Amazon Rolls Out Release-Day Game Delivery

1Up reports that Amazon has launched a new service for getting certain games into the hands of customers on release day, rather than simply shipping the games on release day. According to the press release, the service will be free for Amazon Prime customers, and available to everyone else for a $5.98 charge on upcoming titles Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. They tested the program recently with the release of Soul Calibur IV.

Comments

Hmm?

[MeanderingMind]

Isn't there always someone who brags about getting their Amazon ordered copy of a game before the release date, or has that become a thing of the past?

Re:Hmm?

[gad_zuki!]

It should be. Why are we wasting packaging and transportation on digital files? How about they sell me digital delivery instead of more extra fees for "SUPER FAST SHIPPING!!!"

Its incredible how behind the times the game industry is in digital delivery.

Re:Hmm?

[LandoCalrizzian]

I couldn't agree more. It's like the game industry is full of hot air when it comes to digital delivery. If only someone could charge full STEAM ahead with solving this problem.

Re:Hmm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that was quite the rant, and a little hypocritical. You said you can get your games from BT at anytime, That also requires an internet connection... So half your points FLY out the window.

Next the suspension thing is a complete exaggeration. The only accounts that get shutdown are ones using stolen credit cards. You dont lose access to ANY game by cheating etc. You may lose online privileges (and rightfully so) but they dont kill your account.

Next you claim not to pirate games, but then what are you doing on BT getting games on release day? (dont give me bullshit about freeware games, you contradicted yourself plain and simple)

The only time I had to deal with valve (Bioshock wouldn't activate on 2nd install... wasn't happy with activation, i hated that) I had a response within 30mins, and it was fixed. Valve themselves said the activation was not their choice, so you can't blame them for the feature, but kudos for the fast response time.

My point here is that it is not 5 years ago... Steam is not new, its not the evil program we all feared it would be before its release. There have been kinks, but at the same time its turned out to be a great platform. Look at all the companies signing on. I was angry when valve implemented steam at the start. I liked how it worked before, but steam was never as bad as everyone thought. Actually most legit HL/HL2 owners accepted it within months after the kinks got worked out. It was pirates that were so upset because now a key was tied to an account and couldn't be shared so easily. I can agree with a lot of complaints about requiring a connection to play offline, but your rant comes off as an angry, contradicting pirate. Dont want to pay for a game? dont bitch about how its distributed!

Re:Hmm?

[Loibisch]

Lots of text, but seriously: The only thing I can understand is the part about the LAN party.

"Steam lets you buy a game from anyhwere, anytime"
Reasonably true. Anywhere with an Internet connection, anyway.

So you don't need an Internet connection for BitTorrent?

"Purchases are instant."
Reasonably true. Once I download it using their extremely crappy download system.

So you don't need to download it with BitTorrent? Downloading from other users in P2P is faster than the Steam servers? I dobut it as I easily max out my 16MBit/s connection everytime I download something off of Steam.

"Steam lets you play your games on any computer at any time."

Bullshit. Big whonking bullshit. Steam lets you play your games on any computer at any time -- IF you have an internet connection active at the moment or "logged in" and selected that you will want to play "offline" in a bit. On single player games. SINGLE PLAYER GAMES. Not online games.
I'm not prepared to "log on" just to play a single player game -- or indeed the single player campaign, for various reasons -- the chief one amongst which is that I am not connected to the net everywhere I go, and I see no reason WHATSOEVER to let Valve know when I consume my gaming fix. They have no reason to know.

If you're not connected everywhere you go all you have to do is set up offline mode once. Yes, you have to be connected to the Internet to do that then again you have to be connected to the Internet to even get your game. It's an online distribution system after all.

If I buy Portal, HL2, and another multiplayer game, and for some reason their system detects something amiss with my account while doing the multiplayer thing, they will suspend my account -- removing access to the single player games as well -- let alone the multiplayer. No refund, either. Fuck that.

No, all that their cheat detection (VAC) will do is ban you from any VAC secured servers. Which granted is the big bunch of them out there, but what use is an omnipresent cheat detection if there is no way to enforce it? Also your single player game experience is completely untouched.

"Steam keeps your games up-to-date automatically."
Big whoop. This is not hard to do even without the "Steam" framework. And maybe, just maybe, I don't WANT to have the latest version, all the time. Not all updates are good updates. Some change gameplay to something you do not like at all, some introduce bugs that affect you adversely, etc.
I very much like the control offered by being able to select whether or not I want to update a game.

Then have fun playing online with your non-updated game.

Re:Hmm?

[Loibisch]

Oh great, the fucking comment system ate my post because one of my backspace strokes accidentally counted as "back".

So here's the short version: I understood what you were saying, but not what the huge problem with all of it really is.

You need Internet access for BitTorrent. You might not need it for actually installing the game but with Steam installing IS downloading. If you want to play it offline you still can, if you want to copy the Steam cache files you still can (to avoid the download) and you will need some minimal access to activate the game...which in this century shouldn't be much of a problem if one tries a little. Hell, I could probably do it through my cellphone without any bump in my bill.
Also there's a good deal of non-steam games which start to require activation despite not being published online. I know, you won't buy these either...but it's coming whether you like it or not.

If you can't do the activation because you live in deep Siberia and your only Internet connection is a donkey that comes by every other week then get a crack for all I care...at least you paid for the game.

[...] I have maxed my connection using BitTorrent -- but also other methods commonly used by pirates (such as direct downloads from sites like RapidShare -- note that I have no idea how fast the HL2 torrent is, I never did get that, and have no intention to ;)

That's not the point. The point was you claimed their distribution system was crappy. However the speed is nothing to complain about (of course P2P has the potential to be faster...it can also be much slower if the file is just available at a few nodes). Also I couldn't find the 'lengthy' other reasons why you find their actual download system so bad (except for the LAN party thing, which admittedly is retarded...then again how often do you see people grabbing 2GB at a LAN party, actual updates if they come out the day before are probably around 50MB...most of the time more like 10MB unless there's new content. Also if you really want the stuff faster: you can just copy the steam cache folder of someone who already downloaded everything).

The 'offline mode' might be a killer for you, I however don't really care for it since all relevant games I own on Steam are multiplayer anyway.

As for the 'horror scenario' of losing your games: I want to see Valve trying to shut me out as a user for some arbitrary and unjustified reason. They'd have to discuss that with my lawyer I suppose.

As for cheating: if you cheat in online games you deserve to be banned and not play that game again. I don't have sympathy for people crying over this. Your 'privacy implications' of Punkbuster and co are wildly exaggerated. Give me an example how VAC hurts your privacy when it's scanning your game files and game memory footprint for modifications? If that's a bad way then how would you do it? No cheat protection at all?
You do realize that this has nothing to do with Steam but is a problem in general?

I'm not talking about playing online in that case. Nice try though.

Well, if you don't want the latest version for your single player games you can turn automatic updates off on a game-by-game basis if you want. They're not enforced unless you want to play online and your version is incompatible with the server's.

Oh, and if Valve ever goes belly-up I'm sure there will be a fix from somewhere in the community to enable 'offline mode' one last time once and for all.

I can't convince you to use Steam and I don't want to and don't care to. But your original statement that Steam is nothing but a pile of crap and BitTorrent offers better service is just bullshit.

I'll wait

[Rinisari]

$6 extra for a $50-$60 game? Forget that. I'll wait a day or two and enjoy a lunch out.

Re:I'll wait

[Anonymous Coward]

$6 extra for a $50-$60 game? Forget that. I'll wait a day or two and enjoy a lunch out.

Denny's... here I come!

Not so new really

[Lanoitarus]

Didnt they already do this for book releases (harry potter methinks)? Not such a revolutionary offering in that case, although still a welcome one. Amazons shipping and fulfillment system continually impresses me. If they ever joined forces with newegg we might reach singularity.

Great!

[moo083]

I have Amazon Prime, and got Soul Calibur IV from them and this was awesome. I hope they'll do this for all new games!

You don't have this in the US?

[Sockatume]

Here in the UK companies have been shipping games out so that they reach customers on the release date for at least the past eight years, and probably more than a decade. Gameplay always guaranteed it with first-class mail, which usually meant you got a game 2-3 days before release, and almost everyone else does it on their free delivery option (e.g. Play.com). Amazon.co.uk is about the only exception that springs to mind.

Srsly? Not new, and shouldn't be a pay service

[bconway]

I was getting games and movies on release day from Buy.com circa 2000, and I'm pretty sure I've run into it a few times since then. Is anyone going to fall for Amazon's "service?"

Re:$5.98

[gEvil (beta)]

You clearly don't understand the psychology of pricing. $5.98 is less than $6 (and $5.99 for that matter), which makes quite a few people think that they're actually saving something.

Amazon Prime

[oahazmatt]

I tried Amazon Prime. I got a free trial and decided to pick up some random things that didn't qualify for the super-saver shipping.

The problem with that, is while the 3-5 day shipping comes UPS at around 6:00 PM, when I'm home from work, the 2-day shipping comes during business hours and requires a signature and they won't leave it with the apartment's office. So in order to get the items I ordered I had to drive 30 minutes to the UPS center, wait until they opened it for pick-up, and then wait for my driver to show up with my delivery.

I cancelled AP before it rolled over into a charge. I was hoping there was some sort of feedback form, but there was not.

Be careful of any special shipping you get from Amazon, because there's a chance it becomes two-day-get-your-butt-over-here-and-pick-it-up-yourself.

Re:Costs too much.

[sangreal66]

It isn't a surcharge, its the shipping fee. Overnight delivery used to cost upwards of $15 on games for non-Prime accounts before this change

How is this a deal?

[Sp00nMan]

Can someone explain to me how this is better than just going to my local store on a release day and buying it? Why pay Amazon $6 more to get it on the same day? I don't get what Amazon is thinking??

Re:$5.98

[terrarum]

Where I work in the UK the pennies are a code; a £599.99 laptop is a current model, a £599.97 computer is out of line and we won't be getting more. I think .98 means something slightly different, can't remember. I've been told a lot of other companies do this as well.

Re:$5.98

[SBacks]

I've noticed that Best Buy has a system for this too. Sale items always end differently than a regular priced item. .x5 vs .x9 I believe.