You know what I miss? Games that came on disks. And then the expansion was on a disk and it would always work with the original game. And you didn't need the internet AT ALL to play.
Why did we go away from that again?
I could go on and on about this more than I'll probably type, but let me explain a lot of this madness.
Keep this in mind, first thing's first -
many people have fast Internet connections, at least here in USA. So, it's very easy just to download your games in say a short amount of time - i.e a few hours or much less. And since they often have way more sales w/ big price-cuts on digital copies more so than retail, if you have a fast connection, where are you going to go for your games? Digital.
Seriously - have you ever seen a sale for The Witcher: EE PC at $5 on Retail? DNF PC at $25 at retail? Bulletstorm PC at $12 retail? Dragon Age 2 PC at retail for $30? DAO: Ultimate for $12 at Retail? Nope - those were all digital deals.
Some dev's, distributors, publishers, etc do have trouble getting their game into retail - for whatever reason. And retailers, shippers, and other middle-men also get a cut of the $. Perfect example of trouble getting into retail - Dead Island.
Dead Island is going to retail w/ a double-partnership at retail w/ both Square-Enix and Deep Silver. Square-Enix here in the USA to distribute, while the publisher Deep Silver couldn't get their game into retail here. Why? B/c Deep Silver doesn't do enough constant business w/ retailers, to suit the retailers. Retailers are down w/ Square-Enix and have been for a LONG TIME - there's someone they will let into their retail club, so Deep Silver partnered w/ Square-Enix.
Hence why Steam and EA are pushing the hell out of their digital services - they can cut out the middle-men, since they are dev's AND publishers. And also hence
Outerlight's article and many others that have commented on digital vs. retail; and about how digital sales saved them. They made much more off digital sales than going to retail - especially true for a lot of Indie titles and niche type of titles. If digital is where they seem to be making most of their money - why deal w/ retail? Also, hence why Risen 2 will be Steamworks only. What version sold the best by a mile for them for Risen 1? Yup - Steam version.
Especially these days, a lot of the retail copies - the
DRM is often now the same as the digital version, unlike the old days. Less versions to patch, since many are not doing the disc-check anymore - even for retail version. Usually, nowadays - most companies seem to aim for having a Steam version and the rest of them are Non-Steam versions. In the old days, D2D version might have their own online activation DRM; Steam version has their own DRM; Retail has a disc-check; etc etc. Less versions to patch, less resource and money to spend on extra patches.
Also, about
retail copies - they often don't pack much into Regular Edition retail copies anymore [likely you'll get a Game + maybe a hard-copy manual], unless it's a Special Edition. So, this begs the question of - if you have a decent Net connection, why buy from retail? You can w/ most digital services back-up stuff yourself to DVD, BR disc, another HDD, etc -> Steam and Impulse - you can "Archive" the files to cut to disc; Amazon DL and G4WL - they give you the installer files; D2D gives you installer files w/in a ZIP file; etc etc.
DLC Mania - the other reason games are going digital. DLC, love it or hate it, often sells VERY well. Best way to distribute DLC is digitally, not through retail. You ever seen DLC double-packs [like Borderlands had and Fallout 3] sell well at Retail? No, but complete Ultimate Editions usually fair much better.
