This image is from Ubisoft. It's really good info and it explains a lot. Well worth reading the rest of my little post here if this kind of thing interests you.
The platform (Nintendo/Sony etc) take 20% from physical sales and 30% from digital sales. The 30% is industry standard for digital distribution. It's also 30% for any mobile phone app store too. The app store or eSHop or whatever is the distributer of the game.
The physical carts or discs take 25%. This would be Amazon, EB Games, Gamestop or whoever you buy the game from.
This means overall from a developer perspective, digital cost 30% and physical cost 45%. This is most likely many developers perfer digital distribution. There's 15% more in the developer's pockets for the digital over the physical.
Also the platform holder (Nintendo/Sony/etc) get 30% for digital as opposed to the 20% for physical. That's why the platform holders all push for more digital sales.
So who loses out here with digital sales? The physical stores. It actually makes more financial sense for the developers to go digital only (based on the above information). Also the customers miss out (all of us) because we miss out on the physical game.
The only way to get many publishers to put out a physical copy is to prove to them that there is enough potential physical sales to justify the 15% less revenue per physical copy sold. In my opinion this is why many games are released digitally first and physically later. Once there is evidence of decent sales (digitally), they see the cart/disc is less of a risk. Thhat's for the times when physical is released months after the digital. But the times when the physical is released 1-2 weeks after the digital? That's just developer greed.
How does this relate to us as game customers?
Pretty simple question this one. It means we customers really need to push hard and let the developers know that we will buy the physical versions. We need to prove that we will buy the physical versions in enough numbers to overcome the 15% revenue loss per sale when compared to digital.
This is assuming the physical is the same cost as the digital which often is not the case. When there's a difference in price, most of the time the developer still makes the same revenue per sale, it's just split differently so that 10% is accounted for by a higher physical game price.
Physical media is reliant on two things to survive.
1. The current state of the ISP. It's not fiesable or even possible in many places around the world to download large games so physical is the only option. It's disc/cart or no sale at all.
2. We customers screaming loud enough - Yes we will buy the physical version. We need to make sure the physical version sales are always strong. If this ever slows, physical versions will become less and less likely.
The platform (Nintendo/Sony etc) take 20% from physical sales and 30% from digital sales. The 30% is industry standard for digital distribution. It's also 30% for any mobile phone app store too. The app store or eSHop or whatever is the distributer of the game.
The physical carts or discs take 25%. This would be Amazon, EB Games, Gamestop or whoever you buy the game from.
This means overall from a developer perspective, digital cost 30% and physical cost 45%. This is most likely many developers perfer digital distribution. There's 15% more in the developer's pockets for the digital over the physical.
Also the platform holder (Nintendo/Sony/etc) get 30% for digital as opposed to the 20% for physical. That's why the platform holders all push for more digital sales.
So who loses out here with digital sales? The physical stores. It actually makes more financial sense for the developers to go digital only (based on the above information). Also the customers miss out (all of us) because we miss out on the physical game.
The only way to get many publishers to put out a physical copy is to prove to them that there is enough potential physical sales to justify the 15% less revenue per physical copy sold. In my opinion this is why many games are released digitally first and physically later. Once there is evidence of decent sales (digitally), they see the cart/disc is less of a risk. Thhat's for the times when physical is released months after the digital. But the times when the physical is released 1-2 weeks after the digital? That's just developer greed.
How does this relate to us as game customers?
Pretty simple question this one. It means we customers really need to push hard and let the developers know that we will buy the physical versions. We need to prove that we will buy the physical versions in enough numbers to overcome the 15% revenue loss per sale when compared to digital.
This is assuming the physical is the same cost as the digital which often is not the case. When there's a difference in price, most of the time the developer still makes the same revenue per sale, it's just split differently so that 10% is accounted for by a higher physical game price.
Physical media is reliant on two things to survive.
1. The current state of the ISP. It's not fiesable or even possible in many places around the world to download large games so physical is the only option. It's disc/cart or no sale at all.
2. We customers screaming loud enough - Yes we will buy the physical version. We need to make sure the physical version sales are always strong. If this ever slows, physical versions will become less and less likely.