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Thread: There Is No Perfect Digital Distribution

  1. There Is No Perfect Digital Distribution

    There's probably more to put here against saying "DD is all you need" but that can fill in later.

    In response to Yoshi's recent tirade of "Har har Physical media sucks and everything should be digital." As I'm sure it has before, time to centralize this shit. I'm only pointing out the flaws of DD as we all know most of the good points, no clutter, can't get a broken or scratched disk, can't 'lose it' even though you can have it taken away from you. Don't have to pay for distribution costs other than servers, allows people to get games that would otherwise be impossible to distribute out, etc etc. I just wanna list the bads.

    You do not own your games, consumer protection laws have no precedent to defend them on games you download from the servers. If you get banned, you lose access to your games, not just some multiplayer server; but everything. Reasons for banning aside, this is cause for concern.

    Steam

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...r-steam-games/

    Has a happy ending, but it's an example of a scenario that can happen quite often, particularly in the scenario of your account getting hacked. Sure, there's a good chance you can get someone to fix your issue, restore your account, and unban it as the hacker will likely do something to get you banned; if not though you're screwed.

    For some reason, and I don't know if it's a bug, or if it's fixed, but I had an experience that others have shared, with offline mode I could not launch steam games. It was after I got Deus Ex that I couldn't launch it without being online in Steam, which is essentially ridiculous DRM. But any Digital Distribution where you lose access to what you paid for is a problem that physical media shouldn't have. However, because of Steam, it's an issue that can also happen with physical media that require Steam running, so enjoy.

    GOG?

    I honestly haven't used GoG, so all I know about it is people complaining about something to do with keys? I dunno whatever complaints you guys have for GOG.

    XBLA

    Security Vulnerabilities! Microsoft and Sony have that problem.

    if a game is removed there are weird issues where you can't access it if you lose your hard drive, I've never bought a game that had these problems myself.

    Locking in your card to your account and having no way to change it is also horseshit.

    Sony

    PSN is down, lol.

    I don't really use PSN much so I'm not sure of the problems if anyone can fill this in.

    Humble Bundles!

    Just a limited selection, otherwise these are about as close to DD as you can get.

    Any others?

    Origin lol.

    Also Onlive, which I haven't used or done much study on.

  2. The more companies need to pay into infrastructure, the harder it is to make a profit, especially with bigger budgets and huge production teams.

    You don't like their use agreements? Don't give them money. Even if Steam is still only selling you the license to play a game, buying physical media is like buying a physical license. You didn't buy the game, you bought the medium the game is stored on, a paradigm the developers knew they were entering into when they decided to make a game for X platform.

    That's the only thing I think is bullshit: developers knew they were making a game for a system that uses physical media and knew the limitations of turning a profit on games if their product was sold used. Gamestop is taking advantage of a clearly established area of the paradigm that allows for profiting off of this limitation. I can understand the developers wanting the money to play the game. I can understand Gamestop using perfectly legal means to make the money instead. What I can't understand is the decision on the part of the developers/publishers to punish the customers for it. Aww, you don't think you can make a profit unless you sell online passes and screw people who buy used? Too bad. You made the game for a system that uses physical media. Either kill the middleman and go DD only or stop fucking the customer in the ass for a loophole that some other big company is exploiting.

    I don't care if I'm just buying a license. It's the future of media distribution. Reward the companies that allow you to mod, don't use DRM, and treat the customer like a respected individual and you'll start to see that trend pick up.

  3. #3
    1. There is no perfect anything.

    2. You don't own the content on your physical media either.

    3. Stop living in the past.

    edit: 4. As pointed out above, vote with your dollars to fix what you don't like.

  4. #4
    The only issue with GOG.com is that some of the games don't, by default, come with multiplayer keys. But that just means you have to ask for the key and they'll give you one. Everything else is about as close to perfect as you can get: no DRM, no client, efficient installers, easy redownloading.

  5. GOG is great. Multiplayer key is understandable.

  6. I'm going to vote by killing Yoshi during the revolution.

  7. I refuse to buy disc anything anymore whenever possible. Console games bug the shit out of me for this reason.
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  8. GOG is as close to perfect as we'll probably ever get. The only real downside if that it's possible the site will die off and we'll never be able to re-download anything. But if you just back it all up somewhere else you'll be just fine.
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  9. The best thing about DD taking off is that it is getting to the point where it's easier to buy a thing than pirate it, IMO. Better for content-makers, better for rights-holders, better for the consumer.
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  10. All my PC games are from Steam or GOG, I never buy a disc anymore. Part of this is my love for just choosing from a huge list of games to play for whatever I'm in the mood for at the time and having the space for it on PC vs. a console but it's also because the PC resale market isn't very good so I can't really recoop much for selling it when I'm "done." Consoles I can usually get a decent amount depending on the game, but Steam also has lots of crazy sales so the games end up being MUCH cheaper to buy from them anyway.

    Your concern of XBLA games getting removed is not valid since you can just go to your download history and redownload it. Granted, that's a pain in the ass if you've downloaded a ton of shit, but it's far from "gone forever." PSN IS down a lot though and there are more and more games requiring that you be online to play them (although there aren't many in the overall scheme of things). My hate for PSN is more for the fact that they force you to download DLC a lot of the time as a patch and it is therefore taking up all that space on my hard drive whether or not I bought the DLC (the store download is just a "key file.").
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