There was a time when I naively thought that digital games would be one of the most important revolutions in gaming. It had been the norm in the PC gaming space for years before it even started becoming viable for consoles, but starting with the Xbox 360 and PS3 generations, things really started kicking off. We moved from downloadable demos to indie games to full titles within the span of a generation. By the midpoint of the PS4 generation, digital sales were already starting to overtake physical ones. But despite how much more of the market they were taking up, I wasn’t seeing any of the platforms adapting in the ways I expected.
We’ve been coasting on how convenient digital games are to access for over a decade now when they lack in every other regard compared to physical media. We’re already seeing PlayStation and Xbox easing us into an all-digital future by phasing out disc drives, and I would be shocked if the PS6 or next Xbox even has one by default. I appreciate the need for physical games to stick around for preservation, but that’s not the main reason I still reject the notion of an all-digital library in the future. That would be the simple fact that the system, at least on consoles, is stubbornly anti-consumer.
The future of gaming is stuck in the past
Digital games aren’t the future of gaming, they’re the present. I understand there is a passionate section of the audience who will fight tooth and nail against the all-digital future, but the truth is it has already arrived. Just this year, Sony’s earnings report revealed that 76% of all sales on the PS5 and PS4 were digital, and that number has been steadily rising over the years. We’re also starting to see physical games appearing on shelves that are boxes with download codes inside rather than discs. Physical games won’t go away overnight, but I suspect they will become more of a niche and enthusiast thing.
The loss of physical media is a topic on its own, but I think the two are intertwined.
My hope for digital games was that they would be more convenient, cheaper, and easier to manage. In reality, only the first part has come true. Even though digital games don’t require printing and shipping physical goods, companies have simply maintained the standard pricing for new games. That’s a dream I admit I never should’ve expected to come true. If a company has a way to save money, it isn’t going to willingly pass those savings on to us. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Where my real issue with digital games comes in is that nebulous “easier to manage” statement I made. I say it that way because there’s no clean term for the flexibility physical games have that digital ones simply don’t. The options we have with our digital games haven’t evolved much at all since the first versions of the PSN and Xbox stores and that’s an inexcusable problem.
Where’s my option to sell digital games? Why can’t I trade or give a game as a gift? How come the act of even getting a refund is borderline impossible? These are all such basic consumer rights that we’ve seen solutions to elsewhere — mostly on Steam — that I can’t help but think it is being deliberately withheld from consoles to maintain that level of control. I could forgive it in the early years, but we’re three generations deep and only Nintendo has taken even the slightest steps to improve this system with its Virtual Game Cards.
I refuse to believe that Nintendo is the only company able to figure out a way to make sharing digital games simple and (somewhat) convenient on console. I can appreciate that sharing or trading games could open up a lot of doors for exploitation within these systems, but a few bad actors can’t be cause enough to deny us those basic consumer rights.
And this is why I use the anti-consumer buzzword. I see it thrown around a lot to describe things we simply don’t like, but this is one instance where I think it is apt because we’re getting a worse product in digital games than physical ones. Yes, the content of the games themselves is the same, but the lack of freedom in what we can do with them is totally one-sided toward the corporations.
Virtual Game Cards are a long-overdue first step toward reaching some sort of parity between digital and physical games. If PlayStation and Xbox expect me to fully commit to digital games by the time next generation rolls around, I need to see a full revamp in how they let me handle those games. Refunds, selling, trading, and gifting are the bare minimum of what we deserve.
