Digital distribution, at least from personal experience, is a double-edged sword. While it’s certainly convenient to just buy games on demand from the comfort of your own home, cutting out a trip to a local retail store, there are still many of things about this new medium of buying games that should make consumers nervous. Is it worth the immediate gratification when faced with hurdles like bandwidth caps, constantly dwindling hard drive space, and the loss of resale? I’m not convinced; in fact, I’m rather nervous about the future of the industry in this regard.

Let’s look first at the one good thing that digital distribution offers: immediacy and escape from “Retail Hell.” Especially when it comes to new releases, it can be annoying to have to map out your day to include a trip to your local video game retailer of choice. Specialty retailers like GameStop and Game Crazy have become less appealing to consumers, due to the forced bombardment of pre-order and discount card sales pitches from each chain’s respective employees. Big box retailers make buying new releases a chore by getting new product out late– if they get certain games in at all. When you order online, that’s all well and good, but you still have to wait for the game to arrive via your selected shipping method and hope that it isn’t lost and damaged in transit.

Digital distribution does away with the survival missions and crossed fingers; the game is uploaded to each console’s “storefront,” you pay funds for the game, download it, and play it. Xbox 360 owners will be able to play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 this week without having to hunt down a copy at retail or pay an obscene amount for a pre-owned copy, for example… and because the game did see a prior retail release, consumers likely know what they’re getting before dropping their cash on it.

That leads me to my first big gripe about this new distribution model: No resale.

For as long as people have been playing console video games, there has been a market to recoup some of what you spent, if you were no longer using or didn’t like what you had bought. Before there was eBay and Craiglist, there were retail stores like Funcoland and Electronics Boutique that accepted trade-ins. Local independent gaming stores did the same. You also had the option of selling to a friend, co-worker, or familiy member. There were even tag sales and garage sales. These methods of reselling have helped to keep gaming as successful, despite a few bumps in the economic road over the past decades. It made some consumers, like myself, more apt to drop some extra cash on impulse purchases, because I knew that I was never really “stuck” with a game and would be able to recoup at least a few bucks of my initial purchase, either in cash or store credit.

Digital distribution however, has no resale value. If you buy it, you own it for as long as the online service operates. If you read decent reviews for a game, decide to take the plunge for $15, and win up hating it… that’s too damned bad. You have just lost your $15 with no recourse. Demos help to stem the issue of uncertainty a bit, but not all platforms offer timely demos of titles like these.

WiiWare is a classic example of this risk. You can splurge on Gradius Rebirth, but if you find it to be too difficult and can’t progress terribly far in the game, all you can do is delete it and chalk it up to a bad experience that sets you back $10. What happens when full games start seeing digital distribution? How angry will you be if you drop $50 on a game that you win up not liking and have no choice but to eat all of the cost? I can tell you that it would drastically change my buying habits; I’d be a lot less impulsive and the industry would see much less revenue from these kinds of consumers.

It’s easy to see why lack of resale makes publishers and developers happy. It’s no secret that publishers and developers share a collective dislike of the used games market. Of course, eliminating the used game market would force consumers to pony up $60+ for each new game, adding coins to the coffers of publishers and developers… but eliminating a practice that’s been observed for so long by expediting digital distribution isn’t the right way to go about it. All it will take is a few disappointing games from publishers to make consumers far more wary of what they spend money on. This move is far more punitive to the consumer than it is to chains like GameStop. You won’t be able to sell that game you no longer play. You’ll just delete it from your hard drive, and that’s the end of it.

Speaking of hard drives, that’s another issue that digital distribution presents: These games take up space. If you’re a collector, you’re going to run into problems with this very quickly. Even Microsoft’s 120GB hard drive fills up over time, and then it becomes a question of what to keep and what to delete, in order to make room for new purchases. The Wii had problems with storage space that were well-documented before a firmware update enabled the use of SD cards. I was forced to “clean the fridge” pretty often because some of my WiiWare and Turbo CD / Nintendo 64 games were large files that took up a ton of space.

Obviously, hard drive space is for storage; however, as digital distribution of more complex games becomes more prevalent, how many games will users be able to store without having to “clean the fridge” or spend more money on a larger hard drive? Ask PlayStation 3 owners about mandatory installs and owning a 20GB hard drive. Yhey’ll tell you that it’s no picnic having to pick and choose what to keep and what to temporarily delete. Granted, you can always download things again, but that leads me to the last big problem with digital distribution.

More and more internet service providers are instituting, or at least considering, bandwidth caps. Downloading video games can quickly eat bandwidth, especially if you download full retail games like Microsoft will be unveiling next month. Sony has already been doing this on a limited basis. Combine these large downloads with video and music streaming, e-mail, playing games online, and more… You’ll see that you use a lot more bandwidth that you thought you did. Even Comcast’s cap of 250GB, which seems high, may be close to being met at the end of a particularly release-heavy month. Are publishers going to work out arrangements with ISPs to expand these caps, or will we see a lot of finger-pointing amongst families that are rationing bandwidth? We can complain all we want about how “unfair” these caps may be, but don’t expect them to go anywhere unless a class-action suit succeeds.

It’s likely that, despite any concerns regarding the future of digital distribution and its implementation… it’s going to happen. The real story revolves around how consumers react to this new change and how the industry adjusts to that reaction. Will consumers be more careful with their downloading and buying habits? Will more quality games be made to make consumers forget about reselling? When will we see larger and more inexpensive hard drives, and how will bandwidth caps affect sales? The answers to all of these questions are unclear, but in an industry that’s been trending down and away from the apex of its popularity, these answers may hold the key to the future of console gaming for years to come.

Rockstar revealed some important details on Wednesday regarding the latest expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV. The Ballad of Gay Tony will become available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace on October 29th and will run users 1600 Microsoft Points– or $20USD. Just like the last DLC expansion, The Lost and the Damned, players who download the expansion will need to own a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV in order to run it.

For those who no longer own Grand Theft Auto IV and wish to play just the two expansions, Rockstar also announced on Wednesday that they will be shipping both expansions (The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) on a disc titled Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City. This compilation disc will not contain the original Grand Theft Auto IV game, however. This disc will have a suggested retail price of $39.99 and is slated for release on the same day.

Unfortunately, Rockstar is still keeping details about The Ballad of Gay Tony under wraps as of press time… but if it’s as good as the last expansion was, our guess is that it’ll be worth the wait to revisit Liberty City once again. Stay tuned.

2K Sports today took the wraps off of Baseball Blast!, a Wii-exclusive baseball-themed minigame collection.

Here's the logo for Baseball Blast!

Before you think about putting Call of Duty: World at War away or trading it in towards Modern Warfare 2, Activision is giving you a reason to keep playing with the announcement of Map Pack #3.

This new DLC will deliver three new maps for multiplayer skirmishes, named Battery, Revolution, and Breach. These new maps are the result of a continuing collaborative project between Treyarch and Certain Affinity. Certain Affinity is a development team that sound familiar to some players, as they’ve been involved with Left 4 Dead and Halo 2 in the past, as well as helming development of Capcom’s Age of Booty. In addition to these new multiplayer maps, Treyarch will also be offering a new Zombie map, called Der Riese.

According to a post on the World at War website, the Battery map take place on an armored island in the ocean, Revolution takes place in Russia, and Breach is set in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate. As for Der Riese, it is said to be a Nazi research facility and features the Pack A Punch machine, which upgrades weaponry, and also has transporters, which may supply quick escapes from potentially fatal situations. The post also mentions that 10 new Achievements and Trophies will be added to World at War’s already extensive list.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a more solid date for the release of Map Pack #3– other than the fact that it’s coming in August. No pricing details have been mentioned, either, although it’s a likely bet that it will sell for $10 (800 Microsoft Points). If nothing else, Map Pack #3 could be a nice buffer to get players over the hump and satisfy their FPS cravings until Modern Warfare 2 invades in November. Watch for more specifics on Map Pack #3 as the August draws closer.

For those of you Wii owners who might not have noticed, there’s an option to update the firmware for the console to version 4.1 as of Thursday morning.

The details of the update are rather nebulous, if you read the message that Nintendo sent accompanying the update reminder:

This update provides behind-the-scenes fixes that will not affect features but will improve the overall system performance.

The Japanese 4.1 update was to address a bug in Wii Sports Resort that had to do with playing the game after having played a Virtual Console or WiiWare game loaded from an SD card. Apparently, the bug forced users to watch a Wii MotionPlus tutorial video every time the game was booted up, rather than just the first time– before a save was created for the game in the Wii’s internal memory. There are worse bugs, to be sure, but it’s understandable how this bug might be at least moderately annoying. It’s widely expected that this 4.1 update for the United States addresses the same bug, but Nintendo has not commented on the update, as of press time.

Wii Sports Resort will be available in retail stores on Sunday, July 26th, at a suggested retail price of $50 and comes with one Wii MotionPlus accessory. As for the firmware update, if you have not yet received a message from Nintendo with an option to download the update, you can always manually check for new firmware updates by selecting the Wii System Update option, which is located on page 3 of the Wii System Settings screen.

After you’ve downloaded the update, keep it locked right here at Games Are Evil for much more Wii coverage– including our upcoming full Wii Sports Resort review, as we put this long-awaited follow-up through its paces.

It was less than a year ago when a wise (and good looking – ed.) writer opined on this very site about the possible ramifications of the recession-laden economy on the gaming industry. Since then, we’ve seen some notable mergers and closures within the ranks or publishers and developers, and the overall picture continues to be less than rosy. There’s a prediction on the table that June’s NPD figures (due out on July 16th) look to be disappointing again, with a call of software sales possibly declining as much as 23% over a year ago. Wii console sales have been gradually declining, while Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware sales, though more stable than the Wii, still trail Nintendo’s hardware by a metric ton.

The bottom line here is that this industry is in a rut now and is primed for a continued freefall given the obvious decision by gaming companies to ignore not only recent trends, but also the generally sad state of the economy. Despite repeated calls from retailers and publishers to drop hardware prices, nobody is blinking on the manufacturer end of things. Software companies aren’t helping things either by continuing to overprice their retail offerings and by stripping out features and functionalities that consumers used to get with game purchases a generation ago in favor of milking a secondary revenue stream by way of adding these features on later via downloadable content, or DLC. Instead of action, we’re seeing a lot of finger-pointing and posturing from companies, blaming problems on everything from the used game market to executive posturing to an almost blatant facepalm towards their constituents.

It’s almost as if the entire industry is so full of itself due to its fantastic run of popularity over the last couple of console generations that it forgot how things got so good in the first place.

If you look at console hardware, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen any notable downward movement in terms of price. While it can be understood that the Wii’s runaway success has been enough of a reason to keep the console price point where it’s been since launch, that doesn’t mean that a price cut should be completely out of the question. The last three months have seen a steep decline in sales for Wii hardware: March moved 601,000 units, April saw a decline to 340,000 units, and May only saw 290,000 units sold– which was the lowest number since January of 2008. The March through May pitfall has also affected Microsoft and Sony. The back-to-back 175,000 months for the 360 in April and May are two of the worst on record for Microsoft. As for Sony, the PlayStation 3 has never had a chance to succeed, primarily because the cost of the hardware is prohibitive.

The obvious way to stimulate sales and get the needle moving in a positive direction is to cut pricing. Sweetening console deals by throwing in games only works marginally well, especially at this point in time as disposable incomes are at a pretty low level. Sony is at the forefront of these price cut suggestions, despite their cries of not being able to afford it. If that’s the case and Sony wishes to focus on profitability, then they can expect the same dismal numbers every month… irregardless of the impressive library of exclusives that the PlayStation 3 has been putting together. Sure, I wouldn’t mind playing Uncharted 2 or Heavy Rain… but $400 or more for a console is too steep when you consider that gas prices are still high and there’s no job security out there for me to have $400 to drop on a piece of machinery. Sony can’t compete on just software alone. The hardware needs to be attainable so that everyone can play it, instead of still playing to Ken Kutaragi’s 2005 claim that people will want to work two jobs just to own one. People need those two jobs just to survive– not for a video game console. Microsoft needs to sweeten the deal on their end, too. $200 is great in that it’s less than a Wii, but there’s not enough on-board flash memory to make it viable for all of the Xbox 360’s functionalities and adding a (proprietary) hard drive is still too expensive. In Nintendo’s case, the declining sales figures speak for themselves. How much more profit does Nintendo need? It’s likely that even a $50 price cut would still garner profit for Nintendo on each Wii sold, and a $200 price point– along with upcoming ‘09 releases like Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii– should easily bolster sales closer to where they’ve been for the better part of the last year or so.

The problem facing video game software is two-fold. The more obvious issue is that software is expensive. In this generation of consoles, it’s been harder and harder for consumers to justify the 20% “next-gen tax” that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners are paying for most new games for their platforms. Aside from aesthetic upgrades, are this generation’s video games that much more advanced than they’ve been? It’s debatable, at best. If you add in Collector’s Edition inflation (like the just-announced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Prestige package, complete with night vision goggles), things get more expensive. Granted, you don’t have to buy these special editions, but we’re seeing some crazy pricing for premiums ranging in the $100+ range. The same concerns can be leveled at the music game genre, which continues to litter the landscape with plastic instruments that can run for as much as $250. With retailers still struggling to clear out older instruments, it’s surprising that Activision and MTV Games continue to flood the market with marginally improved instruments while creating larger trash runs for consumers in order to rid themselves of older or unused ones.

The more debatable– and controversial– problem with software lies with its ties to downloadable content. The promise of DLC was great when the idea came to fruition a few years ago, as the ability to add replay value to already-existing titles was a positive thing. Admittedly, we have seen several fantastic examples of DLC. Bethesda has continually added new content to Fallout 3 with several expansions. Rockstar came through with fantastic add-on content for Grand Theft Auto IV, and another expansion is expected later this year. These expansions came well after the games hit retail shelves and felt like they added to the gameplay experience. Unfortunately, the dark side of DLC is that it has now given publishers reason to start charging consumers for optional things that they would have received as part of the package in generations past. From Ace Combat 6 and Beautiful Katamari to Resident Evil 5 and NCAA Football 10, examples of DLC fleecing are becoming more rampant. Plane skins, Prince cousins, Versus modes, and game cheats all used to come with the purchase price of a game… but this is no longer the case. It’s almost as if publishers are holding back content purposely because they know that it can be sold as DLC later on. It’s a shameful practice that started with Oblivion’s horse armor and has now proliferated into an almost expected and accepted practice. The nickel-and-diming of the average consumer will eventually take its toll.

Despite warnings from analysts, writers, retailers, and even angry consumers… it’s questionable as to whether we’ll see any major changes. Price cuts may come, but will they be too late? Perhaps we’ll see a regression in software pricing back towards what we’ve seen for the past couple of console generations, but even then, it’s likely that we’ll still be saddled with microtransactions in order to gain the same type of experience that we got from gaming before the the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 arrived. Even if gaming companies say that they hear what we’re saying, it’s doubtful that they are listening.

Your Wallet Hates You

It’s the last week of October, and we’re now squarely in the midst of the annual fourth-quarter crush of video game releases. These past two weeks alone have seen me spend upwards of over $400 on new games, and there’s still a ton of stuff that I’d like to be able to buy… if I only had money left over. Granted, my purchase of Guitar Hero: World Tour ran me close to $200 alone, but I also spent money on Bioshock, Rock Revolution, and Rock Band 2 for my PlayStation 3 plus Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia for my Nintendo DS. There’s still Fallout 3’s release this week, plus Resistance 2, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Call of Duty: World at War, and several more titles for the PS3 alone by year’s end.

Holy crap.

The big concern, as it always is this time of year, is how some games can stand out from the pack in order to get noticed. Especially considering that we’re all but in a recession this year, it becomes a bigger gamble. How do gamers decide which games to get and which ones to pass up? How can publishers and developers ensure that their games are the ones that consumers can’t be without for the holiday season?

I have another question. Why do publishers feel the need to release most of their strong releases in a 2-3 month span?

Times have changed, folks. More video game players are adults than they are children, so it’s no longer as vital for publishers to release so many titles for the holidays. I do realize that the holiday shopping season is important, but consumers likely have at least some disposable income during the other 9-10 months of the year. It’s perfectly acceptable to release a potential killer app in March, or May, or July.

[Editor's Note: Our friends at the Goozex Report have a strong argument about why Fallout 3 should have been a summer 09 title, for example...]

If you’re buying games for yourself, all you have to do is look at the potential price tag for all of the games you want. Use my example; I spent $400 in two weeks, and that’s not nearly everything that I would have liked to have bought. That means, very likely, that the other games I mentioned are going to have to wait a few weeks at least. Had Fallout 3 or Resistance 2 come out a bit earlier, I might have spent money on those instead of other games. Obviously, fans of those games will find the money to buy them (if they haven’t pre-ordered and paid them off in full already), but less serious fans of those franchises might have to make cuts elsewhere.

CAPCOM Gets It Right

Look at Capcom. They have the right idea. They have two potential huge releases slated for the first quarter of 2009, rather than trying to compete for what’s sure to be limited spending cash for this year’s holiday rush. Street Fighter IV is likely due in January or February, and then Resident Evil 5 hits in March. While I am sure that both of these titles would have at least held their own this season, holding off on releasing these games ensures more of the spotlight when they do land on store shelves and less competition from tons of other software.

I realize that this argument comes up every year, but the reality of the situation has hit me harder this year than in any year in my recent memory. With a tighter cash flow for many consumers, there are going to be more surprise losers in terms of sales this season than there will be winners.

Are there any games you’ll just have to pass up this year?

Since Qore was rolled out on the PlayStation Network Store earlier this year, there’s been a sense of division. Qore subscribers have been the early beneficiaries of demos for SOCOM Confrontation and Valkyria Chronicles, to name a couple… while the non-Qore folks are left kinda wondering if it’s worth the extra monthly or yearly charges.

As an annual Qore subscriber, I’ve not really seen the benefits of such a premium program as of yet. Aside from the sheer size of each monthly installment, the demos really haven’t been anything (personally) to write home about, and the rest of the content is uninspiring. Monthly publications have been rendered nearly moot by the advent of gaming news and review websites, many of which are updated multiple times daily and which contain much of the same types of content that Qore provides (minus the weak minigames that Backbone Entertainment has been adding in the last few installments). Basically– the annual fee that I paid has been a waste of money and bandwidth so far. Perhaps the biggest slap to subscribers come by way of ads that tend to disrupt the flow of the presentation; if I just paid $20, why am I still getting ads to begin with?

Now Sony has added a section within the PSN Store for Premium Themes. While it’s understandable that Sony would like to score some extra revenue, charging for themes is a potentially dangerous idea. Up to now, we’ve seen all themes for free; they’ve been additional tools of promotion for games… but now we’re looking at a price for the Bioshock theme? Really? Sure, it’s $1… but the cost isn’t so much the issue as is the fact that we’re now seeing the reality of paying for themes. Will we now see a decrease in the amount of free themes that we once saw? It’s sure possible, despite what people at Sony Computer Entertainment America may try to otherwise spin.

Tiger 09 is fantastic - but $7.99 for a new course?

Look, I get that PSN is a free service to use. I know that it’s got a long way to go before it comes anywhere close to what Xbox Live has to offer, but free is still cheaper than $50 annually. My big problem is that, especially in these difficult economic times, these alternate revenue streams are dividing the PSN userbase and souring expectations… and leaves many asking when PSN will become a pay-to-play service. These recent moves can certainly be interpreted to mean that Sony’s considering such a move. Why else would Sony be looking to charge for things on PSN that used to be free? It’s one thing when third-party publishers charge arguably exorbitant amounts for disc-based add-ons (like EA’s asking price of $7.50 for one golf course)… but it’s another when Sony themselves start charging for early access to demos that users never had to pay for before. Sure, most of the demos do become available to everyone after a time, but that moment of initial impact is already gone by the boards.

It’s entirely possible that the Premium Theme experiment will go by the boards; looking at the initial list of themes here, there’s only one that’s game-related. The rest are based on animals or on colleges and universities. I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for the Man’s Best Friend theme, but I’m not motivated enough to drop money on that when, for just a little bit more, I can buy a new song for Rock Band that I can play to death. Themes were a nice perk, but if Sony starts to charge for more and more of them, then I’ll just stick with what I have. As for Qore, though, I don’t see an end in sight, meaning that certain demos will continue to be limited to subscribers initially.

As far as PSN going to a pay-to-play scheme, I don’t think that it’s an imminent change, but I do think that Sony is watching closely to see how well that its premium options are faring. With Sony in its current last-place position with the PlayStation 3, it makes sense for them to use the allure of free online play as a positive when trying to push more units this holiday season and beyond. With the trend towards nickel-and-diming PSN users, you have to wonder how “free” the service really is.

To me, the most disappointing thing here is that, by charging for demos and themes, Sony is limiting the promotion of certain software for the PlayStation 3. Demos have always been a great tool to get consumers excited for certain titles, and themes have been a way to extend that excitement and show a certain amount of “fan love” for a game. Some people will undoubtedly pay for these things, but there will be many more who don’t– and, considering the competitive nature of the console gaming marketplace, it becomes one more disadvantage for a platform struggling to make up ground against Microsoft and Nintendo.

YEA or NAY? The (Not So) Ultimate Battle

YEA or NAY will become a regular staple of the Perspective, as I’ll give you some quick takes on news and notes from the last week:

1: YEA to the Bioshock demo that went up on PSN this past Thursday. Since I don’t own a 360, this was my first exposure to this award-winning title from last year, and I loved what I saw and played. The art style was pleasing, the storyline was eerie, the visuals and sound were impressive, and I really got a kick out of the gameplay. I hope to get my hands on a copy upon release.

2: NAY to EA Sports and their fleecing of Tiger Woods 09 owners. We gave this game high marks, but $7.50 (plus tax) for one course? ONE? Is that seriously the price that the market will bear? I know DLC has always been a hit-or-miss thing when it comes to add-ons, but this is one add-on that seems a little over the top in terms of price.

3: YEA to Midway’s NFL Blitz IP. On a whim, I ventured out to my local indie game store last week and wound up scoring NFL Blitz, Blitz 2000, and Blitz 2001 for my PSX… as well as Blitz 20-02 for my PS2. Now that football season is well underway, it’s been sweet to apply late hits to the players of yesteryear, complete some long bombs, and be treated to Tim Kitzrow’s awesome commentary. Thanks to EA, we’ll probably never see another NFL game in this series; but I hope Blitz: The League II is the bees’ knees.

4: NAY to the Nintendo DSi. Sorry, Nintendo… giving up the GBA slot for a .3 megapixel camera seems like a lame tradeoff. I like my DS Lite the way it is… why must you saddle us with yet another piece of hardware? Instead, how about some more first-party games for the unit? Hmmm?

5: NAY to the upcoming AC/DC Rock Band Expansion. Although the promise of Trophy support and Achievements is tempting, I still don’t understand why this set of 18 tracks isn’t a DLC package. I won’t even comment on how $40 is ridiculous for an expansion. This was foul when Activision did it with the ’80s and Aerosmith Guitar Hero expansions– errr… games– but at least those had somewhat varied track selections. If I’m going to pay that much money, there better damned well be more than 18 songs included.

Looks like this is the end!

All good things must come to an end, including this week’s Double Header Perspective. Keep those comments and e-mails coming, keep on gaming, and stay tuned to Games Are Evil for coverage of all of your favorite games and systems.

You can contact Pete at pskerritt@gamesareevil (dot) com