RF Generation Message Board

What do you think of digital distribution? Will it become the dominating way of purchasing games or will it forever stay secondary to buying physical copies in a store?

What are key features that downloadable content should have to not be a restriction compared to real games? Does it bother you that a game only exists on your harddrive or don't you really care, aslong as the games are good?

Discuss here :)

Option 2 here, but I am warming up to a fully digital distribution medium.

I only download if I have to. I know it is much faster and easier to just get it right then and there, but I like to get the real thing to scan and add to here. With that said, I have way to many game cases around, and with how easy it is to just make a back up of an installer digital downloads are great.

I'm a fan for things like STEAM. Someplace that you can access from any computer and redownload and play is cool. If I'm just downloading the files once (for money ;) ) I'm a little on the fence.

You're seeing a huge push for digital distribution of games from developers because it significantly cuts down on used game sales. Aside from selling entire profiles, you can't really trade in a live arcade game, or a game on Steam, and you can't buy a used one.

My big problem with digital distribution is the powerful DRM (if your virtual console game was DRM free, you could copy it to an SD card and run it on your PC without needing to remove the encryption) combined with the potential for the service providers to go out of business. This has happened with a couple music sites recently, and the consumers really got screwed over.

As a collector I am not a big fan of digital distribution, because it kills the chase of collecting. You're not going to be finding Mega Man 9 at a flea market. You will never find a garage sale with a used copy of Castle Crashers for $2, you have to pay full price unless Microsoft puts on a sale.

Some companies I think are really doing this right. When I bought Galactic Civilizations 2, I bought it directly off of Stardock's site. I got a digital + physical copy. I had immediate access to my digital copy, and my physical copy arrived in the mail a week or so later. It was the same price for the double pack as just buying the physical copy alone.

edit: and don't get me wrong, digital distribution isn't end of the world bad. I just prefer physical copies of things a little more.

Games like Mega Man 9 and Castle Crashers would not exist in a world without digital distribution (well, Mega Man 9 probably would, but it wouldn't be sweet NES style graphics)

I'm on the same page as Chainclaw here. I would love to be able to purchase a game directly from the software company and have access to an immediate download and receive a physical copy in the mail later. I dislike the online authentication on some games to check for pirated copies, as what will we do if that server ceases to exist? Will they release a patch, and if not will we need to resort to some hacked patch released online that is a reach-around from the authentication service? I only see a need for that if you're logging into an online server with an MMORPG or some interactive FPS, RTS, RPG, or so forth that you don't want duplicate keys accessing games at the same time.

Yup, Steam allows for some nice freedom; Tondog told me about it in another thread. But I think there are other downloadable services that are still too limited seeing what you can (and more importantly: can't) do with your games/files.

The DRM in Spore is a different thing because that's still a physical game, but I think developers will put that kind of DRMs faster in downloadable games than in real ones.

Another thing I'm worried about is the fact that I think that gaming will become more expensive. Not at first, when a customer still has the option to buy a physical copy. But some years down the road, when alot of games will be download-only; I think developers will split up their games in different segments, making you pay more for the whole experience. Like charging extra for some special weapons, multiplayer maps, or even levels of the singleplayer game. Basically things that should be in the game in the first place but that will get devided up. You'd maybe pay "only" $40 for the game but considering what extra downloads there are they'd be able to get $80 of a customer for the full experience.

I much prefer a physical product, but am not averse to downloading if it is the only way to get a certain game. For example, while I think Steam is an excellent service, I've only used it to purchase Audiosurf, since it does not have a retail version.

That's already happening on the 360, and it's been pretty nasty, too.

A lot of early games were effectively selling unlock codes for things already on the disc.
A bunch of games (Godfather, recent Japanese RPGs) have been charging for cheat codes. You can buy in-game money and levels with Microsoft points.
Here's a 1up article on Ace Combat 6 DLC. If you wanted everything in the game, it would cost you $181.82 (game + points)
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167642

One of the big concerns with this, as well, is nowadays, you aren't getting your cheats as codes within the game. If the game has cheats at all, you have to pay for them now.

Some games are really hard to judge like this. Look at Rock Band. There is no way, given traditional retail releases, you would ever get this much content in a music game. The PS2 / Wii versions are a great example of this, they've gotten I believe one retail release song pack expansion so far, and that's it.

I've been really happy with all of my DD experiences so far.  I think a big reason that a lot of companies are going the DD route these days is because of limited physical shelf space; only the big-budget games guaranteed to pull in major profits are going to get a piece.  DD can be very very friendly to smaller companies, or companies like Telltale Games who specialize in less popular genres of gaming.
Because of DD, many great games that could never conjure up enough hype to steal some shelf space can now be made just as readily available, and because of that I really support it.  However, I'm also a big memorabilia freak, and if the whole world goes DD one day, I'll be very upset haha.

One thing I don't like about digital distribution is that in many cases you'll be completely dependent on the all powerfull distributor. Imagine if you could only buy xbox games through xbox live.

This means you can only do what microsoft allows you to do. You won't be able to resell your game if you find out you don't like it. As a result, you also won't be able to buy cheap second hand games anymore. In fact, there'll probably be a lot less cheap games anyway, because there won't be any old stock to get rid off, whereas a brick and mortar store will have to make space for new stuff every now and then and dump what they have for $5 a copy. Not having any real competition will keep prices up too.

And these are just issues if you can actually reach the DD service itself. There's no way a system like this will have a 100 % up time. Especially if 5 million people will want to download Halo 4 at once. Even if the service is technically available, you might be screwed over by being banned from it, for whatever reason. Once Microsoft decides you shouldn't be allowed to use xbox live, you might as well throw your xbox away.

This raises the question what you can do if something goes wrong. You can't go back to the store, like you would with a scratched cd. You'd have to call and hope someone will be willing to give you the service you'd expect from a real store.

Another issue is that manufacturers often want as much control over the market as possible. A good example of this is dividing the world into regions. If digital distribution for consoles takes off, don't expect to be able to get that Japanese must have title at the date of its Japanese release. In fact, don't expect to play any Japanese games at all again.

What happens if Microsoft stops with xbox live? You might still be able to play the games you've downloaded, but if something goes wrong, all will be lost.

I guess the theme of my post is that if you give one party all power, you'll be screwed over more than if a 1000 parties share that power. 

I largely share your (pessimistic) view about digital distribution. Even though there's some companies that seem to get it right (Steam), "having" these games feels very restricted, especially on a long-term view. Added to that is that collecting would pretty much be a thing of the past, once everything is 100% downloadable.

Honestly, I think that we're not far away from the day that digital distribution takes over the gaming world. I'm guessing the next generation of machines will be completely focussed on the digital services they offer rather than hardware power and actual discs.

I have 10 or so downloadable games on XBL, most of them were promotion freebies like Carcassone and Texas Hold'em, but some I bought like Galaga for $5. Having a game with no collectability or resale value to me means it's disposable. I'd pay $5 for disposable. But I'd rather pay $20 for a pressed disc than $5 for a download.

Or in the case of Half-Life Anthology:

http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=U-016-S-08840-A

I have a disc crammed full of great content...but I can't use it unless I install Steam and make an account just to unlock what's already on my disc and download chunks that the extra space on the DVD could've handled. Now by that I mean unless connected to Steam, I can't even install this game at all let alone play it. If I had of known I would never have bought it. They might as well just given me a empty case with a download voucher, would save wear and tear on my DVD drive for all it's uselessness in this half downloaded compilation. :P

The thing I am afraid of most about digital distribution is that if I miss a game for a console while it is still available, I will never be able to get that game in the future once support is dropped for the console and therefore the games are no longer able to be purchased.

For instance, let's pretend (I said pretend, don't argue about technical capabilities) that NES games was digital distribution only.  I wasn't around when the NES was supported, so if I wanted to buy Super Mario Bros. now I'd be out of luck unless I found a NES that had a copy of SMB purchased on it.  (This example also assumes that SMB was never re-released)
Stuff like that is why I hope boxed products continue to exist.

Want to know the best thing about downloading a game on a console? You don't have to get up and change the disc. :D

I've heard lots of reasons about why DD is the way forward, usually top of the list is 'It's so much easier just to download the game than visit the store to pick up a copy'. I recently bought Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty from PSN as Sony in their wisdom decided not to issue a UK bluray version. The download was 3.2GB and took me 4 hours. I can walk into town from where I live in 30 minutes. How is that easier? By that reckoning I could have been playing the game 3 hours earlier (and, with the length of the game, finished it) before my download had even completed. This isn't the first game I've downloaded, I picked up a couple for the Wii Virtual Console, and they rock. It beats connecting up the TG16/N64 to the main tv when I have friends over for some shmup goodness, but releasing a full size game like R&C:QfB just doesn't do it for me. I won't be downloading any more like that, and I'm even looking for a bluray version on import because I hate the thought of having to download again.

What is Sony UK smoking ???

I saw that game in stores 2 days ago, and I live in Belgium! If they can go through the effort of getting it in stores here, why can't they do the same in the UK? (which is a much larger market than Belgium) They only need to make an English-only cover for the game and slap a BBFC rating on it...done.

Very strange.

AlreadAlready done, they released it for sale in Ireland!

Well then that just doesn't make any sense to me  :-\

I think it must have been the day they handed out complementary crack pipes at the Sony board meeting. I wouldn't mind, but the imports are selling for £30 on eBay, and there's no way I'm paying that much. I'll just have to wait until it's dropped in price

I voted the 2nd option...for DD on the smaller/arcade download games, but disk copies of larger games.

I think that DD right now is good for what it is when it comes to titles with small file sizes. However, we're still some time off from downloads on major titles.

The important point that was brought up earlier was that if you don't buy the DD game when the console is "active" or "current gen", then you're likely to miss out on the title entirely, is a valid one. Think about the aftermarket. Since most consoles tie your downloaded content to your gamer tag, even though it's saved to your console, if you ever wanted to sell that console in the future, you'd get $0 for the games that you had downloaded on it.

This would mean that future consoles would need backward compatibility to your gamer tag as it's #1 feature. I mean, most PCs can play older software right? So then, future consoles should be able to play previously downloaded software that was originally on your gamertag from the older console. Makes sense.

It's also possible that software rarity will become a thing of the past, especially if smaller companies that make full titles (i.e. Atlus) will have games be readily accessible for anyone to download. The drawback of this is that we're less likely to see costdowns on software come as frequently as the do now.

Download speeds will improve...they have to, for this method of procurement to be viable in the long term.

This gen is the 1st to really take on DD. For future console generations, it'll be interesting to see whether larger games or movies become more in-demand when it comes to having their libraries stored on a console or in boxed retail copies.

My $.02 is that movies will be likely to be the first, due to the flexibility we're already seeing in On-Demand capabilities on our cable boxes and the ability to watch streaming movies downloaded directly to our PCs. That, plus the relatively lower cost per movie purchase to game purchase ($19.99 vs. $59.99 at retail upon initial release) would make it easier for John and Jane Q Public to make the transition.

We're not likely to see a console manufacturer 100% commit to DD for all games until it's determined that the public would prefer it to having hard copies. And that may take at least 5 or more years, imo.

We'll see.

I'm greedy ;D I need something to show for my purchase. i'll probably never buy a full game download.

I don't think software rarity will be a thing of the past, it will just become very different with digital distribution.

Here are a few examples of rarity in digital-only software:

Mario Kart 64 on the Virtual Console : When this was first released, the emulator ran the game without all the slowdown on the original game. This meant the game played significantly faster than on the original cartridge. I believe Nintendo patched this, so anyone who downloads this now has a more faithful recreation of the original, but the "fast" version of Mario Kart 64 is now a rarity, and there's no way for anyone to get it that doesn't already have it.

Picture Channel on the Virtual Console : This one can be rolled back to, but there has been a patch for this, as well. The original version let you listen to MP3 files when in slideshow mode, the patched version no longer allows MP3s, but allows a different audio format.

Microsoft has talked about delisting some Live Arcade titles. If this is as drastic as it sounds, it means there might be Live accounts tied to games that no one else can purchase anymore.

The PS3 firmware updates have added, and removed features a couple times. For some reason I was Google searching Super Audio CDs one day, and found this on Wikipedia:

When Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was released in Japan, Sony removed the free Gran Turismo HD from the Japanese Playstation Network Store.
For PC games, there are usually a dozen sites that have every patched version of a piece of software up for download. So if you really liked Diablo 2 a few years back, but recent patches have made the game less enjoyable, you can always find the patch you need and play it. Console games, not so much.

When a physical release is recalled, a few copies slip through the cracks, and can be shared. Tengen Tetris for the NES is readily available for less than $50 for just the cart. The more rare games, like Kizuna Encounter's European release have fetched upwards of $10,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizuna_Encounter

While it's lame that games can hit the ten thousand dollar mark, at least the game can exchange hands reasonably. If you want a copy of fast Mario Kart 64 on the Virtual Console, you end up with two options: piracy, or buying someone's entire Wii. If Microsoft's Live Arcade delisting is as nasty as it sounds, and you want a game after it is delisted, you have to resort to piracy, or buy someone's Live account. Considering the amount of personal information tied to Live accounts, it's probably more illegal to sell a Live account than pirating software.

Again, I'm not saying digital distribution is the devil, I own tons of digital only games. Because this site caters to collectors, I'm pointing out some of the concerns that collectors should think about with digital games.

You've got that right...it doesn't look like fun to me, not to mention unpracticle. Imagine having 5 Xbox 360s in 2023 because you want to get your hands on all the arcade games that were released. It won't be cheap either, people won't sell their 360 for $5 like they might sell a game of the system.

I think we'll see that sort of community sites popping up for console games too, in the future; where you can download older/cracked patches and whatever...

It'll be the only practical way to play these "lost" games, really.  :-\

I know I've said it before, but if it comes to this, I'll quit the hobby.

Entirely? Or just restricting yourself to physical games of previous generations?

Seems like a silly reason to quit gaming.

I'm sorry, but paying money and not receiving any real product that I can decide when to use and where just ain't my thing.

When I buy a game today, I want to know I can play it 20 years from now, not just when the service that makes sure I paid for the game is still running.

I'd still keep playing older, physical games (I don't think I'll ever give that up). Heck, it'd give me a reason to start collecting even more classic games.

Alright :) I asked because it sounded like you'd never play anything again.

Yeah, I kinda realized that it sounded a bit drastic after I read your post  :embarassed:

I'd even buy 360 Live Arcade games, if I could back them up and actually play them that way. Here's hoping some hackers find a way to make that possible :)