How much cheaper is Digital Distribution?

I was just looking at steam and got to thinking how much more of a profit margin both publishers and developers will make on games like MW2 or Civilization V ect....  I imagine that a fair amount of the cost of physical copies cover the actual production of the package.  There's a manual, (sometimes) a physical disk, a case, and it needs to be transported to the retailer.  Digital copies of game simply have bandwidth issues so I want to know, how much cheaper is it? Does anyone know because I'm a little curious.

Usually there are sales, not always, however occassionally. You get like 25-35% off new games, for example I bought episodes from liberty city for only $22. I also bought alot of old games like dirt for only two dollars and the gta trilogy with gta and gta2 for like $9. You will get the games for cheaper if you look out for deals. There is no tax for the game, no manuals, no shipping rate or case, however it will be part of your steam account forever. You can download it as many times as you like, if the game doesn't have installation limits by securerom. Downloading games has been very fast for me, in a few hours, I would of downloaded a whole game.

Microsoft sells Windows 7 for the cheap to college students, but it's just a download. I agree with you. This shit doesn't cost them jack except for bandwidth, so it should be on sale much more often.

"There is no tax for the game, no manuals, no shipping rate or case, however it will be part of your steam account forever. You can download it as many times as you like, if the game doesn't have installation limits by securerom."

Don't know how much cheaper it is, but it likely could be a lot cheaper. One thing keeping digital prices high is the availability of disc copies in stores. For retail to keep their relationships with video game companies, they don't want to be totally undercut on software. That's why, for example, a new PSP game will come out on download and UMD at the same price. DD really reduces prices for publishers, but the retailers who sell the game machies don't want to be shoved off the play field.

I'd wager it's much cheaper.

I don't think it is as cheap as people think. These publishers and game companies get the discs and paper for the manuals and other stuff like that in bulk sometimes in millions, which makes the discs come out to a couple of cents at most, and maybe a couple of cents to press the actual data and case them, and ship them out.

I was once a close acquaintance with a guy that was responsible for design and publication of various printed material, mostly books and graphic novels, but also occasionally game manuals and other associated material (like the covers and posters). The costs behind designing, printing, storing, and shipping is a lot higher than most people might think. In the overall scheme (budget) of the publisher, it might not be much depending upon how much the game took to develop and how much it sold. But for smaller games I'm sure it saves them a ton.