to sell digital content in store with coded cards.”
”And if you think about it, that moment when you’re buying is the easiest moment for you to be convinced to add a little bit more to your purchases. They’ve been doing that for years in fast food places – would you like to add fries with that?”
”You can also pre-buy DLC when you pick up the game, by buying a Season Pass or specific add-ons. That’s an easy way for retailers to participate in digital sales, and it helps us as well. I know Activision had a tremendous sell-through at a retail level for Call of Duty Elite,” he added.
When will our industry reach the tipping point and choose digital over retail?
”We’re there in some territories. Our PC retail titles in Europe are still really strong, but in the States downloads are greater than boxed sales,” explained the Ubisoft digital VP.
”I think that’s not a function of the players, but of the retail industry. Stores are shrinking their PC space, some aren’t even carrying it anymore – that drives consumer behaviour.”
”The question is how will this transpire in the console space. Microsoft has a delay period – at first a year, now six months – before you can distribute a digital title, which ensures that it’s only available at retail for a certain amount of time.”
”While policies like that are in place, there’s no chance that the majority of purchases will be digital – people want to play the game, so they’re going to go to a store and buy it.”
”On PS3, there’s no such delay,” he said. ”It’s up to the publisher whether to do it day and date or to wait a while. If you look at Vita, Sony has mandated that digital versions are released at the same time as the physical product. It’ll be interesting to see what percentage of sales are digital across a platform like this.”
Check out the full interview between Chris Early and MCV.
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