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Digital Distribution


jsonedecker

Would You Use a Digital Distribution System?  

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Hey everyone,

This would make a good poll somewhere, but I thought I would do a little market research.

Would most of you buy a game, with the quality and production standard of something like GR1, by way of digital distribution such as STEAM? Would you expect a lower price point since it doesn't come in a box or with a physical CD?

-John

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yes, i would expect a lower price point since there are no packaging or logistics costs.

no, i would not buy it online. half the fun for me is spending time perusing through the boxes and looking at all the cool pictures on the back of the box. i spend ridiculous time online looking at reviews before i decide to make a purchase but more often than not, i end up spending on average 45 minutes at the store just looking at other stuff.

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JS, I would go for a download type game, but would not be agreeable to using Steam. I've passed on Half-life2 strictly because of Steam .Third party companies do not need to have access to my computer. Maybe it's the paranoia of a retired cop, but I bet someone will exploit Steam's access to so many computers. I do SP only, Steam has no business accessing my computer. Zip it for the Mac users, .exe for the pc and I'll download it. I would expect lower cost as no packaging, shipping fees involved.

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Yes, i would buy a game via net. The majority of software i currently purchase is D.D. already.

I would want a lower price, but only accuratly reflecting the difference in price of D.D. vs. traditional distrobution.

I would pay the same price (if not more), if a got a cool coffee book/art book of the concept art.

If it didnt come with a physical CD, i would expect to have a relyable method of backup. Eather burning a CD, of a secured user account. preferably the ability to burn a cd.

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I'd go for the download route, the only point against it is the folks who are still on dial up, I did a backup with steam and it rolled out fine when I formatted the pc, I like not having boxes cluttering up my room now, in fact I've taken all the cd's out of the cases, packed them away and put all the cd's in a big wallet to save room. Being able to read the manual while you're playing is useful depending on the type of game, most first person shooters are self explanatory to anyone who's played them before. As for the price, I'm not sure how much money publishers save by distributing digitally over normal box/cd sales.

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I like boxes and glossy stuff inside, but I like cheaper prices better.

I voted for Digital Distribution, with a lower price point. There is a paranoia amongst a fairly vocal group of anti-steam gamers, if time was spent on countering this paranoia Digital Distribution would stand a better chance IMO.

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I would prefer the cd route myself. What's more I am one of those that online ordering is not really an option. True enough I have in the past for some things but that is something I do very, very rarely. More so I haven't heard too many good things about STEAM in the first place and if that was involved would be an immediate turn off for me. No matter how good the game or sim might be. What's more if in DVD format a CD version would also be nice for those of us that are unable to upgrade at this time. This one fact alone, among a few others, is a major reason why I won't be purchasing GR:AW.

Stout Hearts

|RE|Warhawk

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I want something i can hold onto if i spend money for it. I would rather have a Disc and manual anyday compared to DD. Besides its only a 5 minute drive to the store and i can go to the store and install it before its done DL with the install.

If your wondering about CD or DVD if it ever comes around im good for DVD, but i won't do DD if i can help it.

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Currently I wouldn't be too impressed by downloading a 3gb game over broadband. Maybe ADSL2 will help but I won't get that for a long while.

Yes it should be lower prices, in fact the prices should be equal wherever you buy it from in the world as it has to come off the same place. It won't happen, Macromedia still do a massive markup for people downloading Studio from the UK compared with the US.

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1) copy protection ... if im not mistaken, a lot of methods rely on a physical CD.

Yes, but STEAM aleviates this by it being the copy protection.

2) brought up earlier ... spyware.  if not by the online distributor, what of the 3rd party hosting the file?

I believe this will need to be addressed by the developer. Don't put your stuff up for sale by someone that has it.

I find STEAM a very interesting thing because it seems liek you either are ok with it or hate it. I wonder if some people "hate" it because it was a little rough around the edges at first... you know, first impressions.

Anyway, I like seeing your respones everyone. For someone like myself, the ONLY reason to look at the viability of DD is to reduce dev costs and a reliance on obtaining a traditoinal publisher dev contract to fund a game. It all ties in with the Death of the Game Industry thread.

-John

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Hypothetically speaking if I bought a game, didn't like it, sold it on.

How would DD work in this instance.

Discuss.....

Box and CD please.

I guess you couldn't, at least not how I could see.

-John

Hmm, I remember this being asked when HL2 came out on Steam. I believe there is a method of cancelling your own copy to make it available for resale - obviously this is not as straight forward as throwing a game on ebay though.

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I find STEAM a very interesting thing because it seems liek you either are ok with it or hate it.

Absolutely. In the newsgroup .....pc.games.action, there is one individual who calls himself steamKILLER and takes great delight in posting every day reasons why everybody MUST by the boxed game and rid the world of the menace that is steam.

I tried Steam for HL2 and I pretty much like it. HL2 was a half way house though, because it still came in a box, in my case a nice collector's edition :) I like Steam for the news updates that pop up when I start Steam every few weeks, for the automatic updates that keep my game up to date, and some other small benefits.

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I never had a problem with STEAM either.. it worked when I needed it to, every time. I keep it off until I need it, as of late that's not too much, but when I first bought HL2 it ran all the time.

Me too, I removed it from Startup to speed startup loading times.

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I have voted for the download option because of the cheaper prize but i can also see some problems with it. for example most 13-14 year old gamers might not have access to a credit-card to buy it online and i also like to look at my old boxes from time to time, like the Rainbow Six boxes and think about the fun i had with those games. Call me a bit sentimental..... :D

But i can also see it as a natural progression for future games, first there were floppy disks, then cds and dvds and now Steam. If someone is able to use a similar program like Steam without all the problems or hickups people incountered with HL2 and Steam it could become the next big thing.

Another thing that comes to mind was the time when i downloaded SWAT 4 from Gamespot, it was the whole game playable for 60 minutes, after that the game shut down and asked me if i wanted to buy it online, which i thought was a great thing because all you had to do was buy a new activation code and download some more files to activate the MP part. worked perfectly and no need anymore for a seperate demo.

the downside for something like this might be the danger of people cracking the game and releasing new activation codes on the internet which would mean a loss in revenue.

just my 2 cents.

Edited by swartsz
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Yes, i would buy a game via net.  The majority of software i currently purchase is D.D. already.

I would want a lower price, but only accuratly reflecting the difference in price of D.D. vs. traditional distrobution.

I would pay the same price (if not more), if a got a cool coffee book/art book of the concept art.

If it didnt come with a physical CD, i would expect to have a relyable method of backup. Eather burning a CD, of a secured user account. preferably the ability to burn a cd.

Edited to reflect my opinion...

Yes, i would buy a game via net.

I would want a lower price, but only accuratly reflecting the difference in price of D.D. vs. traditional distrobution.

If it didnt come with a physical CD, i would expect to have a relyable method of backup. Eather burning a CD, of a secured user account. preferably the ability to burn a cd.

ALSO:

I would NOT buy the game if it required ONLINE REGISTRATION or I could not DL onto my External HDD and move to my Gaming computer, which does not have Internet access.

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