The Update About Nothing

I'm gonna warn you...my problems sure aren't very serious when compared to those of...pretty much everyone else in the world. Since I acknowledge that fact, everything that comes after is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE GRIPING.

I've been resisting for days the urge to cave in to the critical and popular acclaim and purchase Deus Ex. First, I saw the “Digital Super Who's It's What's Collector's Designer's Cut” edition for $59.99 and scoffed that way that I do when I see companies trying to sell PC games higher than the absolute maximum any PC game should rightfully cost.

I yield. I am ready to look like Park Bench Keanu Reeves.

Here's the thing: DVDs of movies with multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in budget...they cost about 20 bucks. You get a physical disk, a case, and probably some other paper ridiculousness. You know. Things cavemen use to build fires or throw at small creatures for amusement. Digital distribution gets rid of all this crap and yet I'm still paying AT LEAST $50 for a AAA title clocking in at, in most cases, a fraction of the production budget.

But I digress.

READ. MORE.

Digital Distribution is (not) Taking Over

The NPD group recently released their 2010 Games Purchase Drivers report and revealed that 29% of video game purchases over the last three months are delivered to the consumer via digital distribution. What this means, of course, is that 71% of video game purchases are still done incorrectly boxed copies from brick and mortar establishments.

Pictured: the right way to get games.

Let's stop delaying progress, people. Sure, there was a time back in cave man days where going to a special building to acquire <item> was like...what you did. Now machines are connected to other machines by lightning wizard magic the internet and we have things like sunglasses and toasters and stuff and you don't really need to bang a couple rocks together anymore for fire.

There's also this nauseating nugget of unjoy from the report:

"...nearly 10 percent of buyers report using a trade-in to fund their purchase."


Tear down the brick and mortar after the jump.