So I've been using the search function, trying to find a fitting topic, but I couldn't find anything, so here it is.
A question that's been bothering me for a while is the way publishers handle digital distribution on consoles. My personal experience is mostly limited to the PS4, because I don't own an X Bone or a Switch but nevertheless I find it kind of startling or at least irritating how digital distribution is treated.
Personally, I like the idea of digital game distribution on consoles and I do buy digitial copies of games sometimes. However, more often than I want to, I end up buying physical copies. I'm actually not much of a physical copies person, but still, around 80% of my library is physical. Why? Because in most cases publishers give me zero incentive to buy digital.
A lot of times the digital copy goes for the exact same amount of money as the regular retail, often a physical copy on Amazon is even cheaper than a digital copy. Plus, you don't get any extra content for buying digital, most of the time. You get the regular game, minus the physical disc and jewel case at the same price.
Most of the times there is no reason to buy digital, other than saving storage space in your apartment. Plus, you can lend physical discs to friends or sell them off after you finished the game, making some of your money back. Digital distribution saves publishers the whole production of physical media and the jewel cases and covers plus storage, shipping, basically the whole supply chain attached to it. Yet, they give none of what they save back to the consumer. Granted, they will have to pay some kind of fee to the console manufacturers for using their online stores. Do those fees really eat up the complete margin they make there?
If digital copies were only 5 bucks cheaper than retail copies, I'd buy a lot more digital games and limit my physical purchases to the games I am a fan of like the Yakuza series for instance.
Why do they make digital games so unattractive for us as customers? Is there any data on how many percent of let's say the PS4's or the X Bone's game sales are physical as opposed to digital?