The future of downloadable gaming | Ammar Suhail

Ammar Suhail weighs up the pros and cons of a digital feature.

A friend recently said to me that physical media is going the way of the dodo. With downloads progressively entering the mainstream, he argued that physical media such as Blu-rays, DVDs and even games discs don’t have long to live. He went as far as to predict that the next generation of consoles after the PS4 and the Xbox 720, or whatever the hell they’re going to call them, will in fact not have a disc drive at all.Personally, I’m torn on the subject. On the one hand I can see where he’s coming from with the rebirth of the indie gaming culture and the advent of Kickstarter, on the other hand I doubt that physical media is going to become obsolete in the foreseeable future. The first thing that’s impeding a download’s future is the lack of infrastructure. Every console maker wants as many people to buy their product as possible; going digital will substantially reduce the market size. Everyone doesn’t have blazing fast internet so in order to not to alienate these people they will have include some form of disk. The second problem on a much bigger scale is probably one you’ve already noticed. Why do games often cost more when they’re new online rather than in a Gamestop? Well the answer is two-fold. First, the gaming industry is so dependent on Gamestop for retail and sometimes advertisement that it can’t afford to get on their bad side. Can you imagine how big a blow to Activision it would be if Gamestop refused to stock their Call of Duty? Another problem is that laws are actually designed to stop this from happening in order to keep retailers competitive.Perhaps the biggest problem with this is though is not Gamestop or internet speeds but human nature. The majority of people would rather have a physical disc than a copy of it on their hard drive. That’s why Waterstones and Eason’s are still in business even after the advent of the e-book. Don’t you look forward to going to Gamestop to get a game you’ve been wanting for ages? It’s hard to explain but most people do prefer buying their games in store. The obvious exception to this rule is Steam who attracts audiences by having massive sales. Why pay €50 for a game when you can buy it for €10 during the Christmas sales? On top of that where will all the Collectors Editions go with their statues and art books? You’re not going to be able download them anytime soon.On the other side of the scale are the arguments for why it is going to happen. First of all is the resurgence in PC gaming towards the end of this console cycle. And there is not a single PC gamer worth their salt who doesn’t have a Steam account. In fact, EA and Ubisoft are trying to replicate Steam’s model, with both launching their own online stores (Origin and Uplay). Half of all revenue made last year in the UK by selling downloads came from the gaming side of it and now with the rumours of a Steambox just around the corner, things are only looking up for the digital market.As games become bigger and bigger, memory wise, the only efficient way to distribute them will be digitally. Discs just won’t cut it anymore. Perhaps Gamestop has already seen the future. They now sell Steam gift cards, to top up your digital wallet, in store. I guess in the end these are just some of the facts. The future is impossible to predict and to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end none of these things play a part. We’ll just have wait and see.