My local board game shop sells beer and snacks so sometimes I browse and have a pint just so I can support them at least a little bit. But yeah, it’s hard not to buy on Amazon.
Yeah but then people just buy online and then come to their space to play. And God forbid they should try to charge you for the space - the outcry is ferocious.
Which is why for regular leagues, like with Magic or X-wing, having a monthly fee that is returned as store credit, seems to be generally well accepted where I am. That and charging for the quarterly tournaments and such. At least at the places I go those seem to be pretty common, and not fought against.
It does nothing for one time irregular purchases, however. There’s little incentive for someone to buy their copy of Scythe or Rebellion at the FLGS this way, but that’s another story. I’m not sure what you could do there, other than rely on the goodwill of people like me who value them enough to provide their custom, and markup.
Well Kickstarter would like to have a word with you, but otherwise… that’s my point. It seemed like customers were paying the same for less, except now you can get quality games for 10 dollars or even less. You didn’t get that often while shopping store shelves.
Now that I’ve played with CoolStuffInc a bit, I’ve found they can somewhat often be cheaper than Amazon even while paying shipping. You just have to be aware of prices on the games you want.
Same here. The local games store is tough to buy stuff there. Pathfinder books for 50 bucks that are 29.99 on amazon.
What I do buy there are dice, figurines, gaming mats, etc. That stuff is usually pretty close to amazon, and I get to support local business there. They also allow people to use their space for gaming, and sell soda/chips etc.
Why do you keep bringing up this totally irrelevant point? Being able to buy some “quality game” for ten bucks has absolutely nothing to do with buying games I specifically want to play, like Persona 5 or literally any first-party Nintendo game - you know, stuff that isn’t on PC.
My local has snacks but no beer. Lucky for me. If they did I’d never leave.
I guess it’s a Pacific Northwest thing, even my local Starbucks serves beer. Not good for my waistline or general sobriety but I don’t really miss either that much.
Because you keep claiming there is a net negative for consumers today when I don’t think that’s the case. Game prices have held for years, sales on the digital fronts are step, you can pretty much buy any game, including your games on Amazon at an auto discount, and Nintendo especially is still available on the used market. How is that a “net negative” for consumers compared to the days where Gamestop and a handful of other places were the only places to buy games at retail price?
The move to all-digital - that is, games ceasing to be available at retail - is a net negative for consumers.
Why do you think the market is shifting if the consumers aren’t part of that drive? Maybe we’re going towards digital because it’s not a net negative.
Man, I love my state, but we’re literally only just now allowing liquor stores to sell alcohol on Sunday this freakin’ summer.
Michigan must have crazy sin taxes though, because man beer is expensive there.
Digital is more convenient for a reasonable portion of the market. It’s awful if you’re out in the boonies with slow internet or have a data cap where one game can eat up 1/4 or more of said cap. Retailers also aren’t offering 20% discounts on digital console titles at release, and there is zero resale value.
The AAA games for $5-10 that you could get on Steam in the past has been evaporating in the past few sales, and is markedly better than what you’ll get on consoles. If you don’t follow Nintendo’s offerings for instance, their digital sales are awful. Retail is almost always the better choice – doubly so when you consider the limited onboard storage of the Wii U and Switch.
I don’t know if it’s a net negative, but I do think there are aspects of an all-digital future that most people don’t think about until things go wrong.
A few days ago, Xbox Live went down. Whatever went down didn’t just make multiplayer not work. The server failure took down the ability to play any digital games. No one cares about that until they are staring at the error screen.
Another example, people love social media. They love sharing and communicating via social media. Someday, social media will bite them on their collective asses when their decades of personal photos and histories are lost to them. Or when stuff they posted comes back to haunt them. Or they get hacked. We all know this, but that doesn’t stop us from using social media because the convenience and connection outweighs the danger. Until it happens.
You hit the nail on the head. You can’t pre-order digital edition console games from Amazon and get that 20% discount. And I like the ability to trade my used games in for store credit.
I’ve also taken a liking to steelcase editions of console games. They look nice on my shelf. :)
And in case anyone is questioning the status of Internet in the middle of nowhere:
Up until a few years ago, my household was stuck on HughesNet, a satellite Internet provider. We paid for their highest non-business plan, which gave us two megabits down and a 425-megabyte daily download cap. Then a local provider started offering a terrestrial wireless service, which we switched to immediately; their highest plan is uncapped and gives us…six megabits down.
I’m loving the simple-yet-obvious design of this year’s The Show.
Oh man yeah. I got steelbook cases for The Witcher 3 and ME: Andromeda and they are pretty sweet.
I am trying to go mostly digital with exceptions for games that have cool pack-ins like maps (I love maps) but a steel case is a thing of beauty.
That’s badass. And yeah, I love steelcase physical copies too.
Not enough to, like, buy them and store them and display them. But they’re really cool! ;)
Losing games retail would obviously be a net negative for consumers, as a whole. While many people wouldn’t be effected by an all digital games lineup, but those people who use/trade in physical games on the regular would be missing out. Lack of diversity in purchasing options isn’t ever going to be a net positive.
But, for most of us, me included, I end up buying games digitally because I don’t really care about owning hard copies of games, and while that may put us in the majority, there are still large groups of gamers that only buy retail copies of games. I know a lot of these people. Additionally, kids rarely ever end up buying non-retail games, as they don’t have debit/credit cards for purchasing, cash via allowance is pretty much the only way for them buy games.
The problem with places like gamestop, is that they have refused to diversify their business (until recently, those places are an ocean of funko pops now) to compete with digital sales. I think one huge market that gamestop could compete in, is used classic games and accessories. There are quite a few successful used game shops around that do the majority of business in selling used games/hardware. The markup is there, but the advantages of a physical location for returns is worthwhile.