GamePointsNow slams digital and physical price disparity

It’s cheaper to buy a boxed game with a digital code inside than to just buy the code, says online retailer GamePointsNow.

The firm’s MD Simon Ward says publishers are charging retailers more for digital games than physical ones as it eliminates the cost of stock holding and removes the risk if a game doesn’t sell.

Yet he says this attitude is holding back the growth of digital games.

Some publishers are limiting their digital roll out. Others aren’t taking it seriously by charging high premiums,” said Ward. The digital products we have access to are much more expensive than their physical counterparts, which contain the codes anyway.

We want to see digital codes for games available on all platforms and have access to full game catalogues so we can help publishers move the industry forward.”

Ward adds that publishers should back indies with their digital products as currently they are only partnering with the big retailers.

There’s a lack of digital support for online indies. There’s already publisher endorsed digital solutions for PC and PlayStation products but they’re only rolled out to the huge companies like Amazon and GAME, and in doing so hand them a default monopoly.”