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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?
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!
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.
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.
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.
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...
True. The downside: so much for the environmentally clean "new economy" -- even the purely digital contents are preferably shipped physically by many. Admit it or not, but it's the stubborn consumer that will ultimately block "superior" methods of (digital) distribution. Which brings us to the upside: the RIAA is probably conservative enought to eventually understand this part of the consumer's psyche and decide that "illegal" file sharing wasn't a threat to their business after all!
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Recursive, Adjective: See Recursive
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.
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.
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
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.
I don't think anyone's really complaining about that facet of the matter. I, personally, really enjoy downloadable games now and then, especially for smaller games that I normally wouldn't buy outside of some outrageously large collection with maybe 1 or 2 games I actually want to play. I also like the fact that small developer groups can put out a game online with very little hassle, and possibly bring forward something that otherwise wouldn't have been published.
On the other hand, I'm not going to spend $40-50 on a download-only game. I'd rather have the disc for backup, and I'd rather have the manual and maybe some extras packaged in with it. I'm just as irritated with the increasing practice of reducing what's in the box (smaller to non-existant manuals or manuals on the CD, no extra material, sometimes no jewel cases) as I am with the idea some people (Valve, the makers of the Phantom console, occasionally Microsoft, etc) keep spouting about a future where we don't buy physical media for software and games.
The only major (>$30) purchase of software I've ever made online without having a box sent to me worked out fine, but it eventually came down to having to burn a CD and write the key on the CD itself in order to have a reasonable backup, and eventually the file on the hard drive did become inaccessable due to hardware failure (and an odd combination of hardware that lead to OS corruption when trying to bring my computer back to life).
I won't even buy music online until I can get whatever I want at the same quality as (or better than) the media I would get at the store, and can easily burn that music to CD and convert it to formats of my choosing for other uses. If any of the labels I normally buy music from decides to try to copy protect something I buy in order to prevent me from shifting the media to a format and quality level I choose, I will do my best to get around that protection and strongly reconsider purchasing anything further from them. I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA wanted me to buy my CDs on cassette to play in my car.
Anyway, this comment sortof went in the wrong direction, but in the end the point is still that for downloads to work the installer needs to be easily shifted to physical media, and even then there's often not much reason, for me, to go that route instead of just buying the physical media.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
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]
Would I buy an iso (or bin/cue) of a game online? You bet! I get linux distributions this way, there's no reason a game won't work as well.
Would I buy a game that I couldn't easily make a copy of from online? No way!
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.