The Only bad thing about Digital Distribution
Necronner
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Registered User new member
I hear the Digital Distribution is going to make Gamestop obsolete, and Im not sure if thats correct.
Not everyone has a DSL/HighSpeed/Cable Internet connection. I for one have a 56k modem in order to get online, and while I thank God that Blizz decided to make WoW 56k friendly (except for high end raids and the such) I do not like the idea of only being able to download the games I buy.
Now whenever my county finally gets a DSL line (we are petitioning Verizon to bring Fion here) I will probably have no problem with it. Untill then, Digital Distribution is a Bane in my gaming existence.
... knowing my luck, I'll probably get the dang DSL and the rapture will happen right as soon as it gets activated...
Not everyone has a DSL/HighSpeed/Cable Internet connection. I for one have a 56k modem in order to get online, and while I thank God that Blizz decided to make WoW 56k friendly (except for high end raids and the such) I do not like the idea of only being able to download the games I buy.
Now whenever my county finally gets a DSL line (we are petitioning Verizon to bring Fion here) I will probably have no problem with it. Untill then, Digital Distribution is a Bane in my gaming existence.
... knowing my luck, I'll probably get the dang DSL and the rapture will happen right as soon as it gets activated...
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can't really argue with bandwidth limiting the utility of large downloads *shrug*
Some ISPs have an irritatingly vague "fair use" policy, which basically means they can cut you off at any time. There are still a couple that offer "proper" unlimited contracts, but they tend to be the standalone ISPs that don't offer TV and phone service bundled in, which seems to be the more popular arrangement these days.
From what I understand, the issue in the States is that there isn't any real competition in the ISP industry, unless you live in a major population centre. Here, it would be pretty easy for me to switch my DSL service to any one of hundreds of providers without any particular penalty (though, again, this is harder if you have some kind of bundle deal as those tend to come with minimum contract lengths).
Plus I have other options if this service didn't really work for me for whatever reason...like Verizon DSL.
Am I the only person in the world who actually likes the shiny boxes and instruction books that come with games? I'll miss those the most.
Nothing says "mine" like holding a brand new game box. Digital Distribution is so... evanescent (omg, I just used that in a sentence). I mean, do you really own data?
In the UK, the infrastructure is owned by BT, but they're required by law to allow other telecoms companies access to it, and to allow equipment from other companies to be installed in the exchanges (which is why there are a million and one ADSL providers in the UK). We're also a lot more geographically compact, so running your own infrastructure (as NTL/Telewest did) isn't nearly as much of a gamble as it might be in the states.
Regarding cost, pay about the same as Drez for my 8Mbps connection. I'm considering paying an extra $10 or so a month for 24Mbps.
Personally, I'd like to try Fios. I have heard that it's both cheaper and faster than cable. Also, Comcast and TW are fuckers.
That and I like having a tangible artifact of my purchase. I don't think I'm alone in that. I get a little bit of pleasure out of seeing rows of games (and DVDs and books) on my shelf.
That said, I get almost all my music online and almost never buy CDs anymore, so maybe I'd get used to DD if it came around for other forms of media.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
24mbps!? Holy crap, the highest we are offered where I live is 10, and if you buy the 10, you never actually get 10, because they can only guarantee 8, and even though they guarantee 8, you usually get 5. If you buy 5, most of the time you get between 2-3.
Digital distribution wont work unless people in the US can get decent internet.
You would quickly get used to downloading games if it only took 3-4 hours. At least that's how it was for me.
As long as rental or demos were still an option. I almost never buy a game blind. (The last game I bought blind was Twilight Princess, because it was, well, y'know, Twilight Princess.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Hmm what company are you using? For the same price Optimum gives me what they say is 15 Mbps. Although maybe that's because I'm in the city.
You are not the only person who feels this way.
Wee! Validation!
Yeah, I like to keep all my CDs on a shelf. Like, what if I need to reformat, and the game company went out of business? What then? I like digital distribution, but only as a suplement to real-life things.
While I have no problem downloading a game, I find myself almost always going for the instant gratification of going to a store and buying a game over waiting for the game to download. Plus I have a physical object that lets me easily uninstall and reinstall and transfer the game across systems. The only way I can see a download system trumping it is if download times became < 30 minutes (which is generous considering it takes me a maximum of 15 to go to the store and return) and allows me the option to burn copies.
Burned copies and backups? That's how all the decent systems work.
Even then, I detest e-books :P
yesss same here. If it goes away completely I will miss it dearly.
and it very well may. for movies too.
I don't want to delete a game to free up space and realize that the company went under a year ago and I'm SOL if I want that back. The only way I can imagine this working very well is if people go the Stardock route. Take off the copy protection, and suddenly it becomes easy to keep backups, easy to store, and there's no friggin gauntlet of codes to keep track of.
1. If your computer gets stolen, you can just download the program again.
2. The non-crappy companies won't cause a lot of problems. I believe Steam allows you to backup the data. If a company goes belly up, you will still own the game.
I think digital distribution will be one of those things that people will get a while to get used to but won't want to go back when they do.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
So let me ask you a question. I am not a Gamestop. I own a "family business" game store. Should I sell out in a few years & open a Denny's, or is there a way to adapt to the changing marketplace & keep the game store alive?
407 Columbia St. New Westminster (GVA)
Just off Columbia Skytrain Station.
http://www.gamedeals.ca
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
haha, almost reported you 'cause the name looked like a spammer, sorry :P
While you're right about most of this, the value of retro games hasn't gone down at all. They're there for collectors, and most collectors arent satisfied with downloading FFIII on the Wii. While it does free up retro games and make them playable for everyone else, theres nothing like playing the game on the original console.
Don't sell out, because it'll take way more than a few years for everyone to go completely digital.
It might even last longer considering that data on discs eventually corrupts or it just gets scratched.
2) I really hope DD isn't going to completely replace buying discs. Where would we get our collector's editions with all the cool crap? Also, I'm terrible about backing up stuff...even easy stuff like word documents. My hard drive died a few years ago and I still haven't resorted to backing it up on any kind of regular basis. I think I've done it once since. Anyway, unless the gaming companies either a) lower the price significantly for DD games (and I mean by at least 50%) or b) guarantee that I can DL the game as many times as I want and that it will always be there for me to DL, I will stick with my hard copies for as long as I can.
Collectors are a minor part of the overall market. I know for a fact that MOST retro games have come down in value as I've been buying/selling them for over 4 years. The casual gamers don't care about the box/manual, and now they don't care about the cartridge (and they are the majority). Looking back over the history of games & technology, I've estimated that it will take 5 years before it starts to become a problem, and 8 before people panic. If I'm going to get out, I'd like to do it while people still think the business model is good.
Also, with regards to Wii emulation... I've already had a few collectors dump their old-school games with the intention of just downloading them on the Wii (including games not yet released) because they want to sell them while they're still worth something.
I know this isn't happening overnight, but I can't say that I'm not scared.
407 Columbia St. New Westminster (GVA)
Just off Columbia Skytrain Station.
http://www.gamedeals.ca
You mean like iTunes?
Oh wait.
See, I'm fine with digital distribution as long as the license agreements are consumer-friendly. Unfortunately very few current services are, and digital distribution is too easily a trojan horse for "let's screw the customer" licensing.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
For $50 I expect the game to run right out of the box and to still be playable even if the developer, distributor, or online distribution service are long gone. These are simple and resonable expections. When I can do this with a $20 movie DVD or music CD I'm more than justified to expect these things with a $50 video game. At the moment no one, not even Valve, can provide this.
Online distribution isn't always the best deal. There was an expansion pack for one of the MMO's where the boxed version came with entire game as well as some add ons. For the same price the download was just the expansion pack. I fairly cetain it was Everquest 2's latest expansion. I'm sure this isn't the only example where the store version is a better deal than the download version.
If your like me and stuck on dial-up the above doesn't really matter as we are out of luck anyway. However, concidering how much developers complain about production costs it does seem like a very smart move to cut off potential customers no matter how small the group is.
Most games are devaluing quickly. It all depends on its popularity. I've seen several that seem to stay around $40 for way to long.
Since when have casual gamers been the voice that drives the market? It’s the noisy ones that do. They are the ones demanding better graphics no matter the cost and are the ones embracing the ones embracing the shift the digital distribution. The real casual gamers are not going to care about any of this.
The true casual gamers market is largely untapped and will be as long as developers/distributors continue to embrace the current combat driven game design. If you want to find these people you'll have to look at those who play The Sims and The Sims 2 as well as Second Life. I think you'll find that these people will prefer to go into a store and buy the games at first especially if that store offers hands on demonstration as well as people really know what they are talking about. It’s very hard to judge if someone is being honest or a jerk in one of these forums. A face to face meeting gives the customer tone of voice and body language to work with.
The point is, though, it's not worth it to me to avoid paying five bucks for shipping unless I get at least as much use out of the product. As it stands now, there are problems with re-downloading, copy-protection, and general consumer-friendliness. Some companies do it fine, I'd just like to see more people copying their business practices instead of making iTunes, but at fifty dollars a pop.
I think your wrong in that we need better internet. Just to make the math easy lets assume 500 KBps which is equivalent to 4 Mbps. Assuming my math is correct a 1 GB takes about 35 minutes to download leading to most games taking around 2 hours or so to download which isn't that bad. At least for me this speed is easily achievable I use Comcast and normally get around 600 KBps if the server can handle it and I have their normal package.
I think the reason we haven't moved towards it are largely for other reasons such as Koekjes is saying.