Of course you'd use Magnet links with hashes, that's a beautiful thing.:-)
The reason decentralisation is an advantage is because it reduces costs. If you don't have to run 8 servers on a dedicated T3 and can instead run one server with 1 mB/s bandwidth, you're saving money.:-)
I saw this too, with the release of the Natural Selection mod. I'm not sure why, but the BitTorrent release suffered not-so-hot download speeds, and the Shareaza (g2) release which had more downloaders, was constantly applauded. We had 100 kB/s dedicated to our file releases back then, and that was apparently more than enough to keep everyone happy. I was very satisfied with the flash-release system of that file. Unfortunately, we no longer have any dedicated mirrors or users, a factor that as you've pointed out considerably hurts download speeds. Of the 500 times that file was downloaded in the first 30 minutes, the main server probably only sent out 40 or so fully copies of it. That's great turn-around to me, especially considering that just about everyone involved had some really nice download rates. One thing that needs to be stressed however, is that these P2P systems REALLY require that you properly configure your firewall. BT, ED2K, Morpheus, KaRaap, and Shareaza... They all work a LOT better if you route the appropriate ports. I wish I had a better way of telling gamers that before that started trying to download stuff, but I don't.
Many ISPs do supposedly locally mirror popular files and cache high-demand objects. Valve claims that with Steam, several ISPs are hosting the steam cache because they can keep the load on their lines more localized.
Yeah, P2P isn't too hot for those in the UK and others on a restricted line, but it seems to me that any company that now tried to set up a transfer limit would be doing itself in due to the availability of other service providers. They would have to do it all at once to avoid going out of business. I don't see this happening in the U.S.:-)
I don't understand why the big dogs (Ha, get it?:-P) develop their own in-house solutions or outsource for some proprietary solution. You could be just as well served by using existing standards. All publishers really need to do is post a magnet link, and regardless of whether they have a dedicated backend or not, that link is useful to a wide variety of clients. They can even include that backend if they want, for a significant boost in seeding speed. This is exactly what GamePhilez did before we changed servers and had to ditch the dedicated file storage. Gamers are much less likely to download a new proprietary piece of software for every site they visit than if they can use one of many different programs, possibly even one they already have and love.
That's just it... Valve says that their files, while they are copyrighted, are clearly meant for public distribution. It's probably there in the user agreement too. Basically, TheESA acted on behalf of Valve, but not according to Valve's wishes. Had my Internet gotten shut off for something that is not illegal (Valve would never persue a lawsuit like that, because they know that gamers would be pissed, it would be (yet another) PR nightmare), the ESA would have been in a very awkward situation.
I looked into using BitTorrent for GamePhilez, but it's that sort of thing that discouraged me. Somewhere, you have to have the tracker and the main seed... That centralizes it a little too much for my tastes, and the model is weird. It works really well if there's a dedicated seed out there somewhere, but eh... No answer for your question. I think that's just how it goes.
I run GamePhilez, and I'm on the Shareaza alpha team (And BitTorrent now works REALLY well for me in Shareaza) and I'm not a big fan of "ripping down teh 1ndu5try!" However, due to The ESA's (www.theesa.com) automated search bot, I've been flagged twice as sharing illegal content. The Enemy Territory client, E3 footage, the Half-Life patch... It seems the words "Wolfenstein", "Doom", and "Half-Life" generated those cease and decist letters we all know so well. That's not very nice of them... Most ISPs, upon receiving such a notice, immediately shut down the "offender's" Internet and remove their account, no questions asked. Well, when my school notified me (Two seperate occasions), a representative at Valve told me that no, these files were obviously meant for distribution, and they had no idea why the ESA would send out a notice for these things. If my Internet HAD been shut down, you can rest assured that I would have taken them to court.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you'd use Magnet links with hashes, that's a beautiful thing. :-)
The reason decentralisation is an advantage is because it reduces costs. If you don't have to run 8 servers on a dedicated T3 and can instead run one server with 1 mB/s bandwidth, you're saving money. :-)
I saw this too, with the release of the Natural Selection mod. I'm not sure why, but the BitTorrent release suffered not-so-hot download speeds, and the Shareaza (g2) release which had more downloaders, was constantly applauded. We had 100 kB/s dedicated to our file releases back then, and that was apparently more than enough to keep everyone happy. I was very satisfied with the flash-release system of that file. Unfortunately, we no longer have any dedicated mirrors or users, a factor that as you've pointed out considerably hurts download speeds. Of the 500 times that file was downloaded in the first 30 minutes, the main server probably only sent out 40 or so fully copies of it. That's great turn-around to me, especially considering that just about everyone involved had some really nice download rates. One thing that needs to be stressed however, is that these P2P systems REALLY require that you properly configure your firewall. BT, ED2K, Morpheus, KaRaap, and Shareaza... They all work a LOT better if you route the appropriate ports. I wish I had a better way of telling gamers that before that started trying to download stuff, but I don't.
Many ISPs do supposedly locally mirror popular files and cache high-demand objects. Valve claims that with Steam, several ISPs are hosting the steam cache because they can keep the load on their lines more localized. Yeah, P2P isn't too hot for those in the UK and others on a restricted line, but it seems to me that any company that now tried to set up a transfer limit would be doing itself in due to the availability of other service providers. They would have to do it all at once to avoid going out of business. I don't see this happening in the U.S. :-)
Oh yeah, and to clarify... I'm not a big fan of Torrents. They're still too centralized. :-)
Hence my use of Shareaza and G2/ED2k/Gnutella.
I don't understand why the big dogs (Ha, get it? :-P) develop their own in-house solutions or outsource for some proprietary solution. You could be just as well served by using existing standards. All publishers really need to do is post a magnet link, and regardless of whether they have a dedicated backend or not, that link is useful to a wide variety of clients. They can even include that backend if they want, for a significant boost in seeding speed. This is exactly what GamePhilez did before we changed servers and had to ditch the dedicated file storage. Gamers are much less likely to download a new proprietary piece of software for every site they visit than if they can use one of many different programs, possibly even one they already have and love.
That's just it... Valve says that their files, while they are copyrighted, are clearly meant for public distribution. It's probably there in the user agreement too. Basically, TheESA acted on behalf of Valve, but not according to Valve's wishes. Had my Internet gotten shut off for something that is not illegal (Valve would never persue a lawsuit like that, because they know that gamers would be pissed, it would be (yet another) PR nightmare), the ESA would have been in a very awkward situation.
I looked into using BitTorrent for GamePhilez, but it's that sort of thing that discouraged me. Somewhere, you have to have the tracker and the main seed... That centralizes it a little too much for my tastes, and the model is weird. It works really well if there's a dedicated seed out there somewhere, but eh... No answer for your question. I think that's just how it goes.
I run GamePhilez, and I'm on the Shareaza alpha team (And BitTorrent now works REALLY well for me in Shareaza) and I'm not a big fan of "ripping down teh 1ndu5try!" However, due to The ESA's (www.theesa.com) automated search bot, I've been flagged twice as sharing illegal content. The Enemy Territory client, E3 footage, the Half-Life patch... It seems the words "Wolfenstein", "Doom", and "Half-Life" generated those cease and decist letters we all know so well. That's not very nice of them... Most ISPs, upon receiving such a notice, immediately shut down the "offender's" Internet and remove their account, no questions asked. Well, when my school notified me (Two seperate occasions), a representative at Valve told me that no, these files were obviously meant for distribution, and they had no idea why the ESA would send out a notice for these things. If my Internet HAD been shut down, you can rest assured that I would have taken them to court.
Sort of like Valve's Steam.