Slashdot Mirror
Games on Demand
Laurens Simonis writes "Yesterday, the Dutch ISP Planet Internet introduced a games subscription service. For a small monthly fee, about $10, you get unlimited access to a growing list of (sort-of) current games which you can legally download from them. Currently, you can pick from 20 titles including Tomb Raider Chronicles, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and Commandos 2. New ones are added monthly. To my knowledge, this is the first time an ISP offers this kind of service. Personally, I'm all for the idea. Could this be the future? Half-Life developer Valve Software seems to think so." This looks really cool, but I'm curious as to how well it will catch on. It feels about 5 years too early to me, but here's hoping it performs well.
For someone that wants to pop on and play a game casually, this is great.
But for the hardcore gamer, I think they'd prefer to have the game in hand.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
"Since P2P consumes our bandwidth anyway, we may as well provide the games ourselves and make a buck in the process".
Smart move though.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Can I assume that Tetris is the only game not on the restricted list?
Given that I generally play a good game for at least a year, I'd hate to drop $120 on it. Although it'd be nice to have only spent $10 on something like Neverwinter Nights.
- Consult the dictionary frequently to avoid mispelling
Unfortuneately, there has to be tolerance to piracy built into the policy or it won't work.
If you download a game, you have the install media. It's a simple matter of building a app or a device to circumvent the copy protection it has at that point. There are no hardware controls like broken CD specs built into this kind of system, so I can't see it depending on hardware copy protection either.
For online games, using an account tied to the download account will keep people from using piracy that way, but look at all the people who downloaded Warcraft3 and then never played online.
Long and short, there has to be a margin built into this business model that's tolerant of a certain level of underground distribution. If the system is not tolerant of this, and tries to depend on legislation, litigation, or user controls to keep users from distributing copies then it won't work.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The idea is not new - EB had a service that you could rent a computer game, and it would download and install to your system - allowing you to play the game for the specific period of time, then if you actually went out and bought it - the saved games and everything would transport right over. The service tanked (as far as I know, EB doesn't have a link to it anymore), don't know why... Hopefully, this one does better, and has a better selection of games.
We Canadians are geniuses...? jsp=/jsp/home .jsp&lang=en
http://www.gamesmania.com/display.do
No idea how this Gamesmania service is doing, but this is actually the second such service our major telco (yes, Bell Canada) has tried to launch. The first one, Software Lane, was about a year in the planning, but never even went fully live. That was back in about 1999 to my recollection.
Yahoo has a service very similar to this it's called Games on Demand. The difference is that you only get 10 games per month.
Though because it's an advanced feature, they don't publicize it. I have to google for these games myself. They even code-named them "ROMZ" so that newbie users don't stumble on them by accident and cause a support nightmare.
Ñ'
I don't think its too soon for games on demand.. Look at all the people who play on sites like pop-cap games, yahoo games and msn zone. There are many games that are available on demand, and as thus are played on demand.
I think the factor that will truly bring this idea success will be when you don't have to download to play the game. You visit the URL, and the game plays... Maybe that would require the game to install on demand... or maybe it already exists with languages like java and flash, where all you need to download are some datafiles (And a small amount of game code).
An online browser-based Starcraft RPG? Only at
In soviet russia, all your us are belong to base!
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
They have the games on demand service. There are many other semi-repackaged versions of this. Generally older games. But good for the non-hardcore gamer, I think. I'm playing Age of Wonders which I never got to play, with The Outforce. They've got some Star Trek games, too. For me, it is worth the money, because I almost never buy software. Especially after the MOO3 disaster, I don't think I'll buy again for a very long time.
It makes a quasi disk device (X: Y:) that has the game. But it is more like NFS with caching. They push the first 100mb or so (variable per game, just to get the core/intro material in there) into your local cache (hard drive). Then, as you call for more information from the game (more missions, scenerios, etc), they are streamed over the network to your local disk cache device. Pretty slick, actually.
It works pretty well, but I have noticed a few problems. There were some things that were delivered as they are downloaded on some games, when they shouldn't be (primarily, movies). Age of Wonders gives me a lot of hard drive chatter on the main screen of the game. Looks like data was placed sub-optimally and it has to seek to hell and back to read something over and over and over and over (basic animations, perhaps). Bad programming or layout.
From a service standpoing, I'm happy with it. Their back-end enging is EXEtender, which you'll see some other game-on-demand services use as well with some of the same game titles (usually from Infogrames). For them, it has got to be a nice way to squeeze more profits out of dead titles.
This kind of arrangement is a real win for the smaller game developer. It gives them a chance to distribute their game to a wide audience, with little or no up front publishing costs, beyond the basic PR and marketing.
:^P
Think of it as like the web for games. Before the web, the basic modes of mass publishing were huge and daunting. Want to write up a description of how you mod'ed a computer case, and reach a world wide audence in a pre-web world? Forget it. Now days, just get Cowboy Neal to post a link on Slashdot and you've got more attention than you had bargained for
And it scales well too. Try in a conventional game retail world to suddenly increase supply by a few 100k copies overnight. Now try it in an online world - where your only real problems are bandwidth and server load.
... Like me.
Wouldn't this plan allow me to sign-up, download all the games available for $10 and then quit. I could then play those games for a few months without paying monthly. Then, later if they had more games I could sign up and repeat. If I can work it that way, this company will not get the recurring cash flow they expected.
On the other hand it is still a win. A bunch of games that otherwise were getting dusty in the bargain bin or bit bucket get another go round because they are available easily and cheap. $10 for all the games I could download in a month: Sounds GREAT!
This space for rent
Interesting games indeed.
"Caution: Exent Technologies Ltd asserts that this content is safe"
exent.. exent.. where have I seen that name...
Yahoo! Online Games Contain Spyware, the story on Civ3 downloadable from yahoo.
So they just moved to another platform, right?
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Heck, this is offtopic as it comes, but I just recently threw away my VOODOO card box. I still have the card :) Sucker cost 250 bucks when it first came out. OUCH! But boy did it make GLQuake a work of art. I bet you old cards like that will be come like old baseball cards down the road. Well probably not. =p
Suppose the ISP finds that there were 1,000 downloads of a particular title one month. How do they pay the software companies royalties? I mean, what if the user downloaded it, realized it was a mistake, then deleted it without ever playing the game. Does that count as a "sale?"
As FortKnox said, Its monthly. Also, as a Steam beta tester I can tell you there are plenty of drawbacks. If their servers are down or for whatever reason decied you shouldnt be able to play, You loose the game. If you're on dialup, You cant play either. If your connection dies, no game. You see what I'm getting at -- its not all fun and games..erm..atleast not all fun..
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
It will survive forever, unless Nietche Says anything about it...
Bye!
I'm guessing it's a loss-leader to make broadband more attractive.
My attempt to read their site only got as far as "Om deze site optimaal te bekijken is versie 5 van de Macromedia Flash plugin benodigd. U kunt deze installeren door hier te klikken.", though. Hopefully "U kunt" means something different in Dutch, but I'm not taking any chances and won't be klikkening hier.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The canadian telephone company, Bell Canada, has been offering games-on-demand for some time now. The service is very inexpensive, and there are 100+ games to choose from. The download speeds are exceptionally fast. What's interesting is that they apply all the latest patches to the games already, and they even test extensively for operating system compatibility. How cool is that? Makes you wonder what those US telcos have done for us lately...
The service is available at gamesmania.com
I use the Yahoo Games on Demand service, and honestly, I'm thrilled with it. They have several different payment options, up to $15/month for 10 games. Some games you can only rent for 3 days and that costs $5. Usually the newer stuff.
The selection is pretty good, again, mostly older stuff like Civ III and railroad tycoon, but also some really interesting games like Legion and Tropico. I'd prolly say I buy about 4 computer games a year, spending about $200...probably more. For me, $15/month is a bargain and I get to try many more games.
The technology isn't quite 100%, but it's good enough and getting better. I think everyone should try it out, especially considering you can get started for $5.
Game sites blocked at work, but Slashdot isn't.
Which consumes more of anyones time?
(cough)
Does any one remember the Sega Channel? Basically, your sega genesis was hooked up to the cable and you downloaded games and played them that way. I (Being a nintendo zealot) only played when I went to friends' houses, but I was really cool not having to go to Blockbuster to get a game.
I wonder what ever happened to that.....
What, me Tweet?
Ok here's the list cut'n'plastard just for you.
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
Anachronox
Commandos 2: Men of Courage
Conflict Zone
Deus Ex: The Conspiracy
Driver
Gangsters 2: Vendetta
Hitman: Codename 47
IL 2 Sturmovik
Monopoly II
Outcast
Project IGI
Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
Silent Hunter II
Supreme Snowboarding
Thief II: The Metal Age
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Tomb Raider: Chronicles
V-Rally 2 Expert Edition
This service seems to be doing very well in Canada, the service is, I believe $15 per month (not per game)and you can download 1 or all games. And the list of games is impressive since the games are not all 5+ year old titles ( Civilization III, Star Trek Armada II). Check it out at http:\\www.gamesmania.com
The reason you see alot of older games is that publishers are hesitant to make games availiable in a G.O.D format at the same time they are released to retail stores. The reason being, G.O.D is perceived as a threat by retailers, and given that currently retailers are the biggest channel, publishers might prefer not to upset them. (this may or may not change in the future as broadband becomes more prevalent as a delivery channel).
As for piracy, the games on demand technology being used here is probably based on the exent system (http://www.exent.com). Application data in the exent system is encyrpted and compressed before being delivered to the consumer, a connection is maintained with the media delivery server at all times, without this connection you cannot start the application or decrypt its data. The user also never has the full application on their computer at any time, its streamed as its needed (they use application profiling to make sure you have downloaded the data you need ahead of when you need it). Its not unbreakable, nothing is, but publishers have signed off on it being secure enough for them to use.
G.O.D probably isn't ready for the market yet (or perhaps the market isn't ready for G.O.D), the technology works fine, but broadband just isnt in enough households for it to be a big market (You need more then just the "hardcore" gamers to use this to see any profit). There is also the reluctance of the publishers to release new titles to G.O.D at the same time as retail holding it back.
TELUS.net in Canada has been offering games that can be downloaded as a subscription service for over 6 months now.
You can find information at TELUS.net Games
Yittrix
Canada had this type of service for a year now. check out Games Mania
To my knowledge, this is the first time an ISP offers this kind of service.
Well, for limited versions of "ISP", it's actually a pretty old idea. The Blue Sky Rangers' site notes PlayCable, a service for playing Intellivision games across your cable TV line.
Of course, no geek story about the PlayCable would be complete without noting the story of how the Intellivision's version of Bump 'n' Jump was developed.
I don't consider the cracking issuing to be of much importance. As it was pointed out before, this is aimed mostly at casual gamers and gaming history has shown that casual gamers don't spend their time getting a white pasty skin look at night while looking up cracks, warez, and pr0n.
I don't know exactly how much of an offset can be reaped here, but I think one major efficiency of this distribution method is in the massive cost of packaging/distributing side of the gaming marketplace. I would not be a bit surprised to see a massive reduction in material and especially labor overhead when you consider the reduction in manufacturing and transportation, not to mention the massive effort required to maintain relationships with retailers and their markups. Keep in mind also that many games ar sold past their prime at about the $10 pricerange for years after their initial realease, and if it's still profitable at that point then it must be feasible. I think this is just the beginning of 21st-century software distribution, and if I were EB, for example, I'd be working overtime on my Internet strategy right about now.
* Please do not read my signature.
upside: Access to trying more games (legitimately) without having to shell out $50.
downside: If this distribution platform became really popular, it could encourage game developers to create games that had a lot of short-term flash, but not a lot of long-term replayability. So we'd see even less of a focus on gameplay over graphics than has already been the case with PC games these days. It also could further reduce the creation demos for games, as it would be easy (and tempting) for game publishers to say, "There's no demo available, but you can try out our game for $5."
And I'll bet you that 15 to 30 years down the road, almost all material possessions - including most antiques, caviar, diamond, and SLI voodoo's - will become almost worthless thanks to nanotechnology being able to manipulate atoms like bits.
The only way to help preserve the value of a one-of-a-kind material object is to make sure that NO ONE EVER gets their hands on the master molecular scan backup(s) (and there WILL have to backups for insurance purposes). All it takes is one leak and the Mona Lisa can be perfectly copied by anyone who fancies a copy hanging on their wall (recycling the consituent molecules to be found in the garbage).
Objects made of rare earth elements like gold will still hold a higher BASE VALUE though, because Au is rare in comparison to more common matter like the carbon that makes up diamond.
So.... would you mind sharing your voodoo's molecular blueprint with me? :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Unfortunately, Planet Internet is an awful ISP in every other respect. When I stopped using their services after three years of frustration with their unreliable SMTP, their lack of SPAM wave filtering, and having to put up with their customer service SPAM as well as a completely ignorant help desk service ("You have problems sending large e-mail? OK, let's run through your ISDN hardware configuration first."). They dropped their monthly fee, and then started luring customers with all kinds of add-on services, without improving the quality of the actual connection service. Then they started billing dial-up cost (pay per minute) instead of the telco with no opt-out regulation, so I could not separate Internet use between private and business anymore. And THEN I had just about had it, and switched to an ISP that simply runs a decent service, doesn't offer (too many) entertainment add-ons, and doesn't offer those written out in SPAM.
Interesting is, that this ISP simply *has to* offer these add-on services, as their fee is much too low, but also because they are the daughter company of telco KPN Telecom, and they (need to/ have been ordered to) generate interest in KPN's broadband services this way. You simply wouldn't download a 500MB game over a dial-up connection, so this is just another scheme to drive people's interest in purchasing broadband connections.
JeR
didn't sega already do this about a decade ago with the sega channel?