The Digital Divide

The other day a guy came into my store looking for a Wii game. "I've been to three stores already," he told me, "and no one can find it."

"What's the game?" I asked.

He responded "World of Goo."

Internally, I rolled my eyes. "You won't find it here," I said matter-of-factly. Disappointment covered his face.

"So you don't have it either?"

"Nope," I replied, "and no other store will. World of Goo is only available as a downloadable game."

I went on to explain that it was only available on WiiWare, and thank the gods he knew what the internet was. His Wii was already online and he was familiar with purchasing games from the Wii Shop Channel, so I sold him a Nintendo Points card and he went on his merry way. He was lucky; with many customers I still have to explain the process of getting their consoles online, even to customers who already have internet in their homes.

What troubles me is that this customer went to three other stores like mine (same company) and three different clerks had no idea that World of Goo was a downloadable title. According to the customer, they each searched their inventories for it and couldn't find a listing for the game (pro tip: if a game is never released for boxed retail, then it never has a SKU). Frankly, I was embarrassed to work for the same company as those clerks for being completely ignorant about one of the most critically lauded and awarded games of 2008.

I can't really fault them. Unless you're like me, whose homepage is set to Kotaku, salespeople can really only rely on their employers and peers for information about video games. Downloadable titles & expansions are rarely sold at retail, so information about them is rarely readily available. There is no box I can look at to tell me the features of World of Goo (and honestly, most of what I know about 360 games comes from reading their boxes) or most other digital-only games. Unfortunately, we are being asked more and more questions from customers pertaining to these types of games. A week ago, a customer over the phone asked me the trade value of Patapon 2 (pro tip: even though it's sold as a retail box, Patapon 2 is a digital-only game; the box contains only a download code). Once again, I had to stifle laughter as I told him it had no trade value as it was not a physical game. The customer was actually surprised to hear this, which makes me wonder if he had even opened the box for the game.

Will a time come when digital games can be trades as easily as physical media? With the wealth of awesome games available on XBLA, PSN, Wii Shop, and Steam, and with digital games driving the focus of new gaming hardware (like the upcoming PSPgo), I think it's just a matter of time before I have to start sticking virtual yellow stickers to used copies of Braid.