Digital Distribution?

[Sky]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=20115

I'm rabidly anti-digital distribution. Not only do I like having a physical copy for when the company eventually goes tits-up or stops supporting a product (but don't abandonware it for 70 years, bitch), I'd like to think of a day when I live in a nice country cabin without an internet connection. What about people who can't afford broadband? What about people in the country.

Whenever I hear 'digital-only distribution' I think of some urban yuppie who is out of touch with most of the country. Maybe things are different in Europe? I remember a lot of folks in UO (the last game that was very multinational I played) bitching about connection costs in Europe.

Not to mention if legislation ties up my tubes. I'll have to get a truck.

Oh, and:

It also brings with it great opportunities because it means you can touch your consumer in many different ways and at different times

[Samwise]

What about people who can't afford broadband?

I will be happy to download it for you, burn it to a CD, ship it to you, and charge you $10.

[Samwise]

Okay, now that I've had my morning caffeine, again with less glib.   

I don't think you or the technologically impaired masses are in any danger.  If there is money to be made off retail, then retail's not going to go away.  If retail DID go away due to some unprecedented display of money hat aversion on the part of game publishers, some third party would immediately step in to fill that vacant niche (probably by downloading stuff on your behalf and then shipping it to you on physical media, charging you some fee for the service just like retailers do now).

I do, however, think that digital distribution will get increasingly more popular as broadband gets more widespread, and as it becomes more palatable to the consumer, e.g. by passing savings along to the buyer, making DRM less obnoxious, making it easier to get physical backups or whatever else is needed to make you feel warm and fuzzy about your purchase, et cetera.  Eventually it'll get to the point where retail has no advantages over digital distribution for people with broadband, and broadband will get cheap enough that anyone who can afford games can afford broadband.

Living out in the country is no excuse, either, what with satellites.   

[HaemishM]

As long as you can burn a physical copy of the installer file to a CD/DVD, and you offer a CD/DVD version mailed to the purchaser for an extra fee ($1 for the burning, $5 for the shipping), I see no problem with digital distribution. It's when you start having the "must be connected to the Net for a single-player game" crap that it becomes an issue.

[Strazos]

Speaking of which....slight tangent, but Defcon currently does not have an offline mode, or a mechanism to play the "full" verson without connecting to their servers, correct?

[Samwise]

It's when you start having the "must be connected to the Net for a single-player game" crap that it becomes an issue.

Annoying DRM is not unique to digital distribution.  And personally, I find it more annoying to require a CD than to require a Net connection, because one requires that I hunt around on my shelf (or, in extreme cases, buy/borrow a new CD because the old one is lost or damaged), and one does not.

If your issue is with DRM, say "DRM" instead of "digital distribution".

[Yoru]

I like digital distribution for most common game releases these days - long gone are the times when games came with substantial manuals, trinkets or anything else that made the box worthwhile or necessary. If we still got cloth maps and shit with a standard game box, I'd be more favorably inclined towards EB.

It's more convenient, it's faster than waiting for UPS to get to EB/Walmart/whereever, and the lack of tax/shipping is nice too. And the best part is, without minimum production runs, it lets me buy and play all sorts of little cheap indie games at the $5-15 price point that wouldn't've seen the light of retail since the days when you went into Babbage's and purchased floppies in sandwich bags.

Now, I'm particularly talking about indie-style mostly-DRMless distribution; for most indie games, I just download an installer and buy a key or file to drop in. These I can burn to my own CDs - hell, I can usually fit multiples onto one CD if I want to; some are even small enough for dialup users to get them in a not-completely-unreasonable period of time (many are ~10-50 megs, certainly overnightable, or at least long-afternoonable).

I haven't tried some of the more commercial services like Direct2Drive, with the exception of Steam, and even Steam I'm a mite leery of. I believe I can back-up the files, and it's nice to be able to delete/redownload stuff as my HDD space permits. It's particularly nice to be able to log-in to Steam on another terminal and pull down something (e.g. laptop while traveling, friend's box to show off a new game). However, given a choice between Steam and a retail box, it will generally come down to how big of a discount I can get off of Steam and the size of the download. However, I have a fair amount of confidence that Valve isn't going anywhere for the operational lifetime of the games I've bought off Steam, and I don't expect them to just up and decide to hold my bits hostage one day.

As for DRM, yes, digital downloads sometimes have annoying DRM, but so do CDs. There's plenty of games that refuse to run in my DVD+/-RW drive, despite legitimately purchasing them; fortunately, I keep a plain-jane 40x CDROM in my box just in case, and most CD games will play fine in that. Having to keep the CD in the drive and punch in an authentication key and let the software phone home to validate your key is just silly.

(There's also some games I can get off Steam that have been relieved of computer-herpes like Starforce, such as X3. I'll take Steam over Starforce any day.)

[Tebonas]

I loved to pay for Galciv 2 and being able to load it down in an instant. But I also loved that they sent me a CD and a paper manual in a good old box as well. If I had to choose between the two I think I would prefer a box on my shelf, though.

[StGabe]

Also, reliance on retail is evil because it both forces a market to focus on the lowest common denominator and creates barriers to entry in the field.  Infinite, almost-free shelf-space for the win (even if/when 90% of the users only look at the "what's new and shiny shelf", at least the other shelves are there and affordable).

[Sky]

I include online buying when talking about retail. Imo, that's the biggest reason for "shrinking" pc game shelf space. I order just about everything online, music, games, hardware.

[Yoru]

How are you going to buy online when you're in a country cabin with no internet connection?

[Azazel]

So another Sony Hype-xecutive talks a lot of crap?

Remember "the PS3 is the end of computers"? Or even better, "the PS2 is the end of computers"?

meh

[Big Gulp]

I was originally against stuff like Steam, and really if the latest travails I went through with Defcon are indicative, Steam still sucks.  Direct2Drive, on the other hand, I have nothing but praise for.  It's fast, efficient, and lets you burn the executable you download.  It only activates the game online the first time you ever launch it, and thereafter it behaves just like a regular offline game without going through the activation rigamarole.  It's also allowed me to purchase a lot of previously Starforced games without all the Starforce.

[Oban]

So another Sony Hype-xecutive talks a lot of crap?

Remember "the PS3 is the end of computers"? Or even better, "the PS2 is the end of computers"?

meh

Clearly the PS3 comes with more drama.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/02/01/emotion.engine.idg/

[Sky]

How are you going to buy online when you're in a country cabin with no internet connection?

Same way I post to f13. From work.

[Yegolev]

I like digidistro (feel free to use my new word), it generally saves me agony.  But I have broadband and that makes a big difference.  DRM is a different discussion.

I loved to pay for Galciv 2 and being able to load it down in an instant. But I also loved that they sent me a CD and a paper manual in a good old box as well. If I had to choose between the two I think I would prefer a box on my shelf, though.

Stardock's system is better than Valve's, really.  There isn't any real reason you would have to choose between a download or a CD, nor should you have to buy the game twice to get a box/manual/cloth map/Ordinator figurine.  I think that you should be able to show your key to someone and have them send you another retail box, honestly, or at least another disc, should you lose yours.  I'll accept being able to burn an archive as a reasonable substitute.

I also like buying things directly from the people who made the things; it's good for the soul.  My only gripe is when a digidistro title costs the same as a retail box.

If I were able to get console games via download, it would make me immensely happy.  It would, as someone mentioned, be an end to the short production run problem that forces procrastinating jerkoffs like myself onto Ebay.