Digital Distribution - The future?

[Sirgin]

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

[Tondog]

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

[Cobra]

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.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

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.

[Chainclaw]

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)

[cyberfluxor]

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.

[Sirgin]

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.

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.

[Kimoosabi]

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.

[Chainclaw]

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.

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.

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.

[Spenny J]

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.

[Arrrhalomynn]

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. 

[Sirgin]

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.

[Tan]

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.c...nfo.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.

[Mr. Ksoft]

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.

[Tondog]

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