Can someone tell me if I could give away a Steam downloaded game when I don’t want it anymore? Is there some way to uninstall it and give it away, or I suppose there’s a hack to find the actual file and then place it correctly on someone else’s computer?
Well that was an odd tangent.
Anyway, I recklessly went ahead and purchased both GTA IV and Call of Duty 4 from gamefly. Sorry Jragon. $40 each, which is better than any other price I’ve found on them in used game stores. I’m pretty leery of buying used games from individuals without an established return mechanism, so I didn’t bother with ebay - call it a quirk of mine.
Here is a Penny Arcade comic on the topic of used games. They seem to come down on the side of Jragon, for what it’s worth.
*
I don’t think breaking the ability to play used games is the answer, like they were talking about in this ancient rumor, but I understand why they would experiment with that kind of Doomsday Device. For me, it’s not any more complicated than “used titles don’t support the people who make games.” The sale doesn’t exist. I don’t expect this to be a concept that the Madden Gamer seizes upon and makes his way of life. But as people who genuinely respect the medium and those who toil to refine and elevate our leisure hours, it’s worth keeping in mind.* --Tycho
But as gamers, we are also dependent on retailers selling games, and these retailers have to make a profit. Most physical game retailers don’t (in my experience) and for the one I’ve filled in for, re-selling used games barely tipped us over the black&red treshhold. This is part of the reason we see very few independant game retailers any more, and why otherwise geeky shops - like Outland - refuse to carry games. (And why a few retailers are starting to refuse to carry MMOs unless they’re only sold in physical shape. According to what I’ve heard, Age of Conan is on a timed exclusivity deal with physical retail publishing, for instance)
Removing the ability to play used games only drives the gamers into the black market of piracy. You MUST leave the option of buying used for the “sort of unwashed” masses to buy an item second hand. To deny them this route is to push them into the decision to buy from the illegal channels.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Game developers that think this is the future are seriously out of touch with the mindset of most gamers (and the realities of digital distribution).
Many PS3 developers are touting the fact that they’re using an entire Blu-Ray disc for their games. That’s somewhere between 25-50 GB. Where is the bandwidth going to come from for 3.6 million GTA fans (the number who bought GTA4 on day one) to download the game at the same time?
Games don’t get smaller. They only get bigger all the time. It’s the one constant in the industry. And that does not translate well to cutting over to digital distribution completely. I also find it funny that the industry doesn’t see any problems in cutting off the very large percentage of homes that only have dial-up or no Internet at all.
Finally, if digitally distributed games are eventually supposed to be dropped in price to spur sales, why hasn’t it happened with the XBLA, VC or PSN? Microsoft has dropped the price of a handful of games, but then they jumped to this “delisting” idea for underperforming games.
All games might be digitally distributed someday, but I don’t think I’ll live to see the day and I’m 26 now, so I think it’s going to take a LONG time.
This isn’t a black or white issue. Speaking for myself, there are many games I wouldn’t buy new that I’m happy to try used for $10 or $20. Suppose I buy a game and am really surprised how much I enjoy it, and then I buy the sequel at full price? That would have never happened if I hadn’t bought the used game to begin with. I think somebody getting your game and enjoying it is great marketing for your company and future games you make. If your game is crap then you’re in trouble either way.
What about post #23? I can’t make any sense out of it at all.
Peer-2-peer networks, like .torrent and pre-caching of files. Simply swap out the period where we wait in between when a game goes Gold and when a game goes out to sale with the same time of download ability. When the release date is there, let people download the .exe file or unlock it in some other way.
Tell every employee to seed it from their home while they’re at work, if you can’t afford a base-farm to do it.
Blizzard uses torrents for their frequently 300mb+ patches and superseeds them only for a short while. I’ve never had to wait longer for a .torrent download like that than I have for understandably limited FTP downloads.
Easy. Even with today’s technology.
300 MB patches are not 25 GB full games. Also, making the games purchaseable through torrents would open up a console to the public at large (and possibly introduce viruses), thus negating the closed system benefit of consoles.
And it’s not even the company’s bandwidth I’m talking about completely. In April, the ten bestselling games moved 5 million copies. At even a conservative 4 GB apiece, you’re talking 20,000,000 GB just for the top ten games. The Internet would tremble at that kind of bandwidth crush.
Games are 25gb these days? Jeez, I’m out of it. The last computer game I bought came on a single CD.
Not all games (not even most games). But the devs behind Resistance and Metal Gear Solid 4 both bragged about filling a Blu-Ray disc.
Grand Theft Auto IV is probably the biggest single disc Xbox 360 game and Rockstar says they definitely pushed the limit of a DVD-9.