The physical format disappears. This trend has been a reality for years and, in fact, the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 console generation has been the first in history to offer, since its launch, models without a disc reader. And it’s normal. For companies that develop video games, the digital format only offers advantages. But this has also reached the public’s interests: the majority of American children prefer a subscription to a physical game as a Christmas gift.
According to a study by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), 72% of American children want gifts related to video games this Christmas. But of these, only 22% want physical games. The vast majority, 68%, prefer to receive as a gift a subscription to a service such as Game Pass or PlayStation Plus or, directly, in-game money to make micropayments.
These data are the result of an industry increasingly focused on games as a service in the style of Fortnite or Roblox, but they also demonstrate the extent to which the Netflix model has been consolidated in all corners of the cultural industries. It doesn’t matter if they are movies, series, music or video games. Everything can be consumed through a subscription service.
In Spain, this trend follows the same pattern. According to the 2022 yearbook published by the Spanish Video Game Association, online turnover in the sector grew by almost 30% between 2021 and 2022. While physical turnover fell by almost 6%. This means that, of the 2,012 million euros invoiced in total, 1,180 correspond to online services and 832 are from physical sales.
When a user buys a digital game, they are not purchasing a product, they are purchasing a license to use it. It is important to be clear about this concept. Digital video games belong to the company that has developed or distributed them and never belong to the user. This means that the company can remove it from the market, block access or update it without the consent of the players. And this is even more extreme in subscription services because the license is for temporary use.
For the distributors there are all advantages: they save on the costs of manufacturing and distributing discs, they do not have to share the profits with physical stores, they destroy the second-hand market and they have total control over their games. But the hegemony of the digital format presents many problems.
There is, for example, that of preservation. If someone wants to play the original No Man’s Sky, Fortnite or Cyberpunk 2077 experience now, they can’t do it. It is impossible. They are games that no longer exist. Or there is also the example of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas or Warcraft 3, both titles were replaced by new versions much worse than the originals and, in the process, the publishers eliminated any possibility of playing the original game in digital format.
The defense of the physical format goes far beyond collecting and nostalgia. The total replacement of the disk by digital poses serious and important problems, although the direction of the industry is clear and we are unlikely to stop it. Meanwhile, almost 70% of American children who want a gift related to video games this Christmas prefer a subscription or digital currencies. Another day we talked about micropayments and loot boxes.