Why the hell don't games come on physical media anymore?!?

[GandGolf]

Now it seems like the games are all download. For a reasonably sized game this would be no problem, but some of these games are over several gigabytes or more. Why can't they put them on a DVD?

 

[Endemic]

Steam's popular. Even after Valve takes their cut, it's cheaper to forgo the costs of producing physical media, and smaller developers no longer need a publisher to handle distribution etc.

 

[Dux]

Can't say I miss them much. I haven't bought a physical copy of a game for over five years now. Steam and GOG is all I need. That said, I do sometimes miss going into a game store and seeing shelves filled with those old game boxes. They had character.

 

[Excidium II]

Click one button and get the game OR drive to city center to buy a dvd box

Hmmm...

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Now it seems like the games are all download. For a reasonably sized game this would be no problem, but some of these games are over several gigabytes or more. Why can't they put them on a DVD?

GTA V, 10 DVD's worth of awesome!

 

[Beowulf]

B-b-b-but NuDoom fits on 1DVD

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Now it seems like the games are all download. For a reasonably sized game this would be no problem, but some of these games are over several gigabytes or more. Why can't they put them on a DVD?

Steam's popular. Even after Valve takes their cut, it's cheaper to forgo the costs of producing physical media, and smaller developers no longer need a publisher to handle distribution etc.

/thread

 

[grudgebringer]

I don't know what are you talking about. I've recently visited one of the local media stores and I saw shelves filled by real old-fashioned boxes with something like TW Warhammer, Doom 4 and Heroes 7 etc.

 

[Makabb]

Because we live in a totalitarian world Orwell would not even dream of. Soon enjoy your games as a rental service.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Now it seems like the games are all download. For a reasonably sized game this would be no problem, but some of these games are over several gigabytes or more. Why can't they put them on a DVD?

Over several gigabytes or more? Are you posting through a time portal from 2006? When is the last time a game has been less than a few gigabytes? Most AAAAAAA++++++ games nowadays wouldn't even fit on a single sided DVD (or double sided for that matter), they're easily 20-50GB in size.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Just one quick aside, the effort required to 'go out' and purchase a physical copy are later off-set by the mobility of a disk versus download. A small point and one that can be addressed by purchasing a lot of external drives, but at a lot more cost, of course. The disk is already it's own external drive, and one that's less likely to get lost, destroyed or uninstalled to make way for the next game.

Also, physical media is much easier to trade after purchase. You can sell a physical game soon after release for a back-end discount and, conversely, you can buy a game a bit cheaper quite soon after release as the early adopters sell-up. With downloaded content the sellers aren't forced into early discounts and can entirely manage the long-term cost of the game while, conversely, people tend to want downloaded media for free and will likely just beg for it and possibly feel offended if you ask for cash for a key. Not to mention consumer issues regarding second-hand key selling. Take ebay, for example. 10 years ago you could buy a bundle of games in a lot, do key-sellers sell in lots? Say you're just browsing a site like ebay, will the cover art and associated manuals etc possibly attract you to a game you've never heard of before? Compared to a blank space with a title and the offer of a key to a site you might not even frequent or wish to frequent.

I can't say I'm fussed as yet either way, it's too early in the change-over to make any long-term rational statement, but physical media did have some positives over digital, even if the long-term proves digital was actually a better system.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I don't know what are you talking about. I've recently visited one of the local media stores and I saw shelves filled by real old-fashioned boxes with something like TW Warhammer, Doom 4 and Heroes 6 etc.

Those boxes will often say stuff like "key only, no disc" or "on-line registration/play required". For many games it's just using old shopping methods without actually being the old shopping method physically.

 

[Metro]

Collecting game boxes is like collecting Beanie Babies.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Game boxes??????????????

Srsly is this a time warp?

wtf is going on, when is the last time game boxes existed?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Oh and, yeah, thanks for reminding me, another thing:

When people all bought the disks, when you went onto a forum you knew exactly which version of a game someone has been playing. Is it Vanilla, Gold or GOTY etc etc. Once imprinted onto a disc you had a fairly final version of a game. You would always play that version of the game.

With games being digital you now get new patches every week for potentially years, each patch providing each consumer with a potentially entirely different game. The negative effect of this being that early adopters will post about how crap and buggy a game is, the next wave will say how good the game was and late adopters might be hailing the game as the second coming - all plastering each other with various forum tags as no-one actually knows or cares to enquire which version everyone else played, and having to enquire about versions every post is fucking tedious.

 

[Bustamonte]

It sucks, men. I loved games that had big thick manuals to read while I was on the pot.

 

[mindx2]

Collecting game boxes is like collecting Beanie Babies.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Even if you get the game on a disc, you still need to connect to Steam at which point it will download 40GB day-one patch. So what's the point?

 

[Spectacle]

Last time I bought a physical game from a store, I discovered that my DVD drive had broken down. So instead of installing from disc I typed the serial number into steam and downloaded the game that way. Since then I've bought digital only, outside of a few kickstarted collectors editions.

I do miss the big manuals of the old days though. Or rather, I miss the kind of game that needs a big manual.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Physical copy these days means DVD box with a 10 page manual and a steam code inside. Why bother. Buying old big box games on ebay on the other hand...

 

[Alex]

Click one button and get the game OR drive to city center to buy a dvd box

Hmmm...

I would exchange all my steam games for a Sim City 2000 box with manuals. And while pretty big, Sim City's manual isn't even that good.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Because releasing a game on 5-7 DVDs is not economical.

 

[Mustawd]

Click one button and get the game OR drive to city center to buy a dvd box

Hmmm...

I would exchange all my steam games for a Sim City 2000 box with manuals. And while pretty big, Sim City's manual isn't even that good.

Dude, it's not even that expensive:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SimCity-200...vvsAAOSw6btXTKav&_trksid=p2349526.m3874.l7936

Spoiler

 

[Gerrard]

Click one button and get the game OR drive to city center to buy a dvd box

Hmmm...

Or pay for delivery. Not to mention that installation from a DVD will take longer than a download. Still remember installing fucking Witcher 2.

Also you people still have DVD drives? My drive was an ATA one. Motherboards don't have ATA connectors anymore.

 

[pippin]

Because we live in a totalitarian world Orwell would not even dream of. Soon enjoy your games as a rental service.

They are, if you consider that you only buy permission to download a program from the company's servers, not the game itself.