The Move to Digital Distribution

Entertainment media is moving to digital distribution. Movies, video games, books, and music are available as downloads in addition to traditional retail, brick and mortar stores. Some of this media is exclusive to digital distribution and some is exclusive to retail. Soon though, we’ll be purchasing most of our media online via downloads. I was thinking about the benefits and flaws around this form of distribution and decided to write about it for a bit. To end on a high note and make the world seem a little brighter, I’ll discuss what I believe are the flaws first.

Flaws:

• DRM: Digital Rights Management is the easiest flaw to point out. It chains down your media. The media you bought is sort of yours… sort of rented. When implemented, it limits where and how you consume your media. You can only playback videos/music/games/books on certain devices, and need to jump through hoops if you need to change your device. Music is mostly being sold without DRM lately, but games, books, and videos are still prisoners to this practice. If the distributor you bought your media from decides to pull the plug on the service, you find yourself in a spot where you can’t access your media any more. That’s not fun at all!
• Pricing: The retailer middle man is cut out of the picture and so are manufacturing costs. so prices should be cheaper for the consumer now that the creator doesn’t have to split profits with retailers right? …Right? Unlikely. So far, most of the digital media costs the same as it does in our physical realm. Also, if you’re like me and tend to shop for bargain bin clearances, consider that a thing of the past. With no inventory to clear, you won’t really see many price drops occurring unless the distributor needs to push some sales. Valve’s Steam online game distribution service has frequent discounts and promotions, so hopefully this practice will catch on.
• Stuff: Personally I like to own stuff. It’s a great feeling, tearing apart shrink-wrap and popping in that game I just bought. The smell of a new book is part of the experience. Digital media robs us of fulfilling our desire to own things. Hey, I guess it helps me save shelf space.

Benefits:

• Convenient: Easy, quick, painless, don’t-have-to-leave-the-house transactions. How awesome is that? Try before you buy! Game demos, book excerpts, and music clips let you give the media a trial run before plunking down your hard earned cash punching in your credit card information.
• Availability: Copies of old, classic, hard to find media usually goes for a pretty penny (seriously, $70 for a Chrono Trigger cartridge is insane). That situation doesn’t really happen with digital distribution. Media is always in stock since it’s just downloadable data which can be downloaded as many times as necessary with no manufacturing process involved.
• Durability: No more scratched discs, lost DS cartridges, or torn pages. Your media is digital so it is impervious in it’s hard drive fortress, or not. So yeah, hard drives crash and flash media eventually becomes unusable, but then you just buy new storage and redownload the media since it’s all probably tied to your account anyway.
• Independent works: Indie developers, bands, filmmakers, and authors can distribute without the need for a large publisher/label/studio to handle distribution costs. The cost for making media available for online distribution is virtually null, and there are channels in place for the indie folk to thrive. Delicious original, innovative content is at your fingertips.

I can’t think of anything else to write right now; I’m too sleepy and tired. If you, the awesome opinionated reader, can think of any other ideas worth mentioning make sure to leave a comment!