Who here actually like digital downloads

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Vorak, Oct 16, 2012.

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  1. Vorak

    Vorak Administrator Staff Member

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    This thread is not intended as a piracy debate but more to see how many of you use or approve of legitimate digital distribution methods to buy their games. Especially given that we have primarily been an Arcanum fan site and GOG is about the only way left to get a new copy of that these days.

    Personally you would have to pull my physical discs from my cold, dead hands (I even have my Microsoft Windows and Office on disc) but I know for a lot of people the discs aren't important and they like the idea of online downloads. I can see the advantages of a system like Steam or GOG theoretically providing a safe backup for all your games but what if these services ever end?

    The latest debacle by EA will probably see a reduction in the online promo prices that make buying online so appealing for a short while at least:

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57532 ... to-reddit/

    And some games are so poorly marketed online I don't think the people in charge of selling them have any idea what they are doing. For instance EA are selling a pack on Steam that has Spore and its expansion pack combined for less than the cost of just buying Spore:

    http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1732/

    This is supposed to be the future of distribution in a world where they want everyone to store everything in the cloud but the implementation of the system just seems to be pathetic.
     
  2. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    Well, while you'll have to kill me for the discs I already have. Most of my games I now have on steam. And basically it's awesome. My games are always up to date with the latest patch, even if I didn't know there was one.

    My games, and in many cases my saves, can be accessed from pretty much any computer anywhere in the world.

    And if steam ends, according to their CEO, they have a "release button." So basically you'll get a download of your games, and you'll have to keep it safe yourself.

    That's an Australia thing. In the US or EU, that's not the case. Anyway the publishers set the prices, so blame EA for that.

    American store: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1732/?cc=US
    Australian store: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1732/?cc=AU
    British store: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1732/?cc=UK
    EU zone 2 store: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1732/?cc=NO
     
  3. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

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    I would prefer to have the discs, but yeah I often pay to digitally download games. For one they're usually cheaper, and for two it's an easier way to get a hold of them; as in I could wait a few days for a slightly more expensive physical version to arrive from amazon or I could have it right here right now. I never use Steam to buy games though as I hate DRM. I also buy games second hand where I can which I know some people hate to do; the UK has a store called CeX which only sells second hand games (amongst other things) and it only allows people to trade in games that are in good condition - though it does baffle me when occaisonally the second hand version is more expensive than buying it new.

    As to EA or the publisher marketing their games poorly, I don't think it's unique to Steam as often you can see similar bundle packs on amazon much cheaper than any individual game. It's stupid, yes, but it regularly happens and not just with games.
     
  4. Crypton

    Crypton Member

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    I hate a digital downloads, especially those that comes from ~censored~! Also, I would also rather have the CD's and nicely printed manual and a nicely printed box.

    The digital download simply sucks, mainly because you don't get anything and you still have to pay the same amount of money as you did, or sometimes even more. Plus, you can't give or sell the game, after you finish playing it, as it's permanently assigned to your account.

    They're legally disallowing you to give or sell what you've bought. Also they're monitoring you by keeping track of which and how many games you bought, plus when and for how long you have been playing those games.

    What's even worse, is the way how some of those digital download distributors, such as ~censored~, removes the CD copy protections.

    They're often using "cracks" (or "no-cd patches", if you want) from a warez groups, so they don't remove the CD protection in a legal way, plus you're paying for something that was illegal a years ago. Of course that they're trying to erase the tracks/marks of those groups, but still, any reverse-engineer will be still able to identify the work.

    If you don't believe me, have a look at you favorite game - Arcanum.

    Shame on them! :thumbup:

    Edit: Btw, I've bought many oldie games from eBay, and the average price for a game is only about $5 each, including shipping. Can't hate those hard, shinning and nicely printed CD's. :D
     
  5. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    I was initially against it but Steam has made the process so easy, cheap, and reliable that I'm pretty okay with it now. I've personally had nothing but smooth sailing with my many purchases through Steam.

    If there's a reason to pay for a physical copy sure, but what's the point? My personal best case scenario would be to pay your premium price, still get the digital DL, and get mailed a physical copy on top of the other bonuses (like a cloth map or something else cool).

    For somebody like me who has zero interest in reselling old games there's no real downside.

    GoG is an entirely different matter Crypton. Assigning GoG's issues to all digital downloads is an incorrect argument. For most people, digital downloads are for newer games or packages offered through like Humble Indie Bundle or Steam.
     
  6. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    This. I want to be able to play my game again at some later point if I suddenly find myself wanting to.
     
  7. Crypton

    Crypton Member

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    So you don't miss those CDs and large boxes? So you don't even care about the prices?

    Also, it's not only about whether you want to give or sell the game someone or not, it's about the freedom.

    When you buy a game on CD's, then you can lend it to your friends, and in a exchange, and they can also lend you a game. This was an ordinary thing a years ago.

    Now the game industry is successfully trying to take this kind of freedom from you. You can also see such restriction attempts for a video console games, and it's just a matter of time, when they succeed. Now it's a copy of software per account, but it's about time, when they start thinking in a way "a copy per person".

    How would you like, if you wanted to buy a car, and some automobile corporation would force you, not only to buy a brand new car, which will be expensive and not really yours, but also disallow you to sell that car? You also won't be allowed to lend the car, and one day, every member of your family would also have to have own car.

    Simple example, right?
     
  8. Vorak

    Vorak Administrator Staff Member

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    The difference with loaning games, movies and music to loaning something like a car is if you look at all the fine print you don't actually own it. What you really purchased is a license to use that product for yourself and your immediate family this does not give you the right to loan it out.

    You aren't supposed to sell them because you aren't technically able to sell your license, its individual to you. Used game dealers are what have lead to more complex systems being implemented to stop users letting other people use second hand copies.

    Publishers are against the concept that you pay them for a license which is specific to you and which is supposed to remain with you and then having you sell it on effectively licensing their property to someone else without their permission.
     
  9. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    Do I miss the hassle of dealing with physical media? Not in the slightest. Do I miss the well-crafted box sets and accoutrement of a game? Yes I do. See my previous post on my personal best-case scenario.

    Prices are either the same (so it's a wash) or better for the most part on Steam and other services. And if it's a direct buy from a publisher I would imagine they would get a larger cut than having to sell through a middle-man bricks and mortar store.

    Can I be a dick for a minute? Can I be real with you son? I'm slowly reaching the point in my life where my free time is at a higher premium than my money. And it's probably only going to get worse. I realize this isn't the case for a lot of people, but I can only speak for myself.

    Ergo, the last time I wanted a friend to play a game with me I enjoyed that he didn't already have (rare), I bought him the fucking thing so we could both enjoy it. Most of my current gaming friends share similar interests so when we game we've all already gotten the game.

    However, I will give you this point. Not being able to lend/resell games is the one of two real legitimate, non-luddite pro-physical media argument I've heard. The 2nd one being worries over service cancellation (most of the good ones have processes built-in for this issue though). This, of course, is not counting those people with no access to the web or are still on a 56k. And fuck those people. Get a different hobby that doesn't require broadband.

    I realize this opinion towards NEW THINGS puts me at odds with several of you on a forum for a 2001 isometric steampunk CRPG. But as I've already angered the powers that be into changing my avatar a few times (the mathboy one kinda made me giggle) I'm out of fucks to give.

    EDIT SINCE VORAK ALSO POSTED WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS: I think a lot of the direct-to-buyers style of DRM-free media is the future. People like Louis CK are releasing stand-up straight to consumers DRM free for 5 bucks and making way more than they would selling it through a publisher for $17.99. The internet is the great equalizer. We're just in the shitty middle-times where you have the remnants of the old and the not-complete foundations of the new.

    I, for one, welcome our new Robot Overlords.
     
  10. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    I actually agree completely with you. Illustrated by the fact that my currently installed Arcanum, is from GOG.

    Sure, on Steam there's DRM, but unlike much of the current DRM on physically distributed games, it's non-intrusive.

    Consider installing your game with one click, and launching it at will from any computer in the world.

    VS.

    Inserting a physical medium into your computer, which if is a newer laptop might not even be possible, and then going through several steps of installing first TAGES or some other DRM that ought to be illegal, then some physics engine, before finally installing the game. Then followed by yet new dialogs to install directX.

    Then in some time, you figure you should upgrade your computer with some new RAM, so you do. And continue to enjoy your game. Some time later you figure you need a new graphics card.

    Even more time passes and you get a whole new computer. And suddenly you find you want to play that game you got some time ago. So you go looking for that disk you know you have somewhere, and after several minutes looking, you find it. You insert it into your computer, and install your game, along with TAGES, physX and directX.

    Then when the installation's over and you're ready to play. You launch your game but it immediately exits and gives you an error message along the lines of:

    "You have exceeded the allowed number of activations for this software. And yes, we're total dickwads so you'll have purchase it again if you want to play."
     
  11. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    Oh, I saw your post Xz, I was addressing the other unwashed masses for the most part.

    Yea, let us retire to my ivory tower anon, where we shall sup upon victuals and enjoy various fine vintages.

    edit: I miscorrected the same typo TWICE
     
  12. Dark Elf

    Dark Elf Administrator Staff Member

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    Whispers in the wind have it that in the foreseeable future of the Internet, software will be streamed rather than read from a hard drive.
     
  13. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    This is a current technology, which lets you use resource demanding software on just about anything with a screen. http://www.onlive.com/
     
  14. Vorak

    Vorak Administrator Staff Member

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    The reason the cloud is not catching on as much as the big tech companies were predicting is that internet infrastructure is a complete unknown in their projections. In areas like Silicon Valley where these guys are based they have access to a level of service a lot of the rest of the market doesn't come close to matching.

    Google for instance were caught off guard with just how popular the 16GB Nexus 7 was, they thought people would buy the cheaper 8GB model and use the cloud to store their apps and data. A big factor behind this not happening is the expense of internet and the fact that in a lot of areas the speeds are atrocious (Plus making a device that was intended to be cloud reliant WIfi only was stupid). Companies want market share more than anything else so I don't foresee a true push to complete online storage until cheap fast internet is a reality for a marketplace.
     
  15. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    I agree with everything Vorak said. It is technology/physical limitations that are holding that application back.

    This type of service likely won't be common in our lifetime, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
     
  16. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    In the beginning of your life-time computers were rare, the Internet wasn't available to the public and there was no way in hell people would believe they could all have personalised radio stations broadcast (or rather narrowcast) to them and only them (Spotify/Pandora/Deezer/etc.).

    So, Philes, unless you consider your life to be more than half past, you ought probably to prepare for the inconceivable, rather than doubting current technology will ever become widespread.
     
  17. Vorak

    Vorak Administrator Staff Member

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    Moving back to games if all you want is the game I can see the advantages of downloading, I've got the GOG version of Arcanum on my laptop for occasional casual usage for this very reason.

    However discs can contain more content in addition to the game itself such as mod tools or PDF manual files. You could argue that you can find these online perhaps even for free but it still costs you bandwidth to get them onto your HDD and they generally won't be included in a download as these are generally just a game installer not a package of different software and files.
     
  18. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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    I'll just add that the GOG version of Arcanum installs WorldEd, the scripteditor and a pdf of the game manual.
     
  19. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    You'll notice I left in the key qualifier "probably" in my statement. The real rate limiting step for something like that in America is infrastructure over a very large geographical area. Our poor crappy cables can't handle it, and the resources and manpower required to upgrade it in most areas would be far more extreme then people dropping a grand or two on personal computers and ISPs yearly. Places like Japan are already far superior to most country's networks. You Eurofriends might have better luck as far as timing and implementation for than we do across the pond. Or maybe we're all boned, who knows.

    Also, if we're assuming bandwidth is near-infinite enough for complex streaming software why couldn't they add the extra few MB for a PDF or what have you? You confused me on that one Vorak. The cool important additions to all the best box sets were items that could only be tangible, and thus would require shipping or the like.
     
  20. Zanza

    Zanza Well-Known Member

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    I used to hate steam and other digital distribution simply because Australia's internet hadn't caught up. In fact I do recall several years ago I went on a rant on this very forum about Steam and the ill effects of digital distribution. Australian internet still hasn't caught up by the way but it is tolerable now. I suppose the only downside to not owning physical copies of games is without the internet you are boned. I did encounter a problem with installing Neverwinter Nights 2 a couple of months ago, I had lost the original manual to the game and I could not install it even though I had the disk and the two expansions that followed on. I had to find a code on the internet just to install the game because BioWare no longer kept my original CD Key registered to my account there.
     
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