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Buying Boxed Games - Important To The Gaming Experience?
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GuestSpotting' editorial, in which a reader discusses why going to the store and buying a videogame is a vital part of his gaming experience. He argues: "When I hear talk of the future and how broadband-enabled gaming platforms will allow us to download entire games without leaving the comfortable wombs of our homes, I shudder", and sings the praises of "...a place where you can look over your collection [of game boxes] with pride, reminding you of the enemies you have defeated, the points you have scored, the races you have won, and, of course, the money that has been spent." Although the author of the editorial admits he's somewhat of "a fetishist when it comes to the corporeal aspect of the video games", are you happy with buying games that have no related physical artifacts?
I like nothing better than the instant gratification of buying games online.
So even when (if) HL2 comes out and it launches on store shelves and over Steam, I'd still buy the store version. No questions about it.
And no, the paper sleeves some games are coming in, just aren't cutting it for me. Jewel cases forever!
Manuals, Yes. CD's, Yes.
But the boxes? Those I ditch within a week.
I prefer the physical product, particuarly if it has a useful manual...
Maby its just me, but I install the game, put the cd some where safe, crack the game, and toss the box. I might keep the manual but probably not. I don't need a box to remind me that I purchased a game.
And no, the paper sleeves some games are coming in, just aren't cutting it for me. Jewel cases forever!
I actually like the DVD style cases better.
I hate plastic/paper sleeves.
I usually toss the boxes. I've got no space to spare for huge, over-wrapped game boxes which I will never open again. Unlike books or films, games need to be installed and/or require some time to 'get into' if you haven't played them for a while, so it's not something you take down from the shelf and play for two hours and then put back up.
And this guy seems slightly out of tune. If you start telling your friends that 'this box commemorates the Great War on Kilrah' and 'I lost some good men in that campaign', they should have you committed.
for great justice
Is going to a store vital for me: no. However, I am exceptionally leery about buying any product over the internet that does not come with packaging, but does include some form of protection. This is because I have been burned thanks to RealArcade... I participated in the launch of RealArcade, and brought down about eight games from them. None of them are great, but a few were mildly amusing, and were perfect for my slightly aging machine that I was using at the time.
Fast forward about six months: I get a new computer to replace the aging machine. I transfer the hard drive as a slave to my new computer, and a few weekends in, decided to pull up one of my old games. The game failed to load. I pull down a new copy (onto the new hard drive) and of course it is still in demo mode. So I call Real and ask them to help me get the games running on my new computer... figuring that since I have my old drive in the new machine, I can either relink the keys, or get new ones for the demos I downloaded.
Fast forward a few days of dealing with clueless technical support, with the end result being that I have been told that I can't have new keys in various manners. Some simply said it was impossible to transfer the games to a new computers. Others accused me of being a pirate in no uncertain terms, despite my removal of the old hard drive from the old hardware. My entire real account was cancelled on my behalf (not just the arcade portion, but the premium content for Read Audio as well) and yet they billed me for 3 months subsequent to the cancellation.
In the long run, it just wasn't worth the battle to try to get my purchased content back. I did have my credit card company back out the entire Real subscription (which I had only had for three months prior to RealArcade) as well as the subsequent charges after the cancellation that were incorrectly applied.
So, do I find the store experience important? No in the least. However, physical media is critical to me, simply because it lessons the possibility of not being able to use my purchase due to tech support stupidity.
That said, I have had problems even with my physical purchases. I purchased a copy of The Operation Art of War, Elite Edition. Turns out that it is impossible to run this on any NT based OS, period. So I tried it on my old windows 98 box, but it turns out the old copy protection was incompatible with my drive. Techsupport refused to give any helpful suggestions, and refused to return the product. Of course, the store refuses to return opened product.
I still have the game (and a few others in similar state) that are not games that require any technology to run (how hard are hexes and die rolls?), but have crippling technology attached which prevent me from revisiting them, or in some cases, ever playing them at all. Now, some companies are choosing to do this deliberately: I have refused to update my Macromedia products, because the new versions protection. Any product with software keys that have to come from a vendor is going to be useless when that vendor goes away, and none of the vendors I have talked to have a plan for dealing with buyouts or failure.
Sig under construction since 1998.
If the physical article is more desirable than the download, then people will buy the article after getting the download. This applies just as well to music as to games.
This fetish for the physical article is exactly what the RIAA should be trying to encourage with CDs if they want a business model that will actually work in the 21st century.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Whenever I blow $50 on anything, including a game, I want something physical to "touch." Besides the fact that I also want a way to ensure that if my console's hard drive blows I have a way of getting the data back on the drive without a hassle and waiting for a long download. And I would not believe for a second that the reduction in costs for shipping the game, creating box artwork, printing manuals and all that would be passed on down to me. So in essence, yeah. I like the box. I still miss the big old manuals major programs and hardware used to come with.
Article Synopsis: "I like game boxes"
Reality for PC Games- publishers have the potential to make more money, and are able to release a more diverse range of games that would otherwise be unprofitable...like EV: Nova. Bigger titles like GalCiv will probably end up selling both ways, but some games will never get published except by direct sales.
Console games will be distributed in good old boxes for quite some time to come...they are mass market items and profitable in main stream distribution. They'll probably always have lots of great games, in boxes to boot, but many of the games will end up being similar, with few break away titles.
Steam gets bogged down horribly every time there's a new 50MB patch out, so bad one can't even join a server after getting the patch. I'd hate to be on that network downloading when the same number of people goes to download 1-3 gigs worth of new game if it were the only form of distribution.
reasonably sized boxes (IE console game sized), ar elike trophies on my shelf. Without the boxes and physical manual, buying a game would just feel empty. Besides, you can never re-sell games that are downloaded, whereas the NES and SNES games I own in their package can be sold years from now for a decent price.
Box of course.
All the better to resell on eBay.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
While this may be true for your run of the mill games, Massively Multiplayer games that require a subscription fee are a different animal. I have a hard time justifying to myself why I should pay $50 for a game that I have to pay $12.99 a month to use.
Thankfully, a number of companies have realized this. For example, you can download the demo for "Earth and Beyond" from EA, and play the full game for free for 14 days. Then, if you like it, you can buy a new CD key for $14.99 that will upgrade your demo to the full version (and cover your first month's subscription). No, you don't get a box, or a manual, or a physical CD, but you also don't get to pay $50 for a game that you don't really own in the first place.
The games I really love I want in a box. I have been buying an playing games for twenty years. Had I kept all the boxes, they would have filled two bookcases. Now I have two shelves with boxes, all of games I really enjoyed. Wouldn't want to miss them. I store the manuals of the other games in those boxes too.
Imagine: The original Ultima IV -- in its box! The original System Shock -- in its box! Original Infocom Adventures -- in their boxes! With feelies!
Yes, all on my shelf.
"Hundreds of games" in your "collection" and you call that guy a loser?
the whole point of the box is to get the don't panic button or the piece of pocket lint. Infocom was truly the king of game boxes. There wasn't a lot of wasted space in their packaging, simply because they filled it up with fun, enjoyable, extra stuff that just ruled. (I still have the glowing stone from wishbringer somewhere in a drawer).
These days, most boxes are fairly useless. Big bulky empty cartons that often don't even have much in the way of a manual. Blizzard is still nice and usually includes a pad of paper or other such in their boxes to show appreciation, but other than that I don't really want a box. Physical media, absolutely, but the boxes in most cases are disposable...
When you download a game, it is not the same. All you get are bits and bytes. When you buy it from the store or have the actual box shipped to you, its kinda like a sick version of Christmas. It's the art work and holding the manual that the "Designers Made". I remember when I bought Ultima IV for the C64. The box was HUGE!!! I opened that monstrosity and I pulled out the cloth map, the METAL ankh, the instruction book, the book of virtues, and the spell book. It was awesome! Yes, IMHO, it is far better to have something corporeal in your hands than just bits&bytes.
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
He likes the boxes because he has been trained to want the boxes. It's about possession. You want more then jsut some receipt to say what you have. Thats why people still carry cash around. They want more assurence, then jsut some faceless machine telling them what they have.
It's like the hunter and gatherer thing. We collect coins or stamps. Things that we don't need in our life, but if something happens that they are damaged, we make a big issue about it. The things we own, end up owning us.
But what can I say? I sitll have the original 1989 Ninja Turtles action figures.
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I do have a friend that has only recently started to throw away boxes of games from the 90s.
I do not suffer this problem. The box only lasts long enough to get home.
When Interplay was having trouble with their distributor and box cover art, I was screaming on the message boards 'Let me download a dvd image and I'll send ya $60.'
Of course this was October and BGDA2 just came out yesterday. Who knows maybe BIS would still be around if Interplay had been able to ship their two most anticipated games of 2003 in 2003.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
You're absolutely right, and you've also have nailed a very important point about MMOGs.
;)
The physical media for traditional games is important because, no matter what, you will be able to play that game.
In MMOGs the real "game", so to speak, is being provided to you by the company on a way similar to arcades. People don't like to go and buy a CD and then pay for the online content since the online content is the only game. You're tied to the company, and they decide the fate of the game, so there is no point in buying the CD, and more importantly, that's a market where people will be much more likely to pay for downloading bits instead of buying plastic!
I just remembered the "Phantom" console and had a good chuckle
---- Take the Space Quiz!
I don't need a box. What I do want is a install package that I can burn to a CD as an archival copy. I also don't want to lose the right to use the software. My biggest fear is that the market is going to a subscription based market, like what Valve is trying with STEAM. When I purchase a game I want to know that I can access the install file six months down the line and that I will be authorized to play it. I don't want to have to maintain an ongoing subscription and possibly lose access to a game, because the hosting service has gone out of business or they drop the title without unlocking it first. Online distribution I think will work, the developers and publishers just need to accept that we want to buy the right to use the program, not a service that can vanish and leave us with nothing.
how about you let me buy the game online and i get to download it that instant. meanwhile, you go ahead and ship me said game?
oh yeah, piracy, copy protection, the eventual emergence of a DNA Dongle to prove it's really you.
I buy games electronicly all the time, it's called shareware.
And Im not buying a box that I can trash after I installed my game. Im buying a game that I can play on my computer. If I got it electronicly or in store doesn't matter
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
Or they can just offer downloadable versions of the CD online like stardock did when I bought GalCiv online. As for needing an internet connection most systems are designed to allow offline play too you know.
Photos.
...would be my primary reason for sticking to boxed games.
Some things I can download at work, burn to a CD and take home, but in the case of Steam and other installers where you just download a front end, I'd have to pack my computer to work (or a friend's house, was at a LAN party last weekend and we had access there.)
On the subject of keeping those boxes, I used to save all but the ones I disliked, now most of those are thrown away except the "important" ones (Ultima I-V, C64) and the ones that are convenient to keep (numerous EA flat-packaged games)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Not only could selling boxed versions be preferable to the consumer, it also seems like the best way to sell as many copies of your product as possible:
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -- Andrew S. Tannenbaum
What about used games? There are a lot of games I wouldn't pay $50 for, but might try if I saw in the used bin. I know it doesn't generate any revenue for the studios, but if they're going to claim that they care about their customers, they have to acknowledge that used games are a part of the market. High school kids, for example, can't afford all the new releases.
And what about games for old or discontinued systems? (I loves me some Dreamcast.) How would you manage to resell games for an out-of-date system if they're all stored on the console itself?
Besides, having a physical medium lets me hurl something across the room when I realize what utter crap the game I just bought is.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
I still have my cloth Ultima 7 2: The Serpent Isle map hanging on the wall.
Let's look at the advantages of ditching the box.
One, the distribution costs fall through the floor. Less money required to distribute the game means more money to develop it -- or it could give games which might not be blockbusters a chance to appeal to their niche market without having to produce a limited-yet-expensive run of boxed games just for those people who want the game. Online distribution is cheap and the savings are passed on to you in one form or another.
Two, it eliminates the middleman -- the one step that prevents independent game developers from making mad money is that they can't afford to get a box onto the shelves. If you sell content online then you control every aspect from front to back of your game's distribution. Cheaper, more flexible, more suitable for a smaller company. Even if the company contracts out to an 'online distributor', it's still good for independent game developers since you could easily take your hobby and go professional with it via services offered by an online distribution center.
Now, the disadvantages.
One, ensuring that you can re-install the game or transfer it to a new machine. This is solvable by having a key system that makes sense -- allowing you to re-download games, allowing you to burn games to a CD, allowing you to jot down an easily accessible game key for later use. It's a minor, minor hurdle and one that can be surmounted if you're willing to loosen (useless) piracy controls. People who want a physical CD can make one themselves and do it for less money.
Two, you can't include Infocom-esque extras. Except nobody does this anymore. Your average PC game comes with a paper-sleeved CD, a manual (which is duplicated in PDF format on the CD anyway) and a bunch of pack-in glossy paper promotional flyers. When I get home from the store the first thing I do is throw everything but the disc itself and the manual away. I only keep the manual if there's a key printed in it and there's no electronic copy provided, and even then they tend to pile up on my desk in a useless, rarely accessed stack of booklets.
Three, advertising your product can be tricky since people aren't used to seeking things out online yet, and there's no universally known system for doing so. Steam's trying to become that system and failing horribly. This is an area that needs to be focused on, getting people aware of how online content sales works, making it easier for them to work it, and making sure they know your product is available.
Four, people who go "Nyaaah! I'll never buy virtual content! It's evil! Away from me, foul beast!" will not buy your game. There's not much you can do about this, until public attitudes change... no thanks to Steam and Real screwing things up and souring people on what would otherwise be a workable concept.
Imagine a future where you can publish your own games, you own music, your own writing, anything you want -- online for less money than ye traditionale retaile systems, without needing massive industry connections and layer upon layer of production systems. Once the technical details and business models are tested and smoothed out, it can be a reality.
Overall, I would say that there are just as many people out there who want the "instant gratification" of buying it and downloading it immediately, instead of waiting for the boxed version to arrive. We do offer the original manual in a pdf format, but not the CD sleve (which we could, but there really haven't been many requests for it.) We also suggest that people download the ISO version, which has both the linux and windows installer, and burn it to CD, so they will always have it handy (although the download servers will be up for as long as the game survives).
Just my two cents.
Rob
iGames.com
Like an earlier article mentioned, in the early days getting a game box was like getting Cracker Jack prizes. You never knew what was going to be inside. Now it's mostly air and some shrinkwrap. For a smaller title or extra titles, I'm willing to download it. For a triple A title I expect a box, a CD and a manual. I'm willing to pay a premium for those items. Give me something tangible. Is it too hard to ask?
The simple reason for me is that going to my local store is infinitely more reliable, quicker and easier than actually attempting to purchase and download an online game.
There would have to be a significant cost savings for me to justify buying a game online. During the time it would take me to download the normal 1 to 2 CD game, I could go get lunch, run some errands and drop by my game store on the way home and still have it before it was finished downloading.
Not only that, but as other people here have said, you lose your hard drive, you just lost the game, unless online purchases were packaged in a way for easy CD backup. But I doubt that... too easy for pirating in their simple minds, I would think.
:) heheh, yeah, i collect them. If any of you who throw them out would be willing to send them to me I would gladly pay the shipping costs. Please contact me if you're willing to set something up.
I'm looking for the C&C generals boxes and WC3 (full size except the undead design) boxes in particular.
TIA
aer2ATcoxDOTnet
sigs suck
I like boxed games, collect them and even bought some older games I never actually owned (*cough*). I feel saddened that many modern games come only in these tiny plastic DVD hulls, instead of a great cardboard box.
:(
Even worse are things like Savage, where you can buy it for 29$ over the net, or buy the box here for about 50 Euros (after having to deal with age verification etc etc, in an online store. Getting the game in a local store is next to impossible
But even though 29 dollars are less money, you need to DL it, burn it, backup it, and still dont have a printed manual etc.
I really like to handle these boxes, show them to friends, which look at the richly drawn picture etc. A burned CD just doesn't have the "feel".
Cheers,
Tels
Bully for him. He can continue to trek to the store, enjoy the experience and even have my full, unmitigated support when doing so.
Call me silly, but for me the so-called "experience" is much enhanced by actually playing the game. Which is what I'll be doing while he's having his Calgon Moment (TM).
Saying that schlepping to the store to go about actually purchasing the game is vital to the "experience" is a bit like saying that the act of standing in line to buy a coffee is part of the "coffee experience." Don't lecture me on how f'kin awesome the line is. If I dig it then I'll dig it, I really don't need someone to point it out to me.
It's sort of like explaining a joke.
My
Limekiller
Part of the fun of downloading a game is the thrill of the score when you find a pirated copy and get it for free. :)
Well, physical media (in my eyes) has some very significant advantages. #1, You can rent them. (Technically you can rent from online to with all that fancy encryption stuff etc etc etc but I gotta figure a download of a game would take a few hours). #2, You can take the game to your friends house. #3, you don't have to be concerned about a hd failure or other problems (as mentioned above. what if you bought a game 5 years ago and the company that provides it went out of business? Not that gaming companies ever go under...)
Many of you will remember the AitD boxed set (if you bought it) which had some brilliant extras - a small book for the copy-protection and a newspaper which gave hints for the game... if more games-manufacturers did that now, piracy would be much less of a problem (same goes for music)...
Sneakabout is a mysterious figure, having done too much mathematics.
One, the distribution costs fall through the floor. Less money required to distribute the game means more money to develop it -- or it could give games which might not be blockbusters a chance to appeal to their niche market without having to produce a limited-yet-expensive run of boxed games just for those people who want the game. Online distribution is cheap and the savings are passed on to you in one form or another.
With the way most of the developers and publishers have gone to 3rd parties to distribute patches and demos, why does anyone still think it's cheap to distribute online? It's cheaper than distributing boxes, but it's not cheap. Some developers currently cut about $5 off the cost for a download-only version, and many of them will allow you to download now and have the box sent for that extra $5. It stacks up, but if the cost savings are really significant they'll find other ways to spend the money than passing it on to consumers. On the good side, they don't eat as much in publishing costs on titles that don't sell as well as expected, because you can always find a way to use the extra bandwidth. You also have to factor in increased tech support costs for your distribution method, because people will have problems downloading your software and, depending on the methods, other problems they wouldn't normally face with a CD-based installation.
Two, it eliminates the middleman -- the one step that prevents independent game developers from making mad money is that they can't afford to get a box onto the shelves. If you sell content online then you control every aspect from front to back of your game's distribution. Cheaper, more flexible, more suitable for a smaller company. Even if the company contracts out to an 'online distributor', it's still good for independent game developers since you could easily take your hobby and go professional with it via services offered by an online distribution center.
This one I actually agree with, but only in the case of small developers. With the bigger developers you're usually dealing with larger downloads and an increased likelihood to be pushed into whatever publishing method your publisher chooses, unless you're a company like Valve that is mostly self-funded.
Now, the disadvantages.
One, ensuring that you can re-install the game or transfer it to a new machine. This is solvable by having a key system that makes sense -- allowing you to re-download games, allowing you to burn games to a CD, allowing you to jot down an easily accessible game key for later use. It's a minor, minor hurdle and one that can be surmounted if you're willing to loosen (useless) piracy controls. People who want a physical CD can make one themselves and do it for less money.
Actually, you don't have to be willing to loosen piracy controls, your consumers just have to be willing to give up a little more privacy. You can lock the key to a specific user based on their ordering information (name, address, credit card number), so they can request a new download at any time, but they can't play without an internet connection because their key will be checked every time they try to play. Or you go the Steam route and download-as-you-play, meaning you never have all of the content to begin with. Of course, I'm not saying this is the ideal method, simply saying it's among the methods currently in use, and is most appealing to the publishers and (some) developers.
Two, you can't include Infocom-esque extras. Except nobody does this anymore. Your average PC game comes with a paper-sleeved CD, a manual (which is duplicated in PDF format on the CD anyway) and a bunch of pack-in glossy paper promotional flyers. When I get home from the store the first thing I do is throw everything but the disc itself and the manual away. I only keep the manual if there's a key printed in it and there's no electronic copy provided, and even then they tend to pile up on my desk in a useless, rarely accessed stack of booklets.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Keep in mind the motivation for this is not convenience but greater profit. They will not lower prices, but instead pocket the money otherwise spent on production, packaging, shipping, shelving, mark-up, etc. So my question is: what's the added value of this approach? I can order games from Amazon already that arrive within days, so it's not the convenience. And I'm lucky enough to walk down the street 10 minutes to an EB Games. In order to have your company's game carried by a major distribution outlet (e.g., EB Games), you normally agree NOT to sell the game for cheaper than the distributor. I'd prefer the hardcopy thanks. Many people do; this is why games include large unfolding maps and cute figurines.
From Serious Sam to Serious Scam...
With the exception of the time various rebates and a gift card combined to get me the collector's edition of WarIII for $5 more than the regular, I don't keep boxes, and can rarely tell you what happens to the manual. I'd gladly download a game, provided it was reasonably achievable over my connection, especially if it supports the developer more. However, I've got three conditions that are dealbreakers if they're not met. 1. I won't pay money for something that expires (e.g. MMORPG's). I like to play RPG's, which can take months to complete if you're not working full time on it (even for a single playthrough, much less if you replay with more than one of the possible characters, take the BG/ID series or even Diablo II), and I should be able to leave a game when I get bored and come back to finish it whenever I feel like it. 2. I won't pay money for something that can't be reinstalled. Why should I be forced to keep a game on my hard drive indefinitely just to satisfy condition 1? In practice, especially with developers sometimes going out of business, that means I'd probably need the ability to burn CD's (a key wouldn't be a dealbreaker if it wasn't excessively inconvenient). 3. I am NOT providing a dedicated broadband (or phone) line to my game consoles. Period. I suppose I *might* consider hooking one up to the net if it was only a matter of running a reasonable length of ethernet cable to my router and it didn't throttle the house bandwidth too much. If the distance between the TV with the consoles and the nearest router is unreasonably long, my console doesn't go on the net and I don't buy games for it online unless they can be downloaded to my computer and burned to an appropriate CD. Otherwise, see 1 and 2.
When customers pre-order a game at an EB or Best Buy or the like, they're often given a psuedo-box filled with "goodies." Usually this includes some kind of mini strategy guide, and/or a demo or addon disc, etc. If not a box, you'll often receive some kind t-shirt or at least some schlocky branded pencil eraser or earmuffs. Or whatever.
Okay, okay; the employees take this crap home themselves and hoard it. The intent of the publisher, however, remains. There is this understanding that when you give money to someone, you get something back. In our specific case example, you really shouldn't need to get anything since your $5-$10 goes towards the game. And yet, it feels somehow more real if you walk out with something you can hold, albeit a cheap-ass box with a black tshirt you'd never be caught dead wearing.
Physical objects, in relation to this discussion, serve two roles. First, as a tangible anchor, a remainder that you now own something that you previously did not. On a subconscious level, I think physical products serve as a token or relic to show other people that you own something but also as a symbol stating, "I own this now."
Secondly but quite related and illustrated effectively by the editorial, I think physical purchasing also appeals to the hoarding/pack-ing nature of humans; the desire to collect and store more things than we had before. Perhaps we're seeing that desire slowly erode, what with the impact of purchasable digital music remaining to be seen. Still, as of right now, I think it's fair to say that most people want to own something; not merely because of possible future technical difficulties, but rather as a proof of purchase, a tangible item that we've added to our "stash o' stuff." I think that while it includes the role of a remainder of the "enemies you have defeated," it's more than that also a representation of possession and ownership. For Gamespot editors, physical boxes may well serve as remainders of games finished, but for most normal people, they serve as remainders for games yet unfinished as well. We may never play the game more than 5 hours, but by golly we "own" that game and that's half the battle. The ownership is more important, in many ways, of the games played. The fact that I have Panzeer Dragon Orta, REZ, and Ico on my shelf says something about me as a person, not merely as remainders of good times.
Why do religions have symbols, such as rosaries or crosses, for such blantantly abstract concepts? For much the same reason that we collect physical games. The more vivid an experience, be it music, film, religion, or gaming, the more we as human beings will desire a physical product.
None of that exists, really, with downloadable games. Purchasable broadband gaming is like a religion with symbols; it's cold, sterile, and most importantly completely abstract (in a digital sense of the word). Who wants a religion without symbols?
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Endnote: Software pirates may seem to disprove what I've said. Why, then, the existence of sites like cdcover.cc; this need to print out colorful, highly detailed box art and CD/DVD labels? If, for pirates, who would seem to be closest in this idea of digital abstraction, why not merely use a sharpie and a paper sleeve? They have the same pack-ing desire everyone else does, only manifested a more illicitly.
Back in my Atari/Coleco days, many joys were had at looking at all the boxes of games at Toys R Us. There they had slips of what the box front and back covers were... was like a dream with wall to wall games which were organized, unlike today's places such as EB where games are just tossed all over. Paying for a slip of paper sucked at Toys R Us at the counter, until you walked 10 more feet to the game pick up window!
If you need a reminder of your experience go buy a poster or have a large format print or even just an 8 x 10 print made up and hang it on your wall of victory or shame as the case may be.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Just like buying the actual CD is a very important aspect of aquiring music, right?
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
You assume it does, but change is often unpredictable. We need to do something to reinvigorate democracy and I'd hate for us to become too mired in arguements about possible outcomes to at least try. Sounds like the shortcomings of your average standards body where heavy conservatism and political infighting prohibit any real invovation or advancement.
Quack, quack.
Download should always be an option. Its just plain economical. But hard copies should always be available for either die hard boxers (you know who you are) or gifts or whatever. The boxed copy should reflect a moderate increase in cost plus shipping.
Seems a no-brainer and a win-win. I want the game that I just fell in love with while playing the demo NOW.
As a side note, no screw authentication schemes on my download or I FUCKING kill you. If I can't whip my system and reinstall it from backup media you've ripped me off. Period.
Quack, quack.
I think I could handle downloading games instead of purchasing a box from a store... I'd just make my own cases. Or better yet, maybe they could have the price of the game significantly cheaper to download and then give the option to order an official case from the publishers site. Maybe there would be a huge trend in custom case designs by hobbiests, where you could download a .pdf of someones original cover art.
I recently got a copy of Xandros 2.0 Deluxe. I've purchased and downloaded games and linux distributions before, and ordered individual CDs before, but rarely went for the boxed versions until now.
:)
I must admit, thought, that when I got the box in the mail just before a staff meeting, I brought the box with me and quietly opened it bit by bit throughout the meeting. The anticipation was painful.
When I opened the box and found a 200+ page owner's manual, I got genuinely excited, and even my wife said "ooo, what's that?" when I got it home -- and she's bored to tears with my linux experiments.
So yeah, I think the box is important to the experience.
If you move from a large house to a small apartment, you'll find out the answer very quickly--you don't need a box. To conserve space, I even threw out all my CD-ROM jewel cases, only keeping the CDs and the CD keys. Once you install a game, you never look at the box again, so why keep them?
never.
.
. hmmm
Bear with me here.
You have your library. Your bookshelf on the wall. You have friends and others, when they come over look over your shelf of books and more than likely they'll comment on it. Similar to your CD collection. People like to see what others are reading or listening to. On the personal side, you like to look at your library and see the books you've read, the ones that you just quite havn't had the time to finish, the ones you got because it was a recommendation but never really read. But there is a proud feeling to see them on the shelf, knowing you have them and have them there to take down at any time, even years from now to relive the experience, or gain more from it.
The physical forms of games are much the same. I still have my CD's from Quake, Diablo, the StarControl Collection, Riven, Fallout and tons of others. I love to see them on the shelf. I love to pick them out and mess with them a bit from time to time. I love it when others looks at what games I have and comment on them. Console gaming is always about that. When you go over to a friends house and you see a few games lying around don't you want to look and see what they are?
On-line downloads are great don't get me wrong. I love how they are allowing for independent developers to get out there and distribute product in a way that the publishing system won't allow for. (See Starscape for a great example of quality independant game) But without a physical form to these games, I'm going to forget about them and delete them eventually or just have to re-download them again at some future date, or even have to pay for them all over again if I lost my key or something.
Summary - Would you rather have "Grapes of Wrath" bound and printed till the day it decomposes or in eBook format that you'll probably have the rights expire, the provider will go away, the format will die. Would you rather have Half Life 2 on CD for all time, or get a long download from Steam with no real way to ever have it saved.
"...a place where you can look over your collection [of game boxes] with pride, [...] the races you have won, and, of course, the money that has been spent."
Whenever I look up at the box of Big Rigs, I remember how good I used to feel whenever they announced to me that "YOU'RE WINNER!"
I would write that as "...a place where you can look over the stuff that owns you, as opposed to the stuff you own..."
Call me too new-age or negative. I've purchased a lot of games in my time. How many boxes of boxes could I stand to have? I finally junked them all, and the jewelboxes, and haven't looked back.
Sure, it's a matter of personal taste. Or maybe it's a matter of the degree to which you are consumed by consumerism.
Noone who puts up a web page with white text on a black background has any right to be commenting on "aesthetics".
I look at my collection, and see the futility of it all.
An archive of how I've wasted my life.
I've bought boxed alot more than I have through download, and I must say I way prefer a boxed game. First of all, I tend to "forget" about my downloaded games, whereas with boxed, I see the box, remember it and sometimes will play it again.
Then again with download, I've upgraded or re-installed my OS a few times in the last years and each time games I've downloaded and registered online revert back to demo mode. It's quite a pain to try and remember what my registration info was, or for that matter, sometimes the company isn't even in business anymore...
*ALSO* with boxed I can at least SELL THE GAMES when I'm through with them. You can't sell a download.
On the other hand, I will gladly pay for anything physical (provided I think it's worth the price).
Thus, pay to download honestly sounds fairly silly to me; do they honestly think they can beat the pirates?
but they can't play without an internet connection because their key will be checked every time they try to play. Or you go the Steam route and download-as-you-play, meaning you never have all of the content to begin with. Of course, I'm not saying this is the ideal method
<angry_rant>You're damn right it's not the ideal method! It's nowhere near ideal!</angry_rant>
What about laptop gamers? With the rise of the Radeon Mobility and Geforce*Go lines, games can go mobile with ease. How are they supposed to play their legally purchased games if they check the key every time you play? What if your internet connection goes down?
How about if the developer decides thay want you to buy the new game?
Valve: "Now that HL2 is out, we can't see any reason you would want to play HL1, so we're disabling the servers that verify keys for online play. Have fun playing alone!"
You: "What!?!........How!?!?.....DAMMIT!!!"
(AFAIK, HL1 can't be disabled that easily, but it's just an example.)
Putting the control of your legally purchased games in the hands of the developers is crazy. As you said, they're concerned with profits. People playing the obsolete "Game '99" doesn't make them profits. Purchases of "Game '04" does.
The only situation where this system is acceptable is the MMO game, where the game cannot be played offline anyways. The MMO structure puts all control in the hands of the company anyways. The only caveat I would put is to allow users to download the game for free, as they have to pay to play it anyways.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
How about if the developer decides thay want you to buy the new game?
Valve: "Now that HL2 is out, we can't see any reason you would want to play HL1, so we're disabling the servers that verify keys for online play. Have fun playing alone!"
You: "What!?!........How!?!?.....DAMMIT!!!"
(AFAIK, HL1 can't be disabled that easily, but it's just an example.)
HL1 can easily be disabled, but only for online play (then again, I don't like the single player portion of HL). If Valve wanted to force all of their users to Steam, they'd simply have to have Won shut off the HL auth servers. This is even more interesting because other games (Soldier of Fortune, iirc) haven't had Won servers authorizing them for quite some time.
Putting the control of your legally purchased games in the hands of the developers is crazy. As you said, they're concerned with profits. People playing the obsolete "Game '99" doesn't make them profits. Purchases of "Game '04" does.
I agree, but we've been on that slippery slope for a while now, and Valve has been pushing people down it since their first release. The problems with Won authentication for Half-Life would be legendary, if it weren't for the fact that Half-Life broke sales records and smashed records for the number of people playing online fps games.
The only situation where this system is acceptable is the MMO game, where the game cannot be played offline anyways. The MMO structure puts all control in the hands of the company anyways. The only caveat I would put is to allow users to download the game for free, as they have to pay to play it anyways.
I agree, but the only thing I can do right now is decide what games I do or do not buy, and lately my PC game purchases have been pretty minimal.
-PainKilleR-[CE]