the challenge of buying games at physical stores

content/post/2024/06/the-challenge-of-buying-games-at-physical-stores.md

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+---
+title: The Challenge Of Buying Games At Physical Stores
+date: 2024-06-06T20:29:00+02:00
+tags:
+  - games
+  - collecting
+categories:
+  - retro
+---
+
+The remake of _Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door_ released a couple of weeks ago---the same _Paper Mario_ that's on my [Top 25 Best Games of All Time](/post/2023/10/top-25-best-games-of-all-time/) list. Naturally, I didn't have to think twice to consider buying it, and naturally, as a person [who prefers holding the real deal](/post/2022/10/is-collecting-physical-games-worth-it-part-iii) to an eShop release, I wanted to bike to a store as a welcome break from work. 
+
+Yet that gradually becomes more and more challenging: brick and mortar stores offering video games are disappearing. In my earlier post [Overlooked Reasons To Still Buy Physical Media](/post/2023/09/overlooked-reasons-to-still-buy-physical-media), I wrote:
+
+> Physical games can be more difficult to get [...] the added hassle of biking to a brick & mortar store, hoping it'll be in stock [...] I prefer first sweating and then clenching something in hand to return home. That also means, to a lesser extend, that buying physical media can still be considered a somewhat social event.
+
+Something I didn't consider while writing those arguments was the availability of the store itself, not just the game that may or may not be in stock. In our neighbourhood in the last years, I've seen specialized video game store chains close up shop, toy store departments vanish, and even general electronics stores move or disappear. 
+
+Presumably easy access to online shops offering competitive prices are to blame, which may be understandable, especially when it comes to first-party Nintendo releases. Those babies are never on sale and always cost the full price with an MSRP set at `€60`. With Amazon-esque digital stores selling these games at `€50` or even a few Euros less---offering shipping and guaranteed playing within 24 hours---you'd be a fool even trying to get out of the house to start looking for a _real_ store that you know can't and/or won't compete. A discount of almost `20%` is hard to ignore. 
+
+And still, in the past, I have ignored that price difference and happily biked to the game store to pay the full price, even though my friends laughably call me their only customer. After a few weeks the game is on sale on the Nintendo eShop and I kick myself yet again for always wanting the physical release. 
+
+The problem is no longer limited to me and my silly philosophical struggles with wanting something ethically sound that I own. Digital video game release management eventually equals less physical game sales, which eventually equals stores having to close. Statista collected data that visualizes the [distribution of computer and video game sales](https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/) in the United States from 2009 to 2018, by delivery format:
+
+![](../statista-virtualsales.jpg "2009: 20% digital sales. 2018: 83% digital. Information copyright Statista.")
+
+Remember, that last bar, where `83%` of the sales originate from digital stores, was data from 6 years ago, meaning in 2024 that'll easily bee `90%+`. According to my interpretation of the Statista summary, this does include mobile games and extra downloadable content, but still. I'd love to try and correlate this to video game related stores going bankrupt but can't find decent data without comparing apples to oranges. 
+
+In a [Forbes mailing list article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchwallace/2023/10/13/yes-a-digital-only-gaming-future-is-coming-and-we-cant-stop-it/), their source claims that "Best Buy plans to exit the physical media business for good next year, possibly as soon as the end of Q1 2024". Nothing related to be found for smaller European chains, but the message here is painfully clear. 
+
+Does this all mean that, like Forbes is trying to tell us, "We Can't Stop It"? Or does it mean we are to blame when we _don't_ take the bake to the local shop and instead use our smartphones from our coach to order the physical copy instead---or just use the controller to navigate the eShop? 
+
+Half the time I can't even take that bike because publishers seemed to stop caring: physical releases are becoming a rarity, sometimes they're only released in Japan and I'm forced to import a copy, or Limited Run-esque releases drive up prices of carts to push buying games into the world of collecting where big bucks are exchanged with ease on various special editions.
+
+So where does that leave me and my desire to buy the _Paper Mario_ Switch release? I eventually found a copy in a bigger electronics store not too far from my usual place without having to take out the car, so I'm good.
+
+For now.