I thought the new consoles would go to thumb drives due to the amount of info you can store on them. But cost wise its still easier to print discs.
Resurrect the cartdridges!
- Thread starter Rad Party God
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Cost. Production costs are really high on carts as opposed to discs, unless you hamper the storage capacity. This isn't a problem so much for portable systems, but even the NDS saw a price increase due to the size of the carts (well, partially. Things in life are usually complicated).SupahGamuh said:
When we have games that take a BD or multiple DVDs, however, we're talking upwards of 10GB space. now, it'd be nice if we didn't just keep bumping the graphics and size of games, but since we probably are, moving forward we will likely see more games of this size.
People might argue the costs for a 16 GB card aren't that bad, but keep in mind they'll be tacking that (at a minimum) on top of production costs and markup. And not bargain-basement discounts you find online. Are you ready to pay another ten or twenty bucks (minimum) to get games on carts?
Not to mention load times still exist on larger HDD and cart-based games.
Of course, piracy was pretty big on the DS.leet_x1337 said:
And a lot of these buggy games were successful, too. The notion that people who made buggy games somehow went out of business is kinda...Well, contrary to what every one of use who grew up in the NES/SNES days had to put up with.Hyper-space said:
Hell, some companies sold you a new version of the game at retail price as a means of distributing "bug fixes."
Like you said, "hooray for the olden days."
Tanakh said:
Yep.. knew this would come to this. So I guess it is thesis time. So I apologize for the wall of text in advance. I broke it up into spoiled sections to make it a bit easier to digest.
Ok, couple points.
A: Steam has no need to change its model. The junkie (IE: the PC game purchasing consumer) is already long since hooked.
B: http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
1: The document is called "Subscriber agreement"
2: Section 2(A) Paragraph 2
3: Section 5 Paragraph 2
4: Section 9(c)
5: Section 13 (cute, no?)(c)
These are all ways illustrating how a "subscription" or a "Service" differ greatly from a product. Note what you see here. Steam for whatever reason they feel justified in offering (though Steam users agree to not require steam to even give a reason) can terminate your account. With that termination there is no recompense to what you have paid because you own nothing, you are licensed a subscription. And who is to say where that stops? What if Steam implements system scanning like Origin, and decides, well you have bittorrent installed on your PC, you must be doing something illegal. /delete. Not only did you loose the money youve invested into subscription licenses over the years, you are not due any recompense, and you have no legal standing to argue against it, all because you agreed to these kinds of terms and conditions.
And before you can say "Well steam would not alienate their customers by doing something that brazen" please understand that this is a system of precedents. Did being technically illegal stop Sony from adjusting their PSN ToS to include a waiver of rights to class action litigation? No its still there. How many days did it take before EA Origin adopted a similar policy? Four. As other companies see that, they too will adopt similar policies until it becomes "industry standard" or someone takes it to court and the courts force them to overturn that policy. If people will blindly agree without even knowing that is what is occurring, what do you think the chances of it ever seeing a court will be?
And before you can say "Well steam would not alienate their customers by doing something that brazen" please understand that this is a system of precedents. Did being technically illegal stop Sony from adjusting their PSN ToS to include a waiver of rights to class action litigation? No its still there. How many days did it take before EA Origin adopted a similar policy? Four. As other companies see that, they too will adopt similar policies until it becomes "industry standard" or someone takes it to court and the courts force them to overturn that policy. If people will blindly agree without even knowing that is what is occurring, what do you think the chances of it ever seeing a court will be?
Now as you mentioned GoG.. Compare the link for Steams Subscription agreement to Gogs "terms of use"
http://www.gog.com/en/support/policies/terms_of_use
Notice how there is only about 1/3rd the text? Again this is how a subscription, and a product differ. GoG with their DRM free standing is a digital distribution platform that does not try to convert a product into a service.
EDIT: moved
http://www.gog.com/en/support/policies/terms_of_use
Notice how there is only about 1/3rd the text? Again this is how a subscription, and a product differ. GoG with their DRM free standing is a digital distribution platform that does not try to convert a product into a service.
EDIT: moved
As for gamestop, your somewhat right. Even if you do not like money going to a store, instead of a publisher, you do realize that gamestop is part of the industry as well, right? Cut them out of the equation and you know what you loose? You loose thousands of video game industry jobs. The industry itself looses publicly visible advertising, because outside of gamestop where else in public do you see video games prominently displayed with large noticeable cut outs, posters, etc? Those also took someone to create and manufacture. More jobs lost. What about the warehouse production? logistics? etc. All of that is lost in a digital distribution world.
When people see that free advertisement does it also inherently say "Buy our used copies!!!"? No, that advertisement space helps generate sales of both new AND used. And while on gamestop and used I cant stand this notion that gamestop selling used is a pure profit scenario. Even if gamestop offers a shitty return simple fact is... they had to buy the copy before they can sell it used. However people like to imagine game stop as taking a 60$ copy of Modern warfare 3, Selling it used for 50$, and making a profit of 50$, when in all actuality given that they had to pay out 35$ for that copy, they are making really only 15$ if they are able to resell it before that pricing structure is forced to drop as the new price drops. Yes its still a lucrative model, but it is not some unmitigated juggernaut of profits. Yes they make entirely too much money for what they do. But that is not the fault of Gamestop. The blame for that rests soley on the feet of the idiots buying from gamestop in the first place. Personally I do not buy from gamestop any more, and havent for quite a few years now. Personally if I am going to buy a console game used, I will buy from the locally owned and operated pawn shops in my area.
When people see that free advertisement does it also inherently say "Buy our used copies!!!"? No, that advertisement space helps generate sales of both new AND used. And while on gamestop and used I cant stand this notion that gamestop selling used is a pure profit scenario. Even if gamestop offers a shitty return simple fact is... they had to buy the copy before they can sell it used. However people like to imagine game stop as taking a 60$ copy of Modern warfare 3, Selling it used for 50$, and making a profit of 50$, when in all actuality given that they had to pay out 35$ for that copy, they are making really only 15$ if they are able to resell it before that pricing structure is forced to drop as the new price drops. Yes its still a lucrative model, but it is not some unmitigated juggernaut of profits. Yes they make entirely too much money for what they do. But that is not the fault of Gamestop. The blame for that rests soley on the feet of the idiots buying from gamestop in the first place. Personally I do not buy from gamestop any more, and havent for quite a few years now. Personally if I am going to buy a console game used, I will buy from the locally owned and operated pawn shops in my area.
So Who benefits? Do the developers slaving away at the game benefit? No, because they are either contracted salary or hourly wage employees who will be paid on fixed rates and will see no more money. Do the customers? Arguably, but by allowing a product to be transformed into a service you will not see a reduction in cost of games because the market has already agreed to what they will bear. The only ones who benefit are the publishers, and really if your a game company to the level of publishing your own and other peoples work, youve long since had to worry about the profit disparity between physical and digital distribution. Ill gladly grant you to an extent indie developers do benefit by gaining exposure they would not otherwise have. However, it still comes at a great expense because if you could translate the number of sales from digital distribution for indie developers into an equivalent physical distribution, those developers see dramatically less from digital. Indie developers know this. The tradeoff is, that if they suffer under digital restrictions by XBL, PSN, Steam, etc long enough to get good word of mouth, they can then hopefully transition into a physical media and remain viable.
Here is the thing. Ultimately people forget that it is we the consumers who dictate how business must operate. This is the first generation that has essentially forgotten the meaning and relevance to the phrase "The customer is always right" by consistently throwing their money at things they want without researching or even understanding what they are agreeing to. By doing so it gives these companies more power than they should have, and they parlay that power into trying to slowly grab for more. It is regrettable but you cannot blame them. They are simply doing what they are supposed to do under the confines of capitalism. The blame rests with people. People who consistently allow them to do so unchecked. This is why digital distribution is choking the life out of not only the video game industry , but all commercial industries. Because it was not the poor indie developer who was throwing their money for lobbists to push for legislation like SOPA and PIPA. It was the ones with obscene profits who could afford to drop millions into pushing for legislation that will help them expand their revenue streams even further.
And thats as much as I will say on it this time. But that says basically all I generally ever want to express on this subject. As for topic, all these reasons are why I would like to see a resurgence of physical media over digital distribution. I concede that blu ray discs are practically perfect in this respect. They are cheap, easy to produce, and they seemingly are indestructible (IE unscratchable) when compared cd/dvds that pick up scuffs if you even look at them funny. Anyway. Now that I got that out of the way as a warm up I have a massive homework essay to write. /cheers!
"cartridges" in this case would almost certainly be similar to SD cards. Much like the PS Vita's cartridge.Chicago Ted said:
I agree in terms of cost, but carts are no longer big and clunky. They're small and fairly convenient.
Not always. I had a disk crack just from taking it out of the case so many times. I'd had it for less than a year. I've stepped on a cartridge before and it still ran fine. As for you're internal battery concerns, there's no reason you couldn't design the console to store save information somewhere other than the cartridge. The N64 did it, a lot of the N64 games wouldn't save on the cartridge, you needed an external save pack.him over there said:
On your earlier post your right. As far as Digital distribution goes, I do see GoG as being an infintely better model than steam, EAO or GFWL. Cant speak on impulse, gamersgate, or the like simply because ive not used their services personally. But again your right. the problem isnt digital distribution itself. Its how it is being used, and ultimately manipulated.TheKasp said:
Both. I do think your post was fairly on point, but I also do think the industry is trying to move toward subscription services like P2P mmos or like the referenced Elite service. Its happening, and its happening on the back of digital distribution.
On this post. You well may be right, but that does not make it a good thing, or even something that is not doing damage, but thats not something that became issue until digital distribution began to become commonplace.
"Why doesn't the industry even consider the idea of returning to such a business?"SupahGamuh said:
Graphics whoredom, basically... people judge books by their covers, and graphics are the covers of games. The kids growing up with xbox 360s and PS3s won't be content with a return to 2D... as great as it would be
I do miss sprites and IMO... they still look better than polygons..
No, in the PS2 era people bought a GAME, not a license. This gen the industry has managed to brainwash people into BUYING games at $10 more while not actually buying games at all.TheKasp said:
I have been BUYING games since the Atari 2600 and I can tell you that until this gen, people bought GAMES, not licenses.
I wouldn't say a real gamer, considering there are those that do nothing but play video games and are damn good at it but were born during the CD-ROM boom.Tiswas said:
But there is something nostalgic about seeing that old copy of Mario Karts in the bottom of a draw and thinking "...the amount of blowing that would need now to run..."
It'd increase game prices by a lot since the cartridges are much, much more expensive than digital distribution or DVDs.
That said, I can't say I don't miss still having all my n64 and game boy games whilst my pc and playstation games got scratched to hell long ago.
Oh, hey there pokemon blue, didn't know you were still around <3
That said, I can't say I don't miss still having all my n64 and game boy games whilst my pc and playstation games got scratched to hell long ago.
Oh, hey there pokemon blue, didn't know you were still around <3
A lot of PS1 games assume that loading will take a certain amount of time and crash if the data loads too fast. This means emulators have to emulate the slow PS1 disk drive, even though your own optical drive is probably 20x fasterCrono1973 said:
As for current games, I think Windows 7 does actually cache disk reads so if you have lots of RAM you'll only have to load a given file once. The problem is that when you die or move between areas, most games completely restart D3D or Opengl. This causes a delay in itself, then lots of data must be moved from system RAM to the graphics card and may need to be decompressed.
A better system would not restart D3D, would avoid freeing data that was going to be immediately transferred back onto the graphics card and in general would avoid freeing data unless graphics RAM was short. The problem is that this is complicated and is another system that can go wrong. Rage had an innovate way of managing textures and models, but because it didn't work perfectly id caught a lot of flak for it. Shutting down and reloading is generally bug free.
Your technically both right. The best kind of right.Crono1973 said:
As far as owning a game, few people own games. That is the ability to posess the property, alter it in any fashion you see fit, and redistribute it for commercial profit as your own. In that sense, very few people own a game.
However, at the same time, physical media does not confer an agreement of terms. You cannot have license without providing confirmation you understand and agree. You do the same thing with your physical drivers license.
The disparity here is, that Next to no one owns a game... but you CAN own the disc/cartridge that content is on. Thats where the ownership of physical media comes into play in all this. By removing the physical media, your removing the last protection the consumer has to keep the product remaining as a product and not a subscription.
And you came up with that while watching someone play virtual console games?
Were you like "you know what would be better than having all games on 1 harddrive so you can play all of them within seconds? Splitting each game up into an expensive to manufacture cartridge which you'll have to fumble out and put into the console each time you want to play something else and that'll wear off and break some day."?
Were you like "you know what would be better than having all games on 1 harddrive so you can play all of them within seconds? Splitting each game up into an expensive to manufacture cartridge which you'll have to fumble out and put into the console each time you want to play something else and that'll wear off and break some day."?
Indeed, Steam and any other big DD retailer don't need to change the EULA, they can legally decide to do whatever they want with the games you did licenced from them, but they won't because they want to make money. Do the service they currently provey satisfy you? Then you have nothing to worry, as far as i can see they will not change their practices, because doing so would hurt their profit and market share on the long run. Untill i see how being an ass will get them more money over a 5 year period, i really can't see them sticking it to the users because Steam wants to keep the money flood they have. And Steam at the end of the day is a company, if they could sell more than 1 billion a year by making you or me cry, they would, but thats simply not the model they have.viranimus said:
And of course they can't grant you the ownership of the software, AFAIK no current company does that! Your Windows? Licenced, iTunes licenced, skype lincenced... it's the standard with intelectual products, you don't "buy" a book, you buy the right to read and use it under very restrictive limits, same with software or a TV show. If that is right or wrong is a different matter, and the only difference with a phisical copy is that if for example Sony decides to revoke you the license on PAYDAY The Heist on the PS3, they might have a harder time doing so, just might though.
Ultimately if you feel copyright is BS, well, I agree on that, but can't see what makes Steam or DD in general a special case. All that having the phisical media does is that, if the company goes psycho and decides to deprive you from the license you aquired, you might break the law and still access it... maybe (due console patches i am not sure how ture that is).
That is simply false. Unless you sell them for more than the double in a physical media, DD seems to give you bigger margins. Also, that is one of the reasons for my support to Steam, it has hepled a renascence of the computer indie scene and gives anywhere between 1/2 to 1/5 of it's add slots to indie releases.viranimus said:
How does that protect you when your hardware is a black box that needs to be constantly updated to provide online functionality?viranimus said: