Video game sales could be only digital by 2022

This is the tricky bit.

In a built-up area, speeds are accessible, but there are plenty of locations and indeed countries with real challenges.

That's a good point, as long as you don't get banned from Steam/Origin/GOG etc your game library is safe in the cloud.  Same can't be said for physical copies.

The Steam discounts - well honestly I rely on them, buying games full price is just out of my league.  It does help replace used games, really there are benefits and cons to both systems.  With all the patching physical copies have been obsolete for a long time now.  How many kids can start playing their game on Christmas morning straight away?  Not that many, for most there'll be 6 hours of downloading first.

I used that trick with MEA where you use a proxy to pretend to be in the US (I'm in the UK and we got MEA a couple of days later than you guys).  That gave me the time to download it before the official release date, it took maybe 6 hours..something like that.  I then spent the rest of extra time faffing about in the CC.

Anyway that surprises me, you'd think Noo Yawk would have great internet.  At least the bagels are good (tho I'd take fast internet over them any day).  My laptop recently died and omg the reinstalling, you forget how much data you have on there.  One situation where putting a disk in would've been appreciated tbh.

As it stands right now, my internet connection periodically drops.  Maybe after a few hours or maybe a day, but it'll happen.  It's also not that fast to begin with.  Took well over a day to download MEA and I imagine games are only going to get bigger.  It's one of the major reasons I have no interest in MP games.

You should be able to do that with a 4x or 3x layer blu-ray disc, or a couple of dual-layer ones. Given the size, I'd almost RATHER have physical media, than having to wait 4 hours to d/l 105GB :|

Makes me wonder about Special Editions that contain artbooks, figurines, pipboys or you-name-it. I guess eventually the actual disc(s) get replaced by a digital download voucher ? I wonder how much a company saves on an average game if they release a game without any physical copies.

Internet quality and download speed aside, I think streaming might overtake even digital copies in the future. If I'm correct you do not require that much of a beefy computer when streaming. There is the business model though, would you pay the developer the right to stream it indefinately/a set period of time ? Would you need a subscription from a third party ?

As long as I can get my single player fix with good gameplay, story, etc.

Short answer: no

1) lag

2) and this is personal, but I don't even *really* like streaming video/audio services, since I honestly have no idea if/when they're ever going to stop. I can still buy physical media, and play it, whenever I want. I like that freedom. That's not to say I don't USE streaming services, but I don't want to rely on them for everything.

I prefer having copies of stuff I like. I like books, real books, on my shelves. I like photos, printed ones, in frames on the wall or in an album I can flip through. I guess I'm old or something.


I sure hope there's no end to physical media, although I honestly figured the physical media would almost be more for the console peeps, but I too have had a blu-ray drive for the PC for quite a while, though not quite as long as that, and it's not an internal drive.

My ability to write coherent sentences seems to be dwindling, I better stop now.

Is Red Dead Redemption 2 confirmed for PC? Last I heard it was confirmed only for consoles at this point, Red Dead Redemption never made it to PC either.

Xbox One and PS4 both use Blu Ray discs so physical media isn't a problem.

Lag is quite not the monster it was anymore... disclaimer: I work in game streaming company QA. I cannot say much more though :/