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How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive?
GamesIndustry is running an interview with Theodore Bergquist, CEO of GamersGate, in which he forecasts the death of physical game distribution in favor of digital methods, perhaps in only a few years. He says, "Look at the music industry, look at 2006 when iTunes went from not being in the top six of sellers — in the same year in December it was top three, and the following year number one. I think digital distribution is absolutely the biggest threat [traditional retailers] can ever have." Rock, Paper, Shotgun spoke with Capcom's Christian Svensson, who insists that developing digital distribution is one of their top priorities, saying Capcom will already "probably do as much digital selling as retail in the current climate." How many of the games you acquire come on physical media these days? At what point will the ease of immediate downloads outweigh a manual and a box to stick on your shelf (if it doesn't already)?
I haven't bought a boxed game for a very long time.
Last time I did, was C&C First Decade Special Edition, because I wanted it.
The only reason I buy box boxed games for PC, is because I want it for show.
Else I mostly buy my PC games from Steam.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Check out the sales of Eve online on march 10th. They are putting it out in a box set for the first time (well practically the first time). Before now it's been download only. If the number of people playing shoot up, that's a good indicator. Likewise if the box set falls flat.
I'm so annoyed right now I only have the manuals and disks from my original King's Quest I and Space Quest I. It would be awesome to have the whole box intact.
Then again, I was in primary school at the time... Stupid kids. ;)
.: Max Romantschuk
In general, if I've paid for something, I want a tangible object.
I've this constant concern that *something* will go wrong in the digital process. I know it probably wont, and generally hasn't, but I'd still much rather be able to say "look - I _do_ own this, I've got the box and everything". That said, I don't have any paper records for, say, my banking. Priorities and all that.
I doubt it will go that fast, first of all not everybody has visa (or simular), which is often required for online buying thins online. And some people don't want to buy things online because they don't trust the visa-processors (see recent problems with visa-data). Others only buy things when they can physicly see them when shopping for other stuff. And what about people who don't want to have an internet connection on there gaming computer/console? This would be cutting there own sales-capabilities, even now when a lot of people buy songs via i-tunes (or simular) others want to have it on cd or vinyl just for show or nostalgy.
On the contrary, its to MAKE more money by killing the used game market.
Boxed games aren't as cool as they use to be. I remember my original Sid Meyer's Pirates... There was a huge printed map and you actually needed to use it.
Manuals were on nice paper, and the disks needed space too. The glamour is gone now... The box is just for getting the game home. Cool materials are too expensive. I sure prefer to be able to download nowadays, but there will always be that special something that only physical media can give.
.: Max Romantschuk
You can see this already with PC gaming. Digital distributors like Steam have pretty much demolished the brick and mortar stores. My local GameStop barely has a PC game section anymore and it's not because the PC market is shrinking. In fact, it's growing.
Brick and mortar stores are dying and they know it -- for PC games anyway. It's like they are not even trying anymore. I am an independent video game developer, and I tried my best to let GameStop et al sell my company's game, but they do not even return calls. We have not even gotten an email back yet.
Meanwhile, our upcoming title is going to be sold in virtually every single online store -- some of them responded within a day of being contacted. Here's our list so far.
Brick and mortar stores are still clinging on for consoles releases. Retail stores pretty much are the only place to go when you want to buy the latest AAA titles (except Amazon, which is like digital distribution with very high latency).
I mean, seriously, who doesn't like those shiny boxes with the manual, maps and stuff like that? And having the original packaging even many years later? We're talking about some serious bragging rights here.
For normal releases, or episodes etc, I prefer digital distribution... :-(
But when there's a "life-changing" title that's just come out, I want the special all-singing-all-dancing metal box, bobble head edition on my shelf!
Would we see the end of these versions too?
At what point will the ease of immediate downloads outweigh a manual and a box to stick on your shelf (if it doesn't already)?
At the point where I can download a DRM-less installer or ISO and do whatever the hell I want with it.
Anything short of that, and I'll keep buying physical media.
Simply stated, if companies stop selling their games on physical media, then I shall stop buying their games.
I've been fucked over by DRM-laden downloads on the 360, thanks very much. Every time mine goes back for repair, none of my paid-for-DLC works on the new box I get back, and I have to get into an hour-long argument with tele-bozos to sort it out. I have no interest in extending that process to every game I own.
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> At what point will the ease of immediate downloads outweigh a manual and a box to stick on your shelf (if it doesn't already)?
Well, since you ask.
1. When they are immediate. Some games are (and NEED to be) very large, this is hardly immidiate. If it's over an hour to wait I could easily go out and purchase the game quicker.
2. When they are not restrictive. I have very old games that I still lvoe to play. This means I need to be able in install my game on any machine I like when I like. This generally equated to DRM free. And DRM free includea activation of any kind. I want to play it when I want to, I may be without phone/internet etc. I want to install and go. Machines change, but drm may stop me from playing it in a "emulator" (computers may change so much that I need to emulate my old hardware to play the game, however I still want to be able to do it) or on some classic machnie I have cobbled together out of old bits people have given me (which is way better than the machine I played on back in the day as the expensive stuff then is still junk now!)
These may sound liek a lot of requests but they are not. 1 is outside of the game producers infulence (as it should be) but 2 certainly aint hard to do.
+----------------- | What is the question!
If everything goes digital, you'd no longer be able to purchase games with cash. Sucks to those people who don't have credit/debit cards or those who want to use cash transactions to protect their privacy.
Bit of a tangent here, but can anyone else remember getting the Ultima 6 box with printed map/dish cloth of Britannia and AUTHENTIC 'Orb of the moons' meaningless novelty souvenir nestled among the eight 5.25" disks? Amazing stuff. You can't get that over digital distribution.
On a related subject, will you all please get off my lawn.
making copies of games and putting it on torrents should be perfectly legal. Payment on activation anyone?
Need an ISP in South Africa?
I mean, I already have this game. I finished it. I spent some 70 hours playing it and decided I love it. I just want to pay the developers for their good work. Why should I pay extra to the retailers, packagers and a whole bunch of others I don't care about the least bit?
I wouldn't even mind if they were just selling the licenses, without any downloads at all.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I'm in two minds. Steam works brilliantly and in the half a decade I've been using it, it's worked faultlessly over many changes in computer. Can't say the same for EA Store though. I stupidly purchased BF 2142 through the Store. Worked OK for a while but after the last change of PC, I can no longer run the game I've downloaded. It comes up with some "this is associated with another account" bollocks when starting up the game.
With an 8Mbit ADSL connection and unlimited off peak usage, downloading a 3 or 4GB game is no longer an issue, especially if there's a local content backup option like Steam provides. Because I live in the middle of nowhere and my nearest PC game shop is a 50 mile round trip, most of the time, I could probably download the game quicker than going to buy it.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
I never had that strangely placed sentimentality for boxes and manuals with games. With complex technical gadgetry sure, or things with beautiful designs, etc. But with games? The manuals are 9/10 times total crap, black and white and minimally useful.
I am much happier when I can hit pause and pull up a manual, well organized by important topics like controls etc. without having to flip through pages of tiny text. Furthermore, that online manual's pages will never tear :)
I've been a big fan of digital distribute for quite a while. Yes, I have minor concerns about DRM. Yes it's nice to be able to sell things you own. However, I am of the opinion that so long as you go into it knowing what you're getting (basically an indefinite rental) then you can properly evaluate the worth. I think this is partly why I feel much lower prices are acceptable for DRM encumbered products.
Maybe it seems like $4.99 for an iPhone game that was just as good if not better than the $29.99 Nintendo DS equivalent is too little to sustain an industry. However, as soon as you think a little deeper you see that nobody can buy those games used, eliminating physical game sales largest competitor: its own afterlife.
So as long as these publishers put up their games at a lower price point to reflect these harsher realities, or, alternatively, remove restrictions (at least re-enable these basic tenants of ownership and use, one way or another) then I'll be happy with digital distribution.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Just about all of them. The only game I've downloaded recently was World of Goo, and that was just the demo and I've not actually got round to installing yet.
At the point at which I can do the same with the digital version as I can with the physical version - i.e. when I won't accidentally lose it when a hard disk dies or when I do a disk clean up, when I don't have to be online just to play it, when I can install it on other computers depending on which one I'm using at the time, and when it can't be taken away from me just by someone at the distributor losing their records or going bust*.
* Yes, I know DRM can cause some of those situations on physical media, but that's why I avoid the dial-home DRM.
The problem is that while network bandwidth does not follow an exponential increase in bitrate over time, disc format capacity does. So this would suggest that the gap between online delivery and physical media is going to get larger, not smaller.
Now that's not true. I've only been online about 10 years and i can actually notice the exponential increase, something like this:
1999 56k
2003 256kbit
2004 512kbit
2005 1MBit
2006 2MBit
2007 4Mbit
2008 10MBit
At least, that's been my experience in the UK. Here's another diagram going from 1982(log scale, so it's exponential)
"Digital distribution" and "on-line stores" are not synonymous.
I buy most of my games and movies from on-line stores, but I still get physical media for my cash. This is also true for AAA titles - my copy of MutantExploder7 will land on my doormat on the day of release.
It is the prevalence of low-overhead (and sales tax avoiding) on-line retailers that has been killing bricks-and-mortar establishments for the last 10 years.
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When I can play them without having crud on my comp while using them.
The day when I can install them myself when my internet is down.
Not until then.
However, I hardly ever buy games.
How many of the games you acquire come on physical media these days?
All of them, except for "Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People" (which is from Telltale Games who always have an offer to get the retail box when it's released just for shipping costs), and "DROD RPG: Tendry's Tale", which doesn't have a physical box just yet (but it's predecessor "DROD: The City Beneath" also had the option to get the regular box when it came out with the price of the download deducted from the price of the box).
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Check out the sales of Eve online on march 10th. They are putting it out in a box set for the first time (well practically the first time). Before now it's been download only. If the number of people playing shoot up, that's a good indicator. Likewise if the box set falls flat.
Whether or not online sales are good or not depends on the sales system adopted by the vendor. Personally I am very much in favour of credit card enabled instant gratification when it comes to Music/Movies/Software purchases but some online sellers can be pretty idiotic about selling their products. The model adopted by Apple with iTunes for example is pretty nice, unless you live in a country that doesn't have a national iTunes division. Where I live (a small European country) Apple happily sells iPod touch players but they don't have a national iTunes store so I have to drive to a neighbouring country every once in a while (which I do regularly anyway) and buy iTunes gift certificates. And it's not as if I need those just to buy music on iTunes but even to do simple stuff like the time I decided that I wanted to upgrade my iPod Touch to software version 2.0. The same goes for Adobe they price their products differently depending on where the customer lives. I tried to buy one of their products by download once only to find that it was less expensive to buy if you are in the US, for me it was actually somewhat more expensive than for US residents since I am living in Europe.... Why??? Does it cost 20%-30% more when a EU resident downloads an Adobe product form their store than if a US resident does the same? I don't think so. I bought a $50 license for Omnigraffle and paid the same price the Yanks do since The Omni Group doesn't discriminate. To add insult to injury I also don't live in a country listed in the drop down menu in Adobe's stupid online store so I couldn't buy the product by download anyway. Thankfully Amazon.co.uk doesn't seem to care where in Europe it sends the products it is selling so I could acquire the Adobe product product in question by the good old DVD over snail-mail route. This is cheaper than buying it from one of the local stores who tend to overprice this stuff even more obscenely than it already is by online sellers. I am definitely going to miss the DVD option.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
With a lot of ISP's instating monthly bandwidth caps physical distribution could make a comeback
For me, it comes down to the pricing.
I like to be able to pass on the games I've enjoyed playing (but don't like so much I want to keep on my library shelves for later replay) to friends that don't have the disposable cash to keep buying games, but would like to.
If I shell out £30+ for a game, I like the flexibility to do what the hell I want with it (in the strictures of legality). That includes passing it on, in the same way I do with books (which is how I keep my book shelves under control!).
When the titles drop to £5-10, then it hits more the psychological "disposable" point. In that bracket, I don't care so much about being able to pass it on quite so much (it's still rather irritating, but the tradeoff for some reason becomes 'acceptable'. That 'moral grey area'). At that point, I'm tempted by the digital, highly tied and encumbered titles (as long as they don't screw with my local PC drivers).
One of the recent things that really got my goat was the "Dawn of War 2" title that I grabbed as physical media, and STILL tied me into Steam (removing the ability to pass it on), and the continual nagging to get me to sign up to "Games for Windows Live", which I don't want to do, and won't to play a single player game (it nags EVERY TIME you load up and try to access your save game section, in single player mode!).
The reason that the digital music segment of the market works so well, is that it is low cost. With difficulty these days obtaining singles (that kind of died out in the 90s), you were forced to obtain albums (at circa £12-15, later falling to about the £8-12 mark). With the advent of digital downloads at about £0.80 per track, you had the option to buy just what you wanted, at a price that marked the product as 'disposable' per item (though it may clock up to a collection that definitely isn't disposable in its entirity).
The recent experiments on steam (cutting game price, and having sales increase by an order of magnitude or two) seem to bear this out.
...as long as, for example I can buy 'Empire: Total War' for £16 less off of Amazon, delivered to my house in a shiny box, than I can get it downloaded off Steam. Same with music, movies etc. If it is cheaper (or roughly equivalent) to buy a physical object, people will do that. If it is significantly cheaper or easier to get an electronic copy, then people will do that. People like to pay less money for things, and they also like to have physical stuff. The relative magnitudes of those factors will determine whether physical or electronic copies are sold. I'm all for digital distribution of games etc, but currently it is too expensive. And I like having a shelf full of pretty boxes :)
...if the big boys have their way.
The one killer bonus for them is that it nixes the second hand market at a stroke (and puts "rental" into their control). We've got three shelves of Xbox360 games here - most were bought second hand from Blockbuster/amazon/ebay at a fraction of the new price. Of course they will assume all current second-hand sales will instantly become full-price purchases, and be disappointed when they don't.
Also noticed that MS are starting to punt what could be considered "full" games via their online marketplace, at a comparable cost to shop prices for a new game. Testing the water...
I love Steam too, but won't even consider getting most of my games from there because of the price.
In the UK, Dawn of War 2 was available on Steam on release day for £35, before VAT, which bumps it up to something around the £40 mark. In my local GAME and HMV it was selling for £29.99 including VAT. Rewards cards reduce the price on that too - I regularly get money off things at GAME. Ordered from play.com, the game cost £23 including VAT, and came through my door on release day.
I can understand retail stores need to add on something for stock distribution, staff, floor space, whatever - even play.com will be adding on something for warehouse space, shipping and others.
Can Steam really justify being so much more expensive than those? On top of this, the price of games on Steam doesn't fall anywhere near as quickly as it does in shops. Until it's at least the same price as shops, I'll still be buying physical copies.
I don't see where I work will rush to digital distribution. That equals piracy, which is what makes the PC much less profitable to develop for.
At the moment Wii/PS2 are the most profitable platforms to develop for. Development costs are lower, and the markets are very large. With the PS3 and XB360 with internet connections, it's amazing piracy hasn't already turned next gen console development to the same as PC.
Music has concerts. Movies have cinema. What do games and TV have?
Forget fighting piracy, you can't, and if you try you cause the user to hate you and you fail anyway.
Money has to be made from advertising and/or charging so little and providing such a good service, customers can't be bothered to pirate (think allofmp3).
Our studio works on franchise games (safe money) and those will be some of the last games to stop being sold physically, because our games tend to be bought for other people as gifts on the back of the franchise (I'm under no illusion). Like DVDs in that respect. No body burns a downloaded rip as a gift.
If BluRay becomes cheap enough, then of course games from all platforms will be distributed that way. Who even on 3Mbit broadband wants to download 20GB games? Not me, that's for sure. It's all a question of media and the size of the game vs the size of people's broadband pipes.
And likewise it will be with the next media format, and the next, and the next. You can't compare MP3s and games because songs have a fixed size. Games do not.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
... I get all of them in physical media. (http://steamunpowered.eu/ for the details)
OK, I've bought a few from GOG, but they still do it right.
I think it's freaking ridiculous that I can go to an on-line shop and get a game delivered to my door, for half the price I can get it from Steam.
Digital media. It's much cheaper, but we get to keep the profits, pass none of the savings to the customer, and you pay more for the "convenience".
Analog -> 8-tracks, LP's, cassette tapes, VHS tapes,
Digital -> CD's, DVD's, floppy discs, CD-ROMs, game 'cartidges' (aka [[E]P]ROMs).
"Digital" does not describe the distinction between buying music on a physical CD versus (for example), paying to make a copy over a network (for example, the Internet) of that same music via Apple's iTunes. *BOTH* are "DIGITAL".
One *big* difference is that the digital copy on a CD is in an open, standards compliant DRM-free (except for some Windows users) format, whereas the downloaded copy (may) be in a proprietary DRM format.
I bought Dawn of War II from the supermarket ; because it was a lot cheaper than getting it on Steam - even if it is natively a Steam game.
Why, in this day and age, are physical boxed copies retailing for less than the digital variant? In this particular case, there is literally no difference between the end results - both methods have the game, installed in my Steam folder, registered to my Steam account. Neither has any resale value. I even had to wait to download an update.
I would rather have downloaded it all, it would have used less materials, and perhaps given more money to the developer (in theory). But for less money, I got more value - I got a disk with a "preload" on it. So physical distribution isn't going away until the download costs less than a retail boxed copy, or until they stop offering boxed copies altogether, and the latter is probably the route that they will want to take - no competition, no discounting.
A fully loaded BD-ROM holds 27GB. You're going to download that, are you? We don't have "MP3 for games" yet. They're already pretty compressed.
The problem is that while network bandwidth does not follow an exponential increase in bitrate over time, disc format capacity does. So this would suggest that the gap between online delivery and physical media is going to get larger, not smaller.
Actually, a fully loaded pressed BD-ROM is around 50GB. And no, most of the time it's bloat with uncompressed sound in PCM, textures in BMP format or otherwise poorly compressed crap. As for disc capacity - in 1990 I had a 650MB CD-ROM reader. So there's been roughly a 70x increase in disc capacity (50GB/650MB) over the last 20 years. Now I got my first 2400 baud (=bit/s) modem in 1995 or so, and have 20Mbit now so that's 7000x+ improvement in 15 years. I don't know what you're smoking, 27GB? That's 3-4 hours these days.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I dunno what it's like wherever you're living, but here in Germany, the Blu-Ray adoption rate is atrociously low. I'm studying electrical engineering, which means most of my "colleagues" are very tech savvy and always want the newest gadgets, but I don't think I know _anybody_ who's got a Blu-Ray drive (unless it came with a new PC or laptop), let alone a standalone Blu-Ray player...
>>Now that's not true. I've only been online about 10 years and i can actually notice the exponential increase
Hmm, here is my history of internet speed:
1993-1995: 14400 b/s modem dialup
1995-1996: 10Mbps ethernet
1996-1997: 10Mbps ethernet (local connection only - we wired our apartment for ethernet, but had no internet access)
1997-2003: "10/1 Mbps" cable modem shared with community
2004-2007: 1.5/384 "elite" DSL line
2007-Present: 768/384 "basic" DSL line
So by extrapolating from current trends, I'll be sending emails by the postal service again in 10 years.
As long as smart people boycott Steam and Valve.
You seem to be under the impression that the US has good download speeds. Have you not been reading about all the throttling going on, not to mention the semi-rural areas that can't even get ISDN connections, let alone DSL or cable?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I myself live in the UK, and am stuck on 2.5mbit (That's ADSL2+ speeds as well). However, I regularly download huge games off Steam - take GTAIV for example at 16 GB, it only took about a day or so to download.
If you have a 30GB limit, you need to start looking elsewhere. I have 60GB "peak" usage and truly unlimited Offpeak for £30 a month.
While I could go cable, I refuse to go with the only cable company due to their reliability and policies. While 2.5mbit is painfully slow compared to the rest of Europe, it doesn't prevent you from downloading huge games.
Going back to your original claim of having to max your 2mbit connection for a week to get 8GB, this is incorrect. At ~230kb/s (2mbit/s) it would take around 9 to 10 hours to download 8GB of data.
I rent game servers, see my homepage for more information
Steam has been doing this correctly for years now. Your subscription is well handled, the DRM is very reasonable, and when you log in you get access to any of your purchased games for download or temporary deletion if your disk space is cramped, and you can play your games on another computer by simply logging in. They've been adding classic games like some of the Thief and X-com games, and it all works well, even if they're offline at the moment.
I'll buy a boxed game when it's on sale or let people buy me games so I can unwrap them under the Christmas tree, but buying them a Valve compatible game means not worrying about losing their media or secret decoder license numbers.
Now do a list of game sizes. It will probably go something like this (install size):
1995 20MB
1999 400MB
2004 4000MB
2008 10000MB
Pricing is an issue with Digital Downloads though, the supplier won't be left with an excessive stock of games they have to get rid of for a low price. The benefit of physical media is, for the consumer at least, the price dumping that sometimes happen.
Another example, especially in these times, are shops that are closing down and selling their stock for really low prices.
I wanted to buy GTA IV for the PC just a few days ago, and looked at steam, they charged 50 euros for it which is the RRP.
Shops are charging around 25 euros for it, and talking to some of the local shops they are saying they dumped the price because it didn't sell as well as they thought it would.
On the flip-side, after re-installing my PC I installed the steam client and started an installation on all the games I have bought from there, and left it running over-night. Next morning when I woke up and all the games were nicely installed, patched and completely up-to-date.
Just noticed that you cannot type the euro sign on the slashdot forums, but the $$$ works just fine???
Annoying!
You have that one the wrong way round, the UK has better speeds on average than the US. Still worse than other places though. Hopefully the recent announcement by OFCOM/BT about the new fibre network will help improve this anyway.
Your 8GB game would take just under 9 hours to download at 2Mbit/s. Presumably, not all 8GB is required to start the game -- you could start playing after maybe 1GB has downloaded and the rest is retrieved in the background.
This post brought to you by a nothing-special 24Mbit/s home ADSL connection in the UK.
Uh dude thats what *you* payed for not what was around. Ben is pointing out the increase in the market not what he's had over the years...
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
Boxed media is dead !! Pirate Bay confirms it !!
Which from what I understand, may be only a few months away. Sure, there will still be some on the shelves, traditional console or handheld games, but the PC games market will be very much download centric, and the consoles will rapidly move that way too. I say give it a year or two, and the shelves may have the stragglers, or boxed stubs with a single URL on a CD but the mainstream will be downloaded.
50% of all the money the industry earns comes in the three months before Christmas. People like to see BOXES under the Christmas tree. Nobody wants to get a little slip of paper with a note reading, "Here is the URL of your Christmas present."
Many, many games are sold at Wal-Mart. Whiny children who are bored shopping with mom get a new game to keep them quiet. This is a fact.
The benefits of electronic distribution are unquestionable. But for now, there are other benefits to retail distribution. By controlling manufacture, the console-builders guarantee that they get their cut.
I piss off bigots.
Considering the rising sizes of games and the "traffic management" policies that all the major ISPs have now, it's not very practical for digital-only releases.
For example, GTA IV was the best part of 15-16GB. Even if ISPs didn't cap people's downloads, even if the digital distributors didn't crumble on release day, even if "upto 32Meg" broadband got close to those speeds, even if the game actually worked on PC (beside the point) - it would still take absolutely ages for me to download on my 2Meg connection. While I'm well aware of the fact that 2Meg isn't the fastest, I'm a student. I don't have the money to spend on 50Meg broadband. But similarly, because I'm a student, I have nothing better to do with my time than post ./ comments and play video games.
I've learned from my digitally distributed mistake, and in future I will;
Not buy another GTA game for PC
Just pre-order the physical copy - sometimes you actually get that the day before release.
This makes perfect sense from a business perspective and is therefore somewhat inevitable. I think the biggest challenge yet to be solved is how you can easily give online distribution games as gifts. The winter season is by far the period of greatest sales in the games industry for obvious reasons. However, I think that there is a slight hurdle between what we have now, and something that parents can confidently use to buy games for their kids.
In the end, everyone just makes more money using digital distribution. Not only do you not have to finance, press, package, and ship the game; but there is no secondary market to speak of.
Its interesting how one mans "Spread by word of mouth" or viral marketing is another man's pirating.
Think Deeply.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Plain and simple CD's, DVD's, get scratched, get worn out, get lost, break. Then what do you have? Nothing. Sure you can create an ISO, or make backups, but some people don't know how, or don't bother before its too late. On the flip side of that, digital distribution allows you a flawless copy whenever you want, the only caveat there is that you have to trust that whatever company sold it to you won't go under and take with it any proof of you having bought the game in the even a future download is needed.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I've been wondering the same thing about comic-book stores. I know they tend to have customer loyalty and host gaming nights and such to bring people into the store, but with online distribution (or if you're a reader vice collector, can you just read them online?) what then?
Bark less. Wag more.
Music CD's have usually over ten songs, of which maybe two or three are good - it's not very smart to buy the seven others! That's why iTunes is great.
On the other hand, when you buy a game, you buy one game - there's no air. On the contrary, you get manual (hopefully), game in a form you can lend or resell and nice status symbol in your bookshelf (all your friends will be jealous of your copy of Dead or Alive: Extreme Valleyball 4!).
Then there's the question of DRM, the digitally distributed version being of the same price or even more expensive than one bought from brick and mortar store (particularly outside USA) and, of course the question what will happen to the game if you need to repair your console or your harddrive gives up the ghost.
I don't really think that iTunes and Steam are comparable exambles for digital distribution.
Chronologically late.
The issue isn't physical vs. non-phsyical, but rather arrangements of molecules (DVDs) vs. energy (WiFi/ethernet/fiber optic/etc.) Energy is physical to.
The alternative would be awesome, though: meta-physical data transfers.
We don't have "MP3 for games" yet. They're already pretty compressed.
Actually we have. It's called "procedural generated".
It might be not as extreme as in "Spore", but that's the current tendency among game developing studios.
Bandwidth have dramatically exploded recent years.
Storage size has also seen good increases.
But there's only so much content that a reasonably size team of artists can spit out within a reasonable amount of time and within a decent budget.
It took quite some time for games to start filling CD-ROMs.
And that was back a time of ever increasing screen resolution and color-depths, of cinematics, etc.
Now this tendency has curbed. Lots of player consider current graphics "realistic enough". We aren't much avidly awaiting a 100x increase of polycount or texture size for the next few years (some consoles like the Wii don't even bother bumping up the generation of their graphics hardware).
FMV cinematics slowly got replaced with in-game animations done with the engine it self (see almost 99% of recently released games - things like Command and Conquer series are rather the exception).
More studios resort to automatic/programmatic content generation for their assets to stay withing man-hours and budget limits (see for example the recent presentation of engines like Id's Rage which can handle lots of terrain details as the artist only paints heights and soil types. Or most recent FPS which use a dynamically generated sky box / time of day effects instead of relying on lots of artists designing lots of different settings).
Size requirement for games aren't increasing as much as the rest.
BlueRay disc are great for lots of usage (they will be useful to pack a whole TV-series' season on a single disc, they will be invaluable in fields that have to manipulate and backup huge amount of data, they will be great to store an exhaustive Linux distribution on a single media like Debian).
But the time until we start seeing multi-BD games will be long, even longer than the time before multi-CD games appeared, or even multi-DVD for that matters (there even aren't that much yet)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
About as long as physical music and movie distribution will survive: they all are fading away...
CU, Martin
Now do a list of game sizes. It will probably go something like this (install size):
1995 20MB
1999 400MB
2004 4000MB
2008 10000MB
Try more like:
1993 The 7th guest: 1300MB
1995 Wing Commander IV: 3900MB
2000 Baldur's Gate 2: 2800MB
2006 Neverwinter Nights 2: 5500MB
2008 GTA IV: 16000MB
I assume you mean size of installer discs, since we're talking distribution? I'll gladly admit it's gone up over the years, but if you take the biggest mofo space wasters like you do if you claim games today are 10-20GB then you're way off. Sure, many games were only a few hundred MB but very many games today still do just fine on a gigabyte or two. Apples to apples games have not grown that much.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
While I like the convenience of Steam, let's not forget that if Steam goes belly up, games bought there will become unplayable. Yes, there is offline mode, but you can't switch to offline mode unless you're online and the Steam servers are reachable.
Whereas most of the games we have bought in physical form will still be playable even after the company who made them goes bankrupt, as long as the physical media haven't decayed enough to become unplayable. And there are precautions against that too, like VirtualCD.
There are also other possible pitfalls with Steam, like being banned. Let your 11 year old nephew play with your account for a few days, and he might get the account banned, and you lose access to all of your Steam games.
100% of PS3 owners have a Blu-Ray drive. I imagine it will be standard on the next generation of consoles as well. Those are the platforms that really drive game development.
So all in all, I must say I'm quite impressed with digital distribution (at least when it comes to Steam), as long as you don't lose your account credentials. Makes me wonder what happens if Steam ever goes permanently down though. I think I'll continue buying physical copies of games as long as they are offered, so I have something to fall back to if the digital distribution part completely fails.
That's one of the main issues I see with digital distribution that does not give you a standalone version of the software - you are dependent on the survival of the company to play the game.
A second issue, especially for console games, is portability. I see a lot of people who take their copy of a game to a friends house to play. If consoles go digital you lose that ability; unless you can d/l and play the game on more than 1 machine. I don't see console makers push as hard for digital because it is harder to pirate those games and portability is both valued by the gamers and a way to increase sales.
Finally, digital distribution opens the door for multiple licensing schemes. You could do a combination of buy for one price rent for another, and with pretty detailed sales numbers you could decide when to lower the price of the buy option which would get you more revenue over time if done right. All this will potentially increasing the revenue you get from a game; making it an interesting option from a publisher's viewpoint.
As an aside, independent game publishers may find it easier to get in the game because their is little cost associated with hosting a game for download versus distributing one on a disk.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I picked up Empire: Total War yesterday and didn't notice the little text, in about 6 point type on the back that said the product was activated through Steam, you needed a Steam account to activate the product and that if you didn't want to abide by the policies to return it to the store unopened. Yeah, sure, Steam works pretty well, but I hate the idea that I have to rely on something out of my control to make a product work. I don't like the fact either that they basically try to hide that info and only stick it on the side of the box because they are either legally required to or figured it would be a good idea to avoid a lawsuit.
Only if you didn't rip it out, I prefer my PS3 without bluray, thank you very much.
- Raynet --> .
Until someone invents a way to send cash electronically. (And I mean really send cash. None of the bullshit schemes right now where tons of various middlemen take their cut.)
We've solved the problem of distribution. Now we need to solve the problem of payment. And, highly preferrably, the problem of greed (as in "we don't want bullshit DRM schemes, either").
It's not far off, but sort of requires a bit more of a shift in mindset on the part of the publishers.
I think that game stores will disappear over time. I don't think this will eliminate the demand for boxed games.
Why cant you do both? Have a digital version for people who want it and a boxed version as well. But dont sell the boxed version in stores. Sell them both from the same website. If you want a boxed version they will send it out to you at extra cost.
For example Indie game Age of Decadence will do the following:
"$25 direct download, $50 for a box... plus shipping." "Boxed version will include a full color, professionally produced box (as good or better than what you see in stores), full color glossy manual, full color glossy map. And the aforementioned CD case, of course."
The best thing about this is that if you go for the boxed version you can download the digital version as well. So you can start playing straight away. Stardock also do this for games like Galactic Civilisations 2.
I think the only physical distribution of games we'll see is in the convenience stores, the way they'll have movies and some of the games for the older systems already. The game stores are the ones who should be terrified. The game companies want to remove the secondary market, same as the book publishers want to get rid of second hand bookstores. The convenience stores will be for the people too poor to afford an internet connection and will probably carry games for systems a generation behind the curve, the kind poorer people will be able to afford. Might carry a few current gen ones too, who knows.
Will they succeed? I think there will be a lot of pushback if they keep trying to use jacked up pricing. You can't bring a game to a friend's house, you can't loan him one when you're done. If your console croaks you might lose everything unless the game companies keep a "buy once, download as many times as you want" policy. If they're assholes about it, this will just drive the pirates to crack the games. I don't see an external media slot leaving systems any time soon, even if they're only used by a small portion of the market without net access. If they're big enough jerks about it, maybe there will come to be a market for current-gen emulators. Just buy a beefy PC, install the custom loader, play current gen games for free.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'll give up my physical box games when they pry them from my cold, ergonomically-incorrect-mouse-induced-carpel-tunneled hands. Part of my enjoyment comes from actually going out to a store and picking up the merchandise and checking out the pictures on the back and reading the game preview. Then after purchasing it I have it in the plastic bag (which I keep for secondary uses such as lunchs and pet debris collection) and glance at it from the corner of my eye as it sits on the passenger seat. The excitement grows until I finally get it home and installed. Hell, it's almost like actually having a date!
Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
I don't think this is entirely true. I have the PS3 and am online but I don't have a single downloaded game. I don't like them. I'd rather have the game itself. That way I know that if something happens I still have the game. If my PS3 crashes for whatever reason (which it has never done; it's just an example) I don't lose my games. But then again I also don't download movies and other media. I prefer to have the hard copy. Besides, you can take a hard copy with you to a friends house for a gaming night, if you just have it on your console then your friend is required to buy that game too.
Been online for about the same amount of time want to see my speeds each year?
1999 15k
2003 28k (modem upgrade)
2004 28k
2005 28k
2006 28k
2007 28k
2008 28k
At this point I have given up on broadband reaching me (Satellite is not broadband) and the industry will lose a paying customer when every game has to be downloaded.
I buy 100% retail boxed, tangible products. I want to be able to exercise the First-Sale Doctrine to re-sell my games after I complete them so that I can raise more money to buy more games. I also want the market to control the pricing of a product. Historically, after a few weeks on the market, retail-boxed items can be found for half the price of their digital counter-parts. Why? The game sucks. It may be fun at a $30 or $40 price point, but is a regret at a $60 price point. The market realizes this, and boxed games can be found for $40 whereas the digital copies are still at $59.99 (ooh, but free shipping and no tax!)
Digital copies are just a way to destroy the used-game market, undercut pawn shops (e.g. GameStop), lock out libraries, and permanently tie a person to a product so that they can never get rid of it.
You cannot give a download as a (Christmas) present.
The trouble is that the chance of actually finding what you want in a shop is very small. It's all filled up with mainstream crap.
The question is, why are they measuring bandwidth levels in Internet Explorer versions? :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You must have started playing games within the last 10-12 years or so, if the only manuals you remember are "total crap" and "minimally useful". It wasn't always that way. Take an old Microprose game, for example -- now those were manuals.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Exactly. When I can drive to a store, buy it and be back in an hour, yet it takes 3 days to download its kind of a no brainer.
As long as parents and grandparents are giving video games as birthday or holiday presents, those games will be packaged in a box, or at the very least a download-this-game gift card a iTunes cards, except specific to one game. A seven-year-old kid can't tear wrapping paper off a download.
Even worse these gsames are actually stealing money from you as well. A physical game has resale value (or equity, if you will), a downloaded game has no value at all beyond the first sale. Speaking as someone who buys most of his games used (you'd be amazed at how much you can save on the latest-and-greatest game just by waiting a few months) and who frequently resells games that I no longer play, this is nothing more than a blatant theft of what has always been a fundamental consumer right (the right to resell the things you buy and to buy used goods from others).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You repeat the summary's 2x usage of "digital" distribution, meaning network distribution. What sort of physical media are you guys using, LP's? (Then again there's no reason you couldn't put digital information on those too).
Has this become common terminology while I wasn't looking?
I don't trust companies enough to buy digitally. I know if I have physical media (be it for music or games) I know it's mine forever and I can re-install whenever I want (barring DRM like SecuROM, but that's what cracks are for)
If the company goes under and my PC dies, where do I go to re-download my purchase? Torrents are a viable option but then I'm doing something "illegal" so I don't see me switching to digital downloads at all until physical products are non-existent.
I saw someone mentioned EVE Online. I do play it and I did download it. However, I see that as a bit different. The game won't exist at all once the servers are shut down. The game itself was free, too. There also comes the issue of large games and downloadability. I don't have an issue downloading 20GB of something but if I buy a game, I'd like to play it and not have to wait a day or two. Also, my ISP might not like it...
-SaNo
And who don't have access to a High speed internet connection, Physical media distribution is the only way of getting games. I know of a slew of people in my area who live in the sticks, enjoy video games, and have no internet connection, so killing off physical media would be a complete shot in the foot for companies.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
Rock Band 2. Awesome, lots of fun...comes with custom hardware.
Fallout 3...for the Xbox 360. I don't even have a network connection for my 360.
This article seems to be more about PC games than console games (and at the moment, the console market is 5-10x the size of the PC gaming market).
<Donut[AFK]> HEY EURAKARTE
<Donut[AFK]> INSULT
<Eurakarte> RETORT
<Donut[AFK]> COUNTER-RETORT
<Eurakarte> QUESTIONING OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE
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<Eurakarte> NOTATION THAT YOU CREATE A VACUUM
<Donut[AFK]> RIPOSTE
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<Miles_Prower> RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES
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<Miles_Prower> ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS
bash.org
Given the fact that the size of games (and movies for that matter) is increasing far quicker than people's broadband speeds are, I'd say physical media are going to be around for quite some time. Some PS3 games are absolutely enormous. Far bigger than you could ever download (20-30GB!). Even the ancient Half-Life 2 is about 3GB I think, or 4-5GB by the time you've got all the extension packs that come with the boxed copies in the stores.
Nope... discs are going anytime soon. However don't think that means I don't think downloadable games aren't going to take off in a big way:- Some of the best games are downloadable (World of Goo on the Wii and PC for instance).
Steam and digital distribution are great for finding older games. I don't pick up the latest games on release I fit them in when I have the time and sometimes that is a year or three down the road. If they weren't a screaming success they're hard to find in a store.
with special covers and special paper things and stuff won't die that easily...
Well, I think fewer people have 10Mb/s now than had 56k in 1999 (of those who had computers, of course).
Still, your point is well taken. Looking back a bit further, in 1992 I had a computer that had a 2400bps modem and a floppy drive at 1.44MB. This was at a time when storage was about to make a jump to CDs. Today, I have an internet connection of about 4Mb/s and a DVD drive of 4GB. This is also at a time when storage is about to make a jump to blu-ray or similar. The relative increases are pretty close.
Checking my Dosbox folders, 20MB was reached and breached in DOS years already. Some 1995 games were already a full 600MB CD in size.
storage
on my 360 alone i currently have 32 games 1 is four disks 1 is 3 disks and 10 are 2 disks total about 47 disks assuming DVD10s that's roughly 470GB the largest drive for a 360 is 120gb and $150
maybe it'll work on PC where storage is cheap but personally if i want to play lost odyssey i don't want to have to wait for a 4DVD download to finish the entire reason i gave up PC gaming was the wait times for install/patch are too damn long sure as hell don't want to have to download from blitzed servers on release day
In a number of cases, the advent of 3D engines for games actually reduced install size a bit. Back in the 2D days, including huge chunks of (poorly) compressed FMV was a common way for AAA titles to flaunt their production values.
With 3D engines, doing in-engine cutscenes(which are tiny, once you have the engine and 3D models already in use) the amount of FMV has declined. On the minus side, of course, separating game and FMV for separate delivery is conceptually trivial, while cutting a game binary into bits is conceptually tricky.
I don't like the increasing trend of releasing with lots of bugs only because it's simple to update after release. I get the impression the more "online" the game is, the worse it is when released
They are learning the painful lessons music and movie "industry" have been seeing: The physical media isn't so valuable. When your business plan is tied to one and only one media, you will be in trouble when the next new thing comes along.
The last physical game I went to the store to buy was World of Warcraft: Rise of the Lich King. I know what game before that I went to the store to buy: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Any guess what the game before that I went to the store to buy? But I have been playing a lot of games on PC, more than I do on consoles. In that sense, the media for WoW is worthless. However having the access code in a timely manner is. In a few months, the data on the WoW:WotLK disks in those boxes will be nearly worthless since it will be patched and repatched but the sticker on the disk with the code will be as valuable as ever. Blizzard could handle this stuff online where they even provide an online way to buy/upgrade today but I suspect they are prevented from doing it at launch due to Activision wanting to satisfy retail/"brick + mortar" demands.
I think people are too enamored with the "collector" side of buying media. That is fine if they want the giant collection of stuff but to say it is valuable beyond looking at is crazy. My attitude changed on the last time I moved. I had a ton of just "games". Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. Games from primordial (stuff like Apple or Commodore) to DOS era to more recent games. The problem is I bet a majority of it is doesn't work any more where either I lack the hardware or software or both to make it run again nor in most cases would I care to get them to work again. I'm sure someone will think it is neat to have a box with goodies for Ultima 4 for the Apple II family but as a game it is impossible for me to use. Even for recent games, it turns out once I'm done with a game I rarely come back and visit them so why operate under the illusions that holding onto the disk and box is value added? Even for a moderm game that I've finished, say Fallout 3, if it stopped working tomorrow I'd shrug and erase it and move on to the next game.
Yup. If I remember good old Phantasmagoria had something like 7 cds.
I was using that as an example. I'm currently pull down data at 10Mbit/s Unlimited Downloads (gotta love LLU) :)
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
My purchases are 100% physical. The one game I play that cost me money where I have no disk is EVE, but with EVE you pay for the account, not the client that you download.
For me, the box and manual are part of the product. The best games often come with custom covers or special editions - look at Ico, which came in a cardboard case with art cards. These people actually gave a damn about the product.
Now we have people who don't want to do a physical version at all, who see it only as a means to make money, and DD as the most profitable method? They can keep their crap.
Nothing can outweigh a physical box and manual - there is no compensation for part of the product being absent.
In canada's yukon and northwest terrirtories the phone companies literally charge $10/GB for bandwidth, making digital content delivery un-desrirable. pay $60 for a game on steam, and then another $60 to the phone company to download the content. No thanks, I'll buy it boxed and only pay once.
- Better to speak your mind than to remain silent, or someone may speak for you.
For one thing, fewer and fewer people have access to unlimited bandwidth contracts as time goes by (my area's providers have all rescinded those plans a few years back) so downloading a game on a pay-per-use plan can jack up the price significantly. Another problem is the rise in interest from local governments in imposing taxes on online purchases, which they would certainly claim digital downloads are a part of. I'd rather avoid getting double-taxed for both the simple act of purchase and its digital nature as well (assuming a tax plan like this comes to pass, which is almost a certainty in the near future). Finally, there's our dearest friends at the RIAA. What if their pals at Mediasentry discover that you're downloading massive amounts of gigs through your interpipes and snag your IP address? Their typical work ethics means they'd just ASSUME you were downloading from illegal sources and BINGO, you're getting slammed with a lawsuit from the RIAA for half a million dollars. Good luck defending yourself from the Righteous Inquisition Army of Autocrats.
Even if box sales fell to, say, 10% of all sales, do you REALLY want to cut 10% of your sales by removing your games from the shelves of Frys/Best Buy? How many sales would you lose by NOT having it sitting there on the shelf staring at me when I walk into Frys to buy a printer?
Except that means I have to _leave my house_, deal with traffic (I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, though luckily I rarely have to deal with 635 anymore), find a store that _has_ the game (which admittedly is much easier these days, since most of the chains let you check online), stand in line, deal with a salesclerk who may or may not be competent, and then deal with traffic _again_ coming home.
Or I can start downloading while I'm doing other things, and not deal with any of that hassle. Let me think....
That said, however, I'm still shocked that no one has quoted Tannenbaum's[1] "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway". It would seem to be required for this discussion.
[1] Note that Tannenbaum may not actually have been the originator of the quote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
Here be signatures
I've got to admit that I was initially very lucky, then I got unlucky (got stuck in crappy US markets). Here's how my bandwidth worked out:
1993-2000: 1.5 MB and more. College and University was great.
2000-2001: 56K. Dial-up was cheap.
2001-2009: 756Kbit. Cable could be faster, but I like my hassle-free provider - too bad line noise is terrible, and seemingly will never improve.
Technology is irrelevant if it is not being rolled out to markets with monopolistic providers.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It never will when you get stuff like this in your hands: Doom version 1.1 artwork/manual etc.
BEHOLD! It is HE, The Mighty KING OF DRM ESCROW! bum buum buuuuummmm!!!!!111one!1
Wouldn't the best solution be to allow ISPs to cache the bulk of game data? I'd imagine it would work like this, you dowload a few megabytes from Steam or whatever and that initiates the download of a multi-gigabyte signed and encrypted file from you ISP. Everyone wins, less bandwidth for the game company, the ISP isn't using bandwidth outside their network, and the enduser gets the fastest download possible.
Digital Distribution is not good for games because what happens if they stop distributing them? That would an end to retrogaming.
Digital Distribution would put an end to the used game market. I'm sure the game companies dont care about the used market, but it goes hand in hand with retrogaming.
Once everything is distributed over network servers, how will you install that game on a later date to play when that network no longer has that game?
Its bad enough that update content is distributed this way, because it means retrogamers in the future probably wont have the latest versions of then old games, they're trying to play.
I think its just bad all around and the concept treats gaming as if its just a money making system, and not a history of entertainment, art, creativity, craft etc that should be perserved and accessable by gamers at any time through out time, provided one takes care of their games and consoles etc.
I would not expect gaming networks and distribution systems to be maintained indefinitely on platforms as they become "last gen" or " the gen before last gen".
What happens when I want to play something like Metal Gear Solid 4. There's no way I'll be downloading something that large, installing it..... then deleting it when i'm done....then a month later a friend comes by and want to see what the open looks like and I can't just pop the disc in.
And when you buy that long-waited-for Empire: Total War, you get Steam, and spend HOURS (well, it's a day after the launch) getting said game patched.
Really ruins your experience... especially if you could just download pirated version and stop caring about multiplayer, activation, steam preventing you from even seeing an intro for hours, that you cound spend sleeping, because you go to work like the next guy.
Well, if that's what's it's going to be, I say I'll stick to them torrents. They're so damn easier. Sega, Valve, Ubisoft - they're all going too greedy. And I wish it's still times when you got those five floppies of Space Quest or Larry, or Master of Orion, waited for it to copy to your smallish, pre-internet-era HDD, and then just plainly enjoyed them.
Boy, I wish I could just play the game I just brought home from the store.
Plain old sigh.
I've enjoyed buying games at the PlayStation Network store. So far, I've purchased Flower, Magic Ball, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, Super Rub-a-Dub, and others for my PlayStation 3. I've also bought No Gravity, SOCOM, and a few other games for PSP, also directly from PSN. That, and the occasional movie rental.
Downloading games is great for some games. You'll note that none of these games were fairly small - maybe topping at around 1GB for 'Quest for Booty'. That's where the true value comes in for downloadable games, when they aren't too big.
The PlayStation3 uses Blu-Ray for its media-based games. The guys at Insomniac Games said they pretty much filled the Blu-Ray for both Ratchet & Clank Future, and Resistance 2. I just got Killzone 2, and I'm willing to bet they did the same. A dual-layer Blu-Ray disc is 50GB. I'm not sure I want to download 50GB for a video game. Yeah, I know hard drives are getting bigger - but that's a lot of stuff to download before I can play my game, and if I start downloading now, I'm still not gonna be able to play it tonight. Compare that to my running out to Target (5 minutes from my house) and picking up a physical PS3 game.
Downloading that much content will also cause problems if my cable company implements a monthly bandwidth limit.
I think we'll see certain game publishers leaning more to downloadable games from places like PSN or XBL. That just makes sense for a lot of games. But for the AAA titles out there like Killzone, Battlefield, Ratchet & Clank, EA Sports, etc. you'll still see them on physical media, even 5 years from now.
1) Install Steam
2) Exit Steam (Can't have it running while you copy over)
3) Copy 'Steam\steamapps'
4) Launch Steam; log into account.
5) Profit (via entertainment, not $$$)
Is anyone really surprised that the CEO of a digital distribution company is predicting the end of physical media in the near future? The fact of the matter is that while the technology is there to allow people to download full games, the convenience is not. While sure, downloading a retro game is a snap, downloading a 1+ GB game is, for most American, a lengthy proposition, forcing them to leave their PC running overnight and/or making their computer unusable for several hours. Why bother when, for the same price, I can drive 5-20 minutes (for most people) to purchase the game at the nearest retailer, often for less due to a sale or member's discount?
Also, having a physical copy guarantees (unless that physical copy is destroyed) that even if your computer dies, you will still have a copy of that game for the foreseeable future. If I buy the game from a service like Gamers Gate, and then I reformat my computer sometime in the next two years, there's no guarantee that I can reinstall that game because there's no guarantee the business will last that long. I still have physical copies of games from the early 90's in my collection at home; even though the companies have long since gone belly-up (with a few exceptions such as Blizzard and Bethesda).
A few years to see all digital distribution or even majority digital distribution for blockbuster games? Not happening unless everyone gets T1 lines in the next few years.
Agreed, but the rate of growth in game sizes is not governed entirely by technological factors. The size of a game is the result of a decision on the part of the game publishers to back AAA titles which are bigger, more graphically pretty, etc. This is not the only way to go. Given a significant economic incentive to keep games smaller (eg: digital distribution), I would not be surprised to find the growth game sizes leveling out or even contracting over time.
We got the silly EU-directive that said all games must be sold in dvd-cases.
Nowadays, PC software sold in the United States tends to come in "IEMA size" cases, which are about the size of a DVD box set: twice as thick as a typical DVD keep case. Windows Vista OS comes in such a box.
And we lost all the fun stuff that used to be in those game boxes
A double-thick case still leaves plenty of room for manuals or other feelies. Or does this European directive require the use of single-thick cases in particular?
As far as I'm concerned, physical games will survive for as long as the downloaded types will be DRM-tied to an account that someone (like Steam) can cancel at anytime for any reason, or otherwise deny you access to.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity. -Isaac Asimov