Which do you find yourself buying from most often? As a pc gamer I buy about 90% of my video games on either Steam or websites like GOG and GMG. I find that online marketplaces more readily provide discounts to their games and it's nice to be able to buy and install right from home. The only issue I have is why they still release games at full price. Is that the fault of the distributor or publisher? It just seems strange that games have the same exact release price online as they do in the store. I mean we are saving them money on storage, shipping, and packaging right?
For my console games, I simply go to the local mall. For my PC games, I simply download them via torrent sites, so it's mainly online. Of course, for my smartphone, I have no choice but to purchase online via the Google Play Store.
I agree that digital prices have to be a lot lower, but I think they are priced the same mostly because a big bulk of the cost doesn't really fall on storage and handling, rather, marketing and advertising. In which case, the physical aspect of the games would only account for a few cents or a few dollars per unit, and the rest of the cost is comprised of production and publicity costs. I might be wrong, though.
I prefer buying games online because you at least get a few days to test them [or test them with limited functionality] which gives you the opportunity to find out if the game is worth buying or not. I recently discovered that I can enjoy myself quite well simply playing trial versions of games and once the trial period expires, move on to another game. Beats downloading cracked versions of the game.
If you have a PC, I can't really think of a reason you would ever need to go into a brick and mortar store, other than for the rare games you can't download (Diablo 3 comes to mind). I go into Gamestop occasionally to buy a PS3 game or two, but if my PC can run it, I'll play it on that. In regards to having games be full price, it's strange, it Britain brand new console games are competitively priced, they aren't all 59.99 (or whatever the equivalent is). I wish that was the case here.
The only time I've ever chose to buy in store is when there is an in-store only offer. It pains me to go into gamestop or frys and actually have to talk to a human being though, haha. Maybe online markets are making us more and more asocial but to me it's worth the bargains.
