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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!
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.
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.
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.
"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...
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.
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
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?
First person shooter discs go towards the front and adventure/RPG/RTS/etc go towards the rear.
Dividing the two sections are two pages that I have all of the pieces of paper, fragments of jewel cases, and cardboard with the CD keys on them.
Dismantling a jewel case to get at the piece of paper, or artfully breaking a piece of the case off because they glued the CD key to it and stuffing it into a pocket on my CD wallet is a simple chore that I do while I'm installing the game.
The end result is I have at least 5 shelves worth of games in the space of a 3-ring binder, relatively well organized, with my CD-keys easily accessable in case I need to reinstall.
That's my solution, anyways.
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