While digital content entertainment, from music to movies and TV programming, is increasingly luring fans to streaming services, it's not a trend likely to happen in the gaming world. At least not anytime soon.
The reluctancy is tied to several factors, say industry watchers.
"For most gamers, one-click buying is much easier for a 99-cent song than a $60 game, and a lot of gamers feel they can only get that full value by having a disc they can hold in their hands, not to mention return or sell back," Allison Taylor, senior director at research firm MarketCast, told Tech Times.
Downloads account for just 20 percent of console game purchases, and it's important to note download does not necessarily mean "streaming." Gamers downloading games aren't replacing physical game purchases with downloads, they're downloading games on top of their physical purchases.
That's a low number compared with other digital entertainment sectors, such as the movies, where purchases are 65 percent digital.
One of the biggest reasons that game streaming isn't taking root is that a downloaded video game cannot be resold. The second-hand game industry is huge, with gamers often reselling games as soon as they complete them.
A number of gamers also like the sense of ownership that comes with a physical game. Yet industry watchers acknowledge that a similiar trend took place with music and streaming ultimately became the norm.
Another reason gaming isn't likely to take off as a streaming product is that video games are typically huge in file size, and take far longer to download than music or movies. Game consoles often have very limited hard drive space compared with PCs and laptops, which house most users' music collections.
"The industry will have to convince gamers that a digital copy has just as much value and security as a physical disc -- or offer something entirely different than full game purchases; for example, streaming is just in its infancy compared to streaming movies or music, but the gamers we talked to see that as a very appealing option for the future," explains Taylor.
