Digital Distribution: Love it or Hate it?

[Josh Parr]

I'm sure this question is asked on every board but lately I have been delving further and further into the waters of game digital distribution and wanted to see what everyone thought.

I've really been switching from console gaming to PC now that I have a machine that is capable of doing some good with PC games.  I'm a big believer in owning the games that I buy and having a physical copy, however Steam has really begun to change my mind on that.  I now currently own about 30 games on Steam through Half-Life Anthology, Orange Box, Counter-strike Source and other deals.  I really like the idea of a centralized location for my games and being to redownload without too much hassle in case of hardware failure.  I have 3 games from GoodOldGames.com, 2 games from EA Downloader, 5 games on Battle.net, and around 30 from Steam.

However I noticed flaw in the sytem that may not affect everyone or myself currently but could in the future. A lot of ISPs are starting to go toward the capped bandwidth limits that are restrictive. If you happen to have a hardware failure it could take you months just to redownload your collection so you don't get an overage charge. With more and more ISP companies doing this and more game providers doing more digital distribution of their games and add-on content there seems to be a big issue on the rise.

Another issue that I have partially come across is the availability of your games if you don't have internet for an extended period. Now most of the digital distribution options have a credential cache built-in like Steam and EA Downloader but if you are without internet for an extended period the games from EA will lock-out. This is unacceptable. I have purchased add-on content for Burnout Paradise and was unable to use it because I couldn't contact the server. Now that was my fault in this case because of an IP blocking program but the result would be the same if their server was down.  I have paid for that content yet I cannot access it because I'm unable to verify with their server. That is ludicrous. I understand they have to put safeguards in place but that is just stupid.

One final issue I see with digital distribution would be when those services die out, are they going to release patches to their games before they fold so we can play our games without their DRM setups disabling the game. I don't think all of these providers have fully looked to the future in that respect but really hope that they do plan for that at some point.

This may have come off as very against Digital Distribution but I really like the idea. No need to keep track of game discs and in most cases the cd-keys either. It makes things easier to regain in case of hardware failure or other losses of media.  I just think that they might want to address some of the issues that can cause the most problems.

[Brian Moy]

I'm not sure exactly what digital distribution is and how it differs from a download - if there is a difference.

Once a game is on my hard drive, whether installed from disc or downloaded from the internet, I think its great because I can just play it without inserting the discs.  I don't really buy any contemporary computer games, because eventually I can find the discs at thrift stores for $5 or less.  Also old computer games are often small enough that they install entirely on the hard drive, don't take up much space, and most don't need a registration key to install.  Another reason I don't buy contemporary computer games is because they often do have registration keys nowadays, so I won't buy anything that needs a registration key because a used copy is likely obsolete.

[G.A.Pster]

It’s good for developers because it can cost less,
 
But I personally hate it, I like hard copies they’re funner to collect and you own something real not just some computer bits so you can sell them trade them or whatever, and just think about it if games were digitally distributed they’d be lost to history.