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Metal Gear Solid V PC Disc Contains Steam Installer, Nothing Else
dotarray writes: The boxed copy of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain reportedly contains nothing but a Steam installer. That's right, even if you fork out real-world money for a physical copy of the game, you'll still have to download the whole thing from the internet.
The game officially launches tomorrow. Early critical reviews are quite positive, though you should take that with a grain of salt until the game is more widely distributed. Game Informer says, "Unlike the linear design of previous entries, The Phantom Pain rarely assumes you have particular weapons and equipment, so the missions are brilliantly designed with multiple paths to success." The Washington Post notes, "The Phantom Pain’s openness feels like Kojima finally found a technical platform broad enough to make use of all of those tools and trusts players to build their own narrative drama from the way they choose to put these tools together for each mission." IGN has this criticism: "... where Phantom Pain’s gameplay systems are far richer and meatier than any the series has ever seen, its story feels insubstantial and woefully underdeveloped by comparison." Metal Gear Solid 5 is launching for PCs, current consoles, and previous-gen consoles; Digital Foundry thinks is likely to be the last true cross-generation AAA title.
The Phantom Pain? Like the pain that amputees feel in the location of their removed limbs? That is truly an awful name for a game.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
This isn't a new thing in any software genre. "Physical goods" now means a scratch-off key you can use online to activate something you download.
(As a security guy, I think this is generally a good thing: no more insecure-out-of-the-box-and-never-updated software packages hitting end users' computers.)
How would Gamestop buy it? You would presumably be given a key to activate on Steam in the box. Once activated it's attached to your steam account. The box/DVD becomes worthless, even if the game itself were on the DVD.
This isn't anything new either, you couldn't reliably resell/buy used copies of Starcraft or Diablo II back in the day as you never knew if someone else kept the CD-key (this applies to a lot of online games that used CD-keys).
Updates is one thing; you could install it on a machine never connected to the internet and play it straight out of the box, bugs be damned.
This is different. Your time is 100% wasted going to a brick and mortar store to buy an online installer.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Gamestop usually doesn't buy back PC games anyway due to activation codes and/or the ability for the person to keep a copy of said game onto their harddrive. This would explain the whopping selection of 2 games in their pre-owned PC section.
What happen? ....
Somebody set up us the STEAM.
We get signal.
What!
Main screen turn on.
It's You!!
How are you, gentlemen!! All your GAMES are belong to us. You are on the way to pwn3d4g3.
What you say!!
You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha
Take off every INSTALLER!! You know what you doing. Move INSTALLER. For great justice.
Except that neither of those things had any market with PC games. Resell and rentals is a console only thing. This game being cross-platform between PC and consoles, the console versions are affected by this exactly not at all.
Not every game on Steam requires Steam to be open and logged in to play. There are many that are 100% DRM free. You can literally take the folder, move it and still launch the game even if steam is closed out completely. You just need Steam to install it initially then you can do what you wish with the game. Examples of some of these games: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/Li... http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/T...
People with a 10 GB/mo plan on cellular, satellite, or Iowa DSL could start a download now and not finish the 50 GB of a full 2-layer BD-ROM before the end of the year.
Well, there are plans which would provide more bandwidth. The reality though is that more and more games have not just massive installs but also massive patchsets, so if you don't have high-speed internet with reasonable caps then modern gaming is not for you. That sucks, it sucks a lot, but it's how it is, and the person without decent internet access should take up retrogaming yesterday. I only have 6 Mbps myself, though with no cap, and that puts a serious crimp in my gaming activities. I cannot download a game and game online at the same time, for example. I can only game while my lady watches Netflix in the mornings; in the evenings, my ratty-ass WISP goes all to hell due to oversubscription and/or crap hardware they claimed they were going to replace a long time ago, shock amazement.
TL;DR: AAA games are not for people with crap internet
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have two thoughts about this:
First, I find it worrisome, but not as much as when it impacts the non-game software world, i.e. the world of operating systems and productivity software, stuff that either is something everyone uses, or people use to make money, or both. What do you do if your job depends on your computer booting, which it refuses to do?
Second, I don't know if you have noticed or not, but some software companies (Microsoft, for instance) don't even try to hide the fact that there is nothing in the box, because .; . . there is no box. If you buy software from a bricks-and-mortar these days, you often just get a card with a nonce printed on it under a scratch-off spot. You scratch off the spot, go to a specified website, enter the nonce, and your software downloads.
www.wavefront-av.com
tell us when the last time was that you can recall security risks arising from a video game
Both the Sega Dreamcast and the Nintendo GameCube were compromised through a security oversight in the video game Phantasy Star Online. This allowed code not approved by the console maker to execute on the console. After that, the same thing happened with save files on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and most of the LEGO film adaptations on Wii, and Cubic Ninja on Nintendo 3DS. Furthermore, bugs in Super Mario World and Pokémon Yellow were recently discovered that caused a jump into the memory used for enemy positions or inventory items, allowing a Super NES or Game Boy system to be hacked purely through the controller port.
Hate to break it to you, but things are cheaper nowadays. I can't even begin to think what my 1000-game Steam library would cost, or the size it would take up in real disks / packaging. Probably several SHELVES judging by the DVD's I have in front of me.
And, to be honest, my girlfriend bought a tablet Windows PC - the cheapest available - and it came with a year of Office 365 for up to five machines. We've since installed all five copies of the latest office. Back in the day, to do that legitimately, would have cost a lot more - hell, it could easily have cost upwards of $500-1000. Sure, next year we have to pay a pittance to keep it up, but we also get all the new versions too, and the option to use what we want.
That would have been unthinkable before online downloads. And, even now, if you buy volume editions on a proper licence of Windows, Office, Server, Exchange, etc. they are ALL downloads. You can pay extra for a DVD, but who the hell is going to do that?
To be honest, factored over the life of software, downloads are not a huge deal. And Steam is as "permanent" a licence as you can get nowadays. Why that stops replayability, I don't know. And the used game market is dead because I can get my own copy in a year's time for less than a used copy would ever be able to go for. We actually cut out a middle-man there.
To be honest, when done properly, it's hard to argue against it. Certainly my Google Play and Amazon Instant Video libraries are more useful, convenient and cheaper than anything on DVD too. And when it comes to DRM done properly, it's hard to pick fault with Steam, to be honest. There's a reason I have 1000 games on it. I'd be shocked if they cost anywhere near the cost of 1000 DVD-ROM's, even blank ones, plus the cost of storing those online for 24/7 download for 10 years, let alone the licence to the software in the first place.
6 mbps? Try 448/96 kbps because of living too far from the DSLAM and the ISP not caring. Refreshing a Slashdot page is not done without asking the rest of the household if they're doing anything latency-sensitive.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Could be worse. I bought a software upgrade to an oscilloscope. This is what I got:
A UPS package. Inside covered by foam peanuts, was an envelope. Inside was a bubble wrapped box. Inside fancy box was a card. On the back was ... ... a URL.
Ok, and a code. Still, there were only 2 lines. By logging into my account, entering the code, the SN and other information about the scope, I was given a license code for the software upgrade.
Type the code into the scope, and voila! Feature is unlocked.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
It's amazing how proud people are of their immorality. Good for you, jack!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
downloads are not a huge deal.
They are when you don't have broadband and a game is a 15+ GB download. I'm a big fan of Steam, and while I personally have a nice 25+ connection, I know some people that are stuck on wireless and even satellite internet. It'd be easier if they bought the game, loaned me their library, I download/install the game, copied it to a DVD or USB drive, mailed it to them, and they copy the files over to their machine and install the game (this does actually work for Steam).
I had something similar with logic analyzers from HP. I ordered an upgrade to enable new features on about 50 logic analyzers.
A week later the shipping department called me. Asked me to come get my delivery. I asked them to drop it at me office. They laughed and said, no you need to come unpack it.
Got downstairs and found a full pallet, shrink wrapped with boxes. After 2 hours of tearing down the pallet to individual boxes, I opened one up. Inside were foam spacers holding a smaller box - the size of a legal sheet of paper, about 4 inches thick. Inside that box was another set of foam spacers, holding a paperboard envelope. Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. With a single license key printed on it. A 60 digit license key, mind you.
I had 50 boxes of individual license keys. I spent 3 hours unpacking all of them, then another 10 hours going to each individual logic analyzer to type them in. Mind you, you couldn't just put any key in any logic analyzer. It had to match the serial number, so you had to search all the papers to find the correct one.
Works upgrade experience ever. Thanks HP! (Now called Agilent, I suppose)
And what, they should work for free?
Lots of work goes into making these games. If the price is too high then don't buy it. They'll either lower their prices or make games that are more affordable... whatever can give.
On the flip side I'm pretty sure I have you figured out:
1. You live with your parents
2. Your girlfriend drives you to work because you don't have a drivers license or a car
3. You work level 1 help desk and think you should be head of the company because you're so smart
And if you return it and get a "second" license so that you retain your right of first sale, then you're not stealing. Software "licensing" should not be able to take away your right to sell something after you've bought it (so long as you don't keep a copy for yourself). It works with DVD and Blu-Ray. That's why companies are trying to say "physical media is dead" and convince the next generation of people that it's true.
Ok; point taken. Get back to me when you can prove that two wrongs make a right, and that people somehow have the right to IP they didn't pay for, what with video games being so essential and all.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I dunno, have EA and friends started paying overtime yet?
Robbers getting scammed isn't going to get much sympathy, especially when they're themselves trying to scam the public out of their resale rights. Let the games industry become respectable if they want to be treated with respect; and if they continue acting like a bunch of evil overlords, they should bloody well expect the public to side with the rogues looting their ill-gotten gains - their very products depict excactly that scenario over and over again.
But I guess no one likes admitting they are the villain in their own story.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I don't hugely care about PC games or very much the sillyness of MGS anymore but good lord, this is a terrible move.
Some countries have data caps. I haven't read the article, or googled a damn thing but I'm going to make my guess right now and speculate this game is at least a 30gb download..... probably more like a full 50. In my case, that would be 50% of my monthly allowed internet quota.
Someone specifically buying a retail copy to avoid this is going to get stung.
Super lame.
Konami