Publisher: PC Games Going All Digital in 2011

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chrisjust98

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Well I am all for being lazy and downloading my games. I haven't actually went to the store to buy a game for my pc in at least 2 years.
 

Stryter

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Well, I guess this means I get to give more money to my favorite game developer, Valve, by buying all my games from them. Although, I think I have bought about 90% of my games from them anyways.
 

doc70

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I like the convenience of downloading the games when I want. Besides, the games that I buy can be stored as a backup on my drive(s), so even if I switch PC's I still have my games ready to re-install. These back-ups last longer than a CD/DVD shelf-life.
Also, I have instant access to all kinds of deals and discounts.
 

doc70

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Retail outlets? They deserve to go tits-up just for the way they treat the PC gamers.
I get almost all I need online for that reason.
 

Hilarion

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I HATE steam and it's brethren. I want to play and not be strung out on the net just to do that with advertising I don't want and "friends" who aren't and all the other crap that comes with it. No box? I'm not likely to buy it.
 

craig_98

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What if you are on the road and don't have an internet connection? I am in the Navy and I play games when we pull into foreign ports or when I have time underway. I never have an internet connection underway. Consoles are nice and all but when you have 4 or more people trying to watch TV or playing games, it is really a pain in the butt. I take my laptop to the ship so I can have my own private movies and games. If all games require an internet connection I guess I am screwed. I know a lot of other military people are just like me.
 

mavroxur

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Soooooooo how exactly does this work? Forcing game content to be all digital.....with games coming out on DVD's (sometimes more than 1 to a game) and Blu-Ray.... and internet providers talking about imposing limits on downloaded data? Does nobody else think this fail ship is preparing to set sail?
 

siuol11

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While I don't buy my games retail (OK, maaaaybe 1% of the time), there was a study done as recently as last much that noticed that the vast majority of games were still sold at brick-and-mortar stores. I like Valve except when it comes to offloading games you no longer want... You can give them away, but that's about it.
On a completely unrelated note, I think Valve is going down the tubes. How long are they going to keep doing minor updates to a crappy engine? Where the hell is Source 2?
 
[citation][nom]chrisjust98[/nom]Well I am all for being lazy and downloading my games. I haven't actually went to the store to buy a game for my pc in at least 2 years.[/citation]
Yup. I get all my games off of Steam (yes, it's kind of a DRM HOWEVER I'd take Steam over most of the other cr@p any day(for now)).
 

rjkucia

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[citation][nom]craig_98[/nom]What if you are on the road and don't have an internet connection? I am in the Navy and I play games when we pull into foreign ports or when I have time underway. I never have an internet connection underway. Consoles are nice and all but when you have 4 or more people trying to watch TV or playing games, it is really a pain in the butt. I take my laptop to the ship so I can have my own private movies and games. If all games require an internet connection I guess I am screwed. I know a lot of other military people are just like me.[/citation]

Steam has offline mode, to my knowledge all games work fine with that (except multiplayer, of course).
 

trkraus

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steam is awesome
having all your games in 1 library ready to download or launch is great
have no problems at all, no hassle, good sales on games, huge library of games getting bigger literally every day

btw, if you change the skin to obsidian the steam interface looks a whole lot nicer :)
 

Gulli

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If I pay money for a game I want a physical copy. I buy them from online stores, just as lazy as downloading.

There is no technical reason why you can't buy a physical copy, then punch in a code that checks the validity of your game once so you can play offline. This would also allow you to play without the disc in the drive and there should be a button in some menu that lets you backup you stats and progress online.

All the reasons they're giving us to switch to downloading don't make sense at all: we can have all those functions without downloading.
 

Honis

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[citation][nom]craig_98[/nom]What if you are on the road and don't have an internet connection? I am in the Navy and I play games when we pull into foreign ports or when I have time underway. I never have an internet connection underway. Consoles are nice and all but when you have 4 or more people trying to watch TV or playing games, it is really a pain in the butt. I take my laptop to the ship so I can have my own private movies and games. If all games require an internet connection I guess I am screwed. I know a lot of other military people are just like me.[/citation]This is to acquire games. Steam lets you backup games locally to a Hard drive or DVD so you can download them and back them up when you're on shore. When you're underway you can't buy games anyway (unless I missed something and there is an AAFES (BX/PX) in an carrier). I realize it is still a pain compared to buying the box but not impossible.
 

trkraus

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honestly I have no real desire to have a hard copy of a game. On the contrary, I absolutely want to have a hard copy of a movie when I buy one...digital distribution of movies seems ridiculous to me. When the hard disc comes with a digital copy though, which I think they're starting to do more often now, that's the best.
 

climber

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I think game publishers are in cahoots with ISP's... just imagine the overage costs associated with downloading or streaming all your games, tv shows, movies, once the ISP's start enforcing bandwidth caps, charging for those overages, then "surprise, surprise" realizing that it's costing them way more than they're charging, then the caps get smaller and the cost per GB or even MB gets high again, like it was in the mid 90's.... as consumers we're all toast. They have us hooked, they known it and they're closing the vice on the low dangly bits.
 
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