Why isn't there digital game rentals?

[Racecarlock]

Seriously, I would love to know why. I mean, buyer beware, right? So why not let me try the game before buying it? I mean, most games don't have demos today so why not just let me rent something for a dollar for a day and then let me see if the game is worth my money?

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Well because they would rather you spend $60 on something to find out if it's good or not. There is also likely a fear that you will play all the game before you actually buy, or that you will play it then decide not to buy it. Lastly they might just not care, not know, or be too lazy to implement it.

 

[Maxtro]

It actually looks like PlayStation Now will support game rentals.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well Onlive has or had a 30 min free demo for all their games, or you can pay a montly sub fee and get full access to their library. Obviously it's not ideal because it relies on streaming but as a demo service I think is their best selling point.

 

[Vault101]

if digital copies become the norm then mabye....

in more pressing maters Australia wants to know where our Netflix is....Netflix, or we'll send a snake in the mail...it will be venemous

regards
Australia

 

[carnex]

There aren't any digital rentals because, if you go by the letter of the meaning, since most digital "purchases" are actually nothing more than a rental. You don't have any rights over your copy of software that are associated with ownership (like resell or inherit) and supplier always has option or recalling it and removing it from your ownership (like Steam did once or twice). That's pretty much a rental. Lifetime rental perhaps, but rental never the less.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

if digital copies become the norm then mabye....

in more pressing maters Australia wants to know where our Netflix is....Netflix, or we'll send a snake in the mail...it will be venemous

regards
Australia

Well actually we could send ANYTHING and it would probably be venomous, even a platypus

 

[nevarran]

1. You can finish most of the nowadays games in a day.
2. The devs/pubs don't want you to try the game before buying it, they prefer to fool you with marketing, trailers and compliant reviews.
3. There is no system in place to prevent you from keeping a copy of the game when the day is gone.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Seriously, I would love to know why. I mean, buyer beware, right? So why not let me try the game before buying it? I mean, most games don't have demos today so why not just let me rent something for a dollar for a day and then let me see if the game is worth my money?

Why would anyone but the most ardent fans ever buy games like story-heavy single player games which most people typically play through only once if you could just rent them instead just as easily?

That's why.

 

[carnex]

3. There is no system in place to prevent you from keeping a copy of the game when the day is gone.

Every digital distribution system other than GOG.COM that I'm aware of can pull game from your hard drive any time they please or at very least prevent you from starting it.

 

[Racecarlock]

Seriously, I would love to know why. I mean, buyer beware, right? So why not let me try the game before buying it? I mean, most games don't have demos today so why not just let me rent something for a dollar for a day and then let me see if the game is worth my money?

Why would anyone but the most ardent fans ever buy games like story-heavy single player games which most people typically play through only once if you could just rent them instead just as easily?

That's why.

Yeah, exactly. They know their game wouldn't last through a rental, so they decide "Fuck you pay me" instead. Everybody LOVES to talk about how entitled consumers are when they expect a game to work at launch instead of having a server error like the diablo 3 and sim city situations, or when the game is a buggy pile of crap that shouldn't have passed alpha testing let alone be released as a full non-beta game. But we're entitled because we want it to work.

And yet, there are all these developers complaining about used games and even game sales because apparently we, the consumers, should not be able to determine the value of a product. Apparently every game should stay at full price forever because they just deserve our money that much. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these developers want a world in which we can't even make the choice not to buy a game. I think if they could, they would force us to buy their games somehow and give us no choice in the matter. Their work matters so much more than yours, after all. Who cares if you're working some tedious office job or saving lives as a doctor or doing legal stuff as lawyers and attorneys or even just serving fast food? All that work? Pfft, nothing. Our work in coding and making this game just matters so much more because we did it. They apparently just deserve our money whether or not the game is good or it suits our tastes.

Shit, man. Look at the developers even censoring negative reviews. They don't want you to know you're buying crap. They don't care. This is where we are, people. The games industry is worse than used car salesmen. And we are somehow the entitled ones.

This is a problem in this industry, and I really think we should have digital rentals whether or not the asshole developers think we'll just rent, decide it's not worth it, and not buy or not. And if they're afraid we won't buy, what does that say about them? They know their game won't last the weekend, so they want to charge FULL PRICE because money. And if you end up with a crap game? Buyer beware, apparently. You get to keep it forever. No refunds, no used games, no rentals, shit, not even sales. They think we should just give them full price for everything and be fine with getting shit on.

That's not good. At all.

 

[CloudAtlas]

(...)

Digital distribution will be the norm on all platforms soon enough, I'm sure, and all games will be account bound, and the used-games-questions will have solved itself, as there won't be used games anymore.

You as consumer have absolutely the right to determine the value any product has for you personally. But if a product is worth less to you than what it costs, what you do not have is the right to buy it for whatever you feel like paying for it - you only have the right not to buy it.
If it is not worth full price to you, you can still enjoy it - you just have to wait for some time until the price drops below your threshold.

Rental of digital games may come in some form. But I doubt it will happen to a price that would make you happy. No matter how lowly you think about game developers, making games costs money, and some games cost a lot of money, so they can't just hand out games for free, you know.


By the way, wouldn't the more obvious, easier solution to many of your complaints be a demo or trial period for digitally distributed games? Play the first 2-3 hours or so for free, and if you don't like it, you can return it and get a refund?

 

[Racecarlock]

(...)

Digital distribution will be the norm on all platforms soon enough, I'm sure, and all games will be account bound, and the used-games-questions will have solved itself, as there won't be used games anymore.

You as consumer have absolutely the right to determine the value any product has for you personally. But if a product is worth less to you than what it costs, what you do not have is the right to buy it for whatever you feel like paying for it - you only have the right not to buy it.
If it is not worth full price to you, you can still enjoy it - you just have to wait for some time until the price drops below your threshold.

Rental of digital games may come in some form. But I doubt it will happen to a price that would make you happy. No matter how lowly you think about game developers, making games costs money, and some games cost a lot of money, so they can't just hand out games for free, you know.


By the way, wouldn't the more obvious, easier solution to many of your complaints be a demo or trial period for digitally distributed games? Play the first 2-3 hours or so for free, and if you don't like it, you can return it and get a refund?

What? Return a free demo or a free trial for a refund?

Anyways, I don't think all developers are bad people, just some of them. Like the ones that complain about sales, for example. They suck. The ones that complain about used games. They suck. Because clearly they're not confident enough about their game to let you try any minute of it before you buy it for full price, so they're either greedy or piss scared that their game isn't worth that much and then sales and used games confirm that so they start bitching.

You know who a good developer is? Valve. Selling the orange box for 20 dollars today. 20 dollars and you get what? Four single player games and a fantastic multiplayer game as well. That's value for money right there.

Rockstar is also a good developer. Sure, GTA Online might have microtransactions, but like valve up there I have never once seen these guys complain about used games or %x off sales. And they also give you quite a lot for your money.

Come to think of it, the only people who do seem to complain about these things are certain indie developers. Not all, just some. The guy who made democracy 3, for example, complaining about sales. David Braben complaining about used games. Some companies took those complaints on board, but yeah.

 

[Joey Banana]

Knowing the games industry, this'll be their way of making us pay for demos straight up. I cringe at the thought of that.

However, if we're talking about full access to a game for a limited number of weeks/days, i'm all in. It would force many devs to expand the length of their single-player games and the focus on multiplayer would get even bigger, though.

Imagine a newly released 60 dollar AAA title with 10 hours of singleplayer and a multiplayer mode. You would rent the game for a week or better yet, a set limit of playing time, for 20 or 25 dollars shortly after launch. The price/time ratio would have to be fair, of course.

They could kill the used games market all while being loved for it. Not to mention that it would arguably increase their playerbase as hardcore fans would want to purchase DLC or keep playing multiplayer/finish sidequests.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

3. There is no system in place to prevent you from keeping a copy of the game when the day is gone.

This.

There are two possible ways of a digital rentals, both of which are useless for a business

1) Streaming a portion of the game.

This is so cost inefficient it's painful. Adapting a service to include either Infrastructure or Software on demand is so expensive, especially with something with no upfront returns.

2) Local Hosting of Portions

You don't have to be a genius to work out why storing locally is a bad idea.

 

[Tayh]

Every digital distribution system other than GOG.COM that I'm aware of can pull game from your hard drive any time they please or at very least prevent you from starting it.

Actually, you just need a fixed .exe replacer.
Unless you do like itunes(and other similar services), and retag/format the content files to be unplayable without itunes(and even those can be bypassed with some effort), then there isn't really much companies can do to make sure you "return" your digital rental.