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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?
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.
What in God's name am I supposed to do with a paper sleeve with the CD key printed on it? That's a situation that's completely ass and awkward to deal with.
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.
I do too for some games, but I also dislike the idea of having everything in one location. I'm against this in a console settings. As I see it, there are two ways game companies can do this:
1) You download the game onto a hard drive device. Hard drives are a lot different than individual media. If you pay 500 to download 10 games, and your hard drive dies, you lose all of the games. You have to then wait until a replacement drive comes, and even then, whose to say there won't be problems with getting those games back? Currently, with CDs/DVDs, if a CD or DVD gets scratched up, you may have to replace it, but you certainly won't have to replace every disc.
2) The company stores this. In other words, I'm paying for a product that I have access to only over the network. What if the network goes down? What if I have a bad link for whatever reason? What if some asshole launches a DOS attack on my site? I just don't want the media company to have that kind of control. I don't want to pay for 'virtual ownership' and frankly, the bandwidth won't exist for many years.
I would much rather prefer something more along the lines of solid state memory chips or drives before I would consider this sort of technology transferrable. For PCs, this is fine; PC games have worked by this model for a while. But I won't pay 30 bucks for a PC game online if I can get a real physical disc for the game for 10 bucks more, and if it comes with a guide, even better.
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.
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.
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
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?