I have some games completly downloaded to my Xbox, but heading up to the mall everytime a new game comes out is...there's no other word for it, it's fun. There's just something I love about doing it, and having physical copies of the games. Also I'm no computer expert so I'm probably completly wrong here, but I think completly digital might use up too much memory.
Poll: Would you embrace a shift to purely digital distribution of games?
- Thread starter rob_simple
- Start date
i would fully support this, with a few important things to note:
1. i don't want the games to be linked to an account that can be banned, therefore not allowing me access to my games. for example, say i was being a twat on EA forums, and they ban my account. if all my games are from them, that is a HUGE chunk of my money just gone. i would prefer stores to be digital, so for example, if GAME sold the games, and they allowed me to download it through them. i think that would be fairer.
2. (consoles only) bigger hard drives. i'm sorry, but my 80gb ps3 is out of room, and that is my secondary gaming platform (my laptop being my main one. and my ps3 being out of room is only with a couple of actual game installs. give us 1TB systems, and i would fully embrace this change on consoles.
3. collectors editions are not strictly limited to digital distribution. now for this i mean have collectors editions as they are, but with a special code you enter to download the game, rather than a disc. i like my figurines, my collectibles, my artwork, and i'm not a huge fan of collectors edition DLC (not opposed to DLC in general, i just want better value for a collectors edition).
4. better internet connections. this isn't limited to game companies, but the internet needs to be faster to support complete digital distribution. quite frankly, we aren't there yet.
i don't think i missed anything, but i probably have. overall i love digital distributions, mainly for the prices, but also convenience. i lose things a lot. digital copies the worst thing that can happen, i got slow download speeds and i have to spend a day redownloading a game. with physical, i have to buy it again.
1. i don't want the games to be linked to an account that can be banned, therefore not allowing me access to my games. for example, say i was being a twat on EA forums, and they ban my account. if all my games are from them, that is a HUGE chunk of my money just gone. i would prefer stores to be digital, so for example, if GAME sold the games, and they allowed me to download it through them. i think that would be fairer.
2. (consoles only) bigger hard drives. i'm sorry, but my 80gb ps3 is out of room, and that is my secondary gaming platform (my laptop being my main one. and my ps3 being out of room is only with a couple of actual game installs. give us 1TB systems, and i would fully embrace this change on consoles.
3. collectors editions are not strictly limited to digital distribution. now for this i mean have collectors editions as they are, but with a special code you enter to download the game, rather than a disc. i like my figurines, my collectibles, my artwork, and i'm not a huge fan of collectors edition DLC (not opposed to DLC in general, i just want better value for a collectors edition).
4. better internet connections. this isn't limited to game companies, but the internet needs to be faster to support complete digital distribution. quite frankly, we aren't there yet.
i don't think i missed anything, but i probably have. overall i love digital distributions, mainly for the prices, but also convenience. i lose things a lot. digital copies the worst thing that can happen, i got slow download speeds and i have to spend a day redownloading a game. with physical, i have to buy it again.
I'd be happy with it if my internet speed was fast enough to make the uninstallation/reinstallation process take under 5 hours...that's definitely one bonus to physical format right now.
That and things like the cloth map that came with Skyrim makes pre-purchased physical editions awesome
That and things like the cloth map that came with Skyrim makes pre-purchased physical editions awesome
Under some conditions:
- lower prices, you give me no disc, no swag or resale value so I will not pay the same price
- irrefutable proof of purchase, when I pay for shit I need to have control over it (already had 3 lockdowns with Steam on mere false positive "hacker" warnings)
- better service, Steam is alright in a pinch but it is in no way a perfect interface, the biggest problem is that the games are not the priority, until Steam gets it's fat lumbering ass up and running nothing works, and if it freezes (all the fucking time) nothing will work until you chop it's liver and start it up again
And for most uncivilized worlds it wouldn't work at all since they got download caps.
- lower prices, you give me no disc, no swag or resale value so I will not pay the same price
- irrefutable proof of purchase, when I pay for shit I need to have control over it (already had 3 lockdowns with Steam on mere false positive "hacker" warnings)
- better service, Steam is alright in a pinch but it is in no way a perfect interface, the biggest problem is that the games are not the priority, until Steam gets it's fat lumbering ass up and running nothing works, and if it freezes (all the fucking time) nothing will work until you chop it's liver and start it up again
And for most uncivilized worlds it wouldn't work at all since they got download caps.
Quite frankly I prefer having physical copies of games. My PC stuff is about all digital although I still have a couple good ol' disk boxes with the game. And those will be much more handy when it comes time to get a new Laptop.
Consoles I would massively prefer to keep it physical. As of right now Microsoft is getting better with laxing on making sure only the person that dl'ed a game can get to play it but I still fondly remember all the problems I had trying to bring my hard drive to a friends house to play through castle crashers.
Much easier to just bring the disk you know will be universal with every single console.
Consoles I would massively prefer to keep it physical. As of right now Microsoft is getting better with laxing on making sure only the person that dl'ed a game can get to play it but I still fondly remember all the problems I had trying to bring my hard drive to a friends house to play through castle crashers.
Much easier to just bring the disk you know will be universal with every single console.
Probably, I'd really only need two things to happen for me to accept it fully.
1: The service(s) you download the games from is free to use, like the basic Xbox live is. I buy games roughly 2 or 3 times a year, usually several all at once, but there's still a long stretch of time between purchases. There is no way in hell I am paying some kind of subscription fee for a service that I'm only going to use twice a year.
2: The price of storage devices drops fast, I currently have 4 gigs of memory, 4 gigs can easily hold all of my save data with room to spare. But it could probably only hold ONE full game, meaning I'd have to buy a big honking hard drive if I wanted any new games. If I'm supposed to put the entire game a storage device that storage device had better not cost almost as much as the console did.
If that happened, I'd be ok with a digital only game market.
1: The service(s) you download the games from is free to use, like the basic Xbox live is. I buy games roughly 2 or 3 times a year, usually several all at once, but there's still a long stretch of time between purchases. There is no way in hell I am paying some kind of subscription fee for a service that I'm only going to use twice a year.
2: The price of storage devices drops fast, I currently have 4 gigs of memory, 4 gigs can easily hold all of my save data with room to spare. But it could probably only hold ONE full game, meaning I'd have to buy a big honking hard drive if I wanted any new games. If I'm supposed to put the entire game a storage device that storage device had better not cost almost as much as the console did.
If that happened, I'd be ok with a digital only game market.
Absolutly not! I do alot of traveling, and rarely have a constant internet connection! Even where i am at the moment I dont have a constant speed, so I do most of my internet stuff at work, and that's no good for games!
No, I could never switch to just digital... but then again I still love buying CD's and DVD's!
No, I could never switch to just digital... but then again I still love buying CD's and DVD's!
I might...if they could get that shit to work right. And that pretty much requires all of the current DRM, DLC, hacking, bad programming, etc. problems to be fixed.
All of that is possible right now. You can navigate to your steam directory and just open up the game.believer258 said:
That's a good argument, but I don't see why they can't just continue to co-exist. Why does advancement mean limiting our options?bojackx said:
I like having a physical copy of the disk, and it also reduces the amount of space it takes on my Xbox or hard drive. Though if I have a hankering for a game NOW, then downloading it is useful. But I wouldn't want the burgeoning art of sweet collector's editions disappearing. I like having awesome books and models from my favorite games.
Edit: Also, solely digital gaming would put all game stores out of business. I don't see the point in taking employment away from potentially millions just to satisfy a preference that is nowhere near universal.
Yes, you are completely wrong here, RAM usage of steam is negligible, storage space too.erttheking said: