News - Analysts: 92 per cent of all PC games sales are now digital

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When did you last buy a physical copy of a PC game?

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I wonder what the percentage is of games that are actually played.

"When did you last buy a physical copy of a PC game?"

Oddly enough given the title graphic; B4

Largely because although i am forced to play it through the EA game service i wasn't willing to trust it as a purchasing portal in the way i do Steam.

I try to get physical copies of the (new) games I buy.

Of course, the last one I bought was probably... ME3, I think.

But yes, I do still have an optical drive in my PC.

Just as an example this is why I always buy retail - For a boxed physical copy of "Thief" from amazon - Cost £9 approx.

Same game from Steam which costs them a small amout of virtual storage space and some bandwidth to deliver to me - £20

So that's a 100% mark up for a digital game that contains no physical item production or storage costs?

Yeah i'll continue to buy physical for a long time to come until they can solve that issue.

Picked up The Elder Scrolls Anthology a couple of weeks ago. Not only was it cheap (about 10 GBP), but you just can't beat physical boxes for presentation et al.

I do, however, have a tendency to buy games on Steam and GOG as well. Also games of which I own a physical copy.

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Originally Posted by HEXUS

When did you last buy a physical copy of a PC game?

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Last week :/

Not as if we have much of a choice is it....

You try finding a well stocked 'real world' retailer with all the latest titles, you can't.

Given the choice, I'd still prefer a physical copy every time, but like I said, we don't have the choice, so I buy digital under protest, so to speak.

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Originally Posted by Bagpuss

Not as if we have much of a choice is it....

You try finding a well stocked 'real world' retailer with all the latest titles, you can't.

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Messrs Amazon, Game, Play etc. would like a word :p

If after new releases boxed copies are usually cheaper, but I get most games in steam sales and humble bundles which makes up most of my gaming.

This doesn't surprise me. Not many high-street shops have a decent range of PC games on the shelf to browse through any more.

Combine that with the advantage of digital by never losing the disc, being able to download again and again to new machines and the cost saving we see...

The only thing stopping consoles going the same way is the inability to play back catalogues on new consoles and the second hand market.

Oh and the fact I no longer have a built in disc drive probably contributes to my lack of hard media. It's too much hassle to use a portable disc drive that may or may not have enough power feeding it at any time.

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In 2013, sales of downloadable mobile, PC, console and tablet games reached £1.18 billion in the UK, whilst physical copies accounted for £1.015 billion.

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Uhhh, not sure how that makes out that digital downloads make around 92% of the purchases last year. Is it not meant to be £1.015 million? That would make the "statistics" more plausible.

Last physical game I bought was Rome 2 TW
Which was september
Apart from that and a few elder scrolls games I would say the rest of my games were digitally bought.
Steam sales are so annoying for the old wallet

For the most part I'll still buy boxed copies of games unless a DL version is significantly cheaper and/or it's tied to a DRM platform like Steam anyway.

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Originally Posted by Tabbykatze

Uhhh, not sure how that makes out that digital downloads make around 92% of the purchases last year. Is it not meant to be £1.015 million? That would make the "statistics" more plausible.

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It could be that boxed games tend to be more expensive games, whereas downloaded games are often fifty-random-games-you'll-never-play-for-a-fiver bundles, much as krazy_olie said.

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Do you think hard copies of games will be replaced completely in the near future? When was the last time you purchased a hard copy of a game? Please let us know in the comments below.

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I can certainly see the possibility of being able to buy a digital download in physical stores instead of a boxed set - so Game, Tesco, etc will have boxes with the usual "if you want to buy this then contact a member of staff". That said, there's still a lot of folks with poor broadband provision for whom the physical (/optical) disk is the only way to get the gigabytes of data that comprise a AAA game these days.

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Originally Posted by Jedibeeftrix

"When did you last buy a physical copy of a PC game?"
Oddly enough given the title graphic; B4

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Ditto here, and strangely enough I bought CoD:Ghosts via the same pre-order. Last order I placed with Game ... really must get around to going in the local one this year.

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Originally Posted by Jedibeeftrix

Largely because although i am forced to play it through the EA game service i wasn't willing to trust it as a purchasing portal in the way i do Steam.

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At the risk of sounding a positive note, Origin is now where near as downright obnoxious as it used to be. Heck, I accidentally bought SimCity for someone (thinking I could gift it) and EA ecommerce support were very friendly and helpful in returning the payment. I've done two purchases since and both were pretty straightforward.

No way though that I'd buy anything via Ubisoft's uPlay service - if I want their titles then I'll wait for it to appear on Steam. Had two experiences with uPlay purchasing and both were a nightmare.

Often with brand new games it works out considerably cheaper to buy a physical copy instead of a digital version, also digital prices stay high a lot longer than the physical ones.

However I will buy games via Steam or GetGames if the price is right, although recently I've started going to companies that just sell you a Steam code which often works out even cheaper still for newer games.