Okay - let me step into my grumpy boots.
I have just purchased two digital downloads from the Nintendo E-Shop in the past three weeks and have been thoroughly impressed with my purchases - but something sinister is tugging at my conscience...
What is the overall incentive in buying digital downloads, and what possible benefits do I get by by-passing my local outlet?
To make matters worse I have just claimed my points on-line (Club Nintendo) for my purchases, and guess what - I get 50 points less than a retail purchase ticket!
So let me explain - (1) I do not pay for the manual, disc or packaging (2) I do not pay for the shipping or mainland tax and (3) I do not pay for the retail mark-up. What does all that mean when I still pay retail value (sometimes the retailers have specials that better the on-line cost) and I use a large chunk of my Internet data to complete the transaction.
And now, to add insult to injury, I am getting shafted 50 "star" points...
Nintendo? What madness is this? Is this relative to the lesser consumers of New Zealand? Have you actually seen the poor offers being made on-line? Do you even care?
But this trend is not unique to Nintendo so I ask the question - what are the actual benefits of current digital downloads? Hell - when I'm finished with the game I can't even sell the download to another consumer (I am referring to current consoles), so why the exorbitant cost?
If gaming "companies" (I refuse to use the term corporations but it is getting that way) want to make digital downloads more attractive to the average punter they better damn well get realistic about the costs, because it seems to me that the only winners at the end of the day are the publisher - not the gamer - as opposed to both benefiting in this heated and often spurious contest.
Where would any company be without giving incentives to their customers?
And so Sez Jez!
1 comment:
Totally agree! Digital downloads need to offer better value than they currently do, but the sad fact is that 99% of all games are just as expensive if not more so via digital download.
All the consoles fall victim to this and from what I have heard about the next gen ones, its not going to get better in the short term.
I do look with envy towards our friends on the PC side their brilliant Steam service. If consoles offered a similar service I would definitely go digital for all my top games that I want to hang onto such as Halo, Gears, Killer Instinct and Titanfall.
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