Why are digital games more often more expensive than retail games?

I really don't understand this. I would buy more digital games if they were cheaper but it's often much more expensive to buy digitally.

With retail you have to print the disk, make the cases, ship the items, give margins for the store to profit etc.

The only thing requried for digital is servers to host the info and the bandwidth needs.

On top of all that there are the multiple money grubbing ediitons: "special" "gold" "heavy" etc etc editon for almost double more. I don't even have the option of trading in my games either.

While i agree, this year I've noticed games are less in the digital store.

I got Wolfenstein for 40 bucks CAD a few days ago, on Black Friday in store it's 50 bucks.

Same with NHL 18

People were used to paying $60 for games in the retail-dominated era, and publishers aren't about to argue that they're idiots for paying the same, even when pretty much all physical and retail-related COGS have suddenly disappeared. Companies will charge what they think we're prepared to pay for a product.

I got Wolfenstein 2 for 35.99 on newegg for the physical PC version.

I would have to think it's because retailers buy a bunch of copies for a set price, and they can't sell them, so they just lower the price to get rid of them faster. But, that's just a guess.

I'll assume you're talking console games here because the is barely a market for physical PC games these days.

Partially greed, publishers get more profit from digital games that's a simple fact but they also can't be seen to be undermining the brick and mortar shops, so partially parity. It's not good practice to undermine a huge part of your direct customers.

You pay more for convenience.

Greed combined with Sony and MS actually requiring a bigger cut of the profit on their stores than a storefront like Steam. They also have to pay their own people to review builds of games before they are released on their stores I imagine that's part of the cost too.

Also, when an older pc game is ported to console I think the companies often view it as a relaunch and reset the price to full. Lots of console gamers don't even know many of these games were out on PC so they just think they are new games.

Because there is no true competition for the digital game purchases on consoles. Sony/MS/Nintendo set the prices on Amazon etc for digital games. BB, Walmart, Amazon are all in competition, so they give deals to get the sale over their competition.

1. Physical games take up space, so that costs money. Distributors typically don't like to have to keep them for very long unless it's a hot product.
2. The cost associated with printing and shipping discs is only about 5-10% of the actual cost.
3. Servers cost money - a lot of money, actually. So does keeping them running. Like, lots of money.
4. Digital games frequently go on sale with crazy price drops after the initial hype wears off.
5. Digital games are far more convenient.
6. Physical copies usually only appeal to collectors as the games are usually out of date even on day 1.
7. No one ever needs a deluxe edition.

It's up to each person to decide which they prefer, but really the way things work today you basically go digital on PC, and a mix of digital and physical on console.

Because being able to purchase it from your living room is considered a luxury and thus you pay full price for that luxury. This is a real answer btw.

I only buy digital,but still don't care if hard copies are cheaper. I love the luxury of not going out early in the morning and freezing my ass at -25 Celsius.Also for big hyped game's,I don't have to stand in a line.,download the game at midnight or pre-order.It's worth the extra money. By the way I am not well off with money,I work at a little bit above min wage.

@gamevet77: Many have asked why we are paying equal to retail if the costs on their end are not present for digital. The answer is economics.

Places like BestBuy, Target, Walmart etc are guaranteed price parity. If they start lowering digital prices for any reason then outlets will sell physical at a matching price but still take their cut thereby cutting into publishers and devs cut.

As for not being able to trade the game in, well there is nothing fo physically resell. They don't need your digital rights back to sell more of them.

Because B and M retailers especially are complaining or have been more so this past couple of years, to publishers about physical retail space and the internet competition. GS especially has been on pubs about the digital copy prices hard and heavy, probably because they don't have much else to fall back on in terms of staying in business. Physical copies weren't flying off the shelves as quick as they would like and space has become a premium for many retailers, even for warehouses of internet retailers. Many pubs have agreed to lower the cost of physical copies and here we are. Retailers like Gamestop are trying harder to clear the shelves, offering buy 1 get 1 free type deals too and huge price drops because in light of the online competition and the convenience of digital copies, are apparently having a hard time getting rid of some of those physical games.

Full Digital for me! noneed to move to store AND i have already 3000+ comics on my shelves (most TPB and hard covers) so, i have no room for games (nor music nor movies) unless it's digital in my small appartment