Game Dev: The Sooner We Go Digital, The Better

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I like the way this guy thinks. For those of you that don't know, Remedy is the studio behind Alan Wake and Max Payne 1 & 2.

Success with Alan Wake DLC has CEO hoping for an all-digital future, even if it means the end of specialist retail. Matias Myllyrinne, CEO of Finnish studio Remedy, says he is “really excited” about the opportunities digital distribution offers, and that “the sooner we go digital as an industry, the better.”
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As a heavy, heavy user of Steam (and sometimes its competitors), I'd be 100% fine with this happening.
 
as long as harddrives with alot of capacity are on the consoles and if you can download them as many times as you want.
 
It's going that way, no doubt. Though I did not like this one damn bit:

“Maybe [it’s] not so good for retail,” he admits, “but then again if you’re selling our games as used copies and incentivising people to do that, then I don’t really feel sorry for you.”
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After reading that I thought he could go fuck himself. Not for retail going out of business, but that whole used copy bullshit.
 
Shotglass01 said:
It's going that way, no doubt. Though I did not like this one damn bit:



After reading that I thought he could go fuck himself. Not for retail going out of business, but that whole used copy bullshit.
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Yeah, I've never understood the whole game devs/pubs vs used game business.

I mean I don't really see book publishers complain about Half Price Books or libraries or car makers complaining about used car dealers, etc (or hell, any manufacturer of anything complaining about ebay/craigslist). Although maybe some do, but I just don't see it as often as game dev/publishers complain about it.
 
Yes let's be honest here, he is advocating digital distribution from his perspective. The developer/publisher gets more of a cut from digital distribution without retail overhead. They are also get to control how that "license" is used, and moving completely to digital essentially completes the move the license model developers/publishers want. Used game sales, lending/sharing with friends/family, will be issues. What if you have say multiple gamers in one family? Do you need to buy multiple copies of each single player game if they are all account tied? This is certainly not consumer advocacy.
 
Good for consumers? I don't think so.

I can count on a retailer to mark a game down as it ages, and if a game is really old you can usually find it at a really enticing price if it's still in the store. Digital downloads, however, have no incentive to move inventory. There's no competition between multiple sellers. They sit there, at the same price, until the one and only person who controls the pricing decides to MAYBE lower it a little (and then it's usually only a temporary sale before it goes right back up to what it was on day one). If I had to pay $59.99 for every game, well, I wouldn't have any games except the very very very most personally well known franchises to me like Starcraft.
 
randomhero58 said:
Yeah, I've never understood the whole game devs/pubs vs used game business.

I mean I don't really see book publishers complain about Half Price Books or libraries or car makers complaining about used car dealers, etc (or hell, any manufacturer of anything complaining about ebay/craigslist). Although maybe some do, but I just don't see it as often as game dev/publishers complain about it.
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Yep, the stupid difference between digital stuff and real stuff needs to die. If I'm allowed to buy and sell as many times as I want a bike, why shouldn't I be able to do the same with a videogame? Cars are sold and re-sold and have yet to see brands complain about this.
 
I don't like this at all, especially since the ISP's seem to be moving towards data caps. Also there are plenty of games that are only worth playing once if at all, beat it and sell it. I don't want a 10 year old collection of games that I will never play again. Games are getting bigger 12-15GB's is pretty standard now, think of how quickly you would cap out...
 
The day things go all digital and you have nothing tangible to show for your hard earned money is the day my media consumption of games as well as movies will cease.

I don't mind the digital method of some of the games on the psn network or xbox live $20 or under but I certainly don't want to own every game that way and I still like having them on a physical disk.

It's nice to be able to take a game to a friends or swap exchange with a friend if you want to do so, though I don't really do this but I know kids who do.
 
When Remedy develops PC games again, I'll start giving a shit what Matias Myllyrinne says.
 
Going digital is fine. Although for people like me when a game comes out at midnight I can just pop it in and have all the data on my hard drive in 10 minutes and ready to play. If it was download only I would need to pre-download it. Steam is good about pre-downloading or so I have heard. As long as soon as the game comes out at midnight and a pre-download option is provided Digital Game Distribution will be perfectly fine in my book.
 
jfreund said:
When Remedy develops PC games again, I'll start giving a shit what Matias Myllyrinne says.
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Yeah... that.

*

I know I must be weird, but I still try to by from the local shops as much as I can. I try to hit the Farmers market at least once a month, and always, always, drink local beer.

As much as I love Steam as a convenience, I'm going to pick up my keys at retail whenever I can. (and it makes financial sense...)
 
0m3g4 said:
I don't like this at all, especially since the ISP's seem to be moving towards data caps. Also there are plenty of games that are only worth playing once if at all, beat it and sell it. I don't want a 10 year old collection of games that I will never play again. Games are getting bigger 12-15GB's is pretty standard now, think of how quickly you would cap out...
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Hit the nail on the head. Where are the people who were bitching about data caps being fine. only those pesky pirates hitting the caps from now and well in the future... right? :rolleyes:

I'm not huge on selling games... or interacting with strange people in order to make that happen... but shit.. if I'm going to drop $50+ on something, I better damn well have the right to do so.
 
Initial Copy of a game? Nope, no thanks. I want a physical disk.

Expansion packs and DLC? Sure, I am down for that.

I like Digital and physical and feel both have their place and will continue to have their place. I am not in support for the removal of either.
 
Maybe consoles will evolve to a system like Onlive where the games are hosted on a remote game machine and the console is just a terminal interface.
No need to download the game, you just initiate it and it runs.
Main drawback would be the need to have internet access to play.
 
The time we go 100% digital is the day I turn off my gaming PC for the last time. If I can't sell the game or give it to a friend when I'm done, I'm not buying it.
 
bigdogchris said:
The time we go 100% digital is the day I turn off my gaming PC for the last time. If I can't sell the game or give it to a friend when I'm done, I'm not buying it.
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Ditto

I almost buy zero PC games. Everything has an online authentication check / tied to one owner. Part of the reason I buy 4x more console games than PC games.

If I open the plastic on the PC game, it's $60 down the drain. Permanently. No matter how much of a buggy POS or how little I like it.

Same thing happens on a console game? I flip it on Ebay or Amazon and I'm only out about $20.
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
As a heavy, heavy user of Steam (and sometimes its competitors), I'd be 100% fine with this happening.
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same here, Steam is da bomb. I think about 98% of my games over the past few years were bought through Steam
 
I haven't sold a game since I was about 15. Money means a lot less to me that it used to.

Plus digital copies have a tendency to be cheaper than physical copies for new games anyway (D2D and Steam preorder sales), and tax free, so buying digital offsets any money I would have made selling my physical copy. And it's much more convenient and wastes no gasoline for the drive to the store.

If people really want something in their hand, they buy some DVD cases and cuddle them at night. If people want to sell something when they don't want it, have a yard sale. There are other ways to scratch that itch.
 
I don't buy physical media for games anymore (still do with movies! im such a sucker...) but I like renting physical media for games I would never touch :)
 
I collect PC game boxes. And I don't buy used. All digital sucks from my standpoint, though I given up to the inevitable. Collector's edition of Warhammer 40K Retribution is cool, but not as cool as it should have been.

Funny story- just had a kid, wife is staying home with the little one right now and is watching a ton of netflix (oh by the way, kinnect - fast forward, pause, rewind is a god send). Bought Magica (2 copies) over steam plus a few other games. My gigabyte usage for April was over 200 gig, and 4 days into May I'm over 30 gigs. Guess what, I'm not pirating or using bit-torrent, just streaming netflix movies and downloading a few steam games, and BAM.

At some point Comcast will have to provide a price per gig. But, I'm hoping that a disruptive technology enters the market and screws all the current ISP's - something like - 30 gigs up and down, and oh, for a cap, please don't exceed 400 terabytes. Ahh one can dream.

And if you don't think dreams can be reality, how's that 14.4 modem and America online treating you?
 
Has anyone forgotten that ATT has just gone from no bandwidth caps to monthly caps on their internet service here in the U.S?

Bandwidth caps and digital distribution don't go well together.
 
limitedaccess said:
Used game sales, lending/sharing with friends/family, will be issues. What if you have say multiple gamers in one family? Do you need to buy multiple copies of each single player game if they are all account tied? This is certainly not consumer advocacy.
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This is the problem i face now.

Myself, my son (age 12), my daughter (age 7), my wife, and one day my other daughter (age 3; games like a badass on the DSi/iphone...better than me at some mario kart races) face this trouble. I have to buy usually 3 copies of any pc game because i can't do what we used to do with old C&C and Diablo games, and install the expansion packs in goofy order so that everyone can play. It's horseshit. They should have copies or at least off licenses to families. I'd be down with paying $70 for a PC game if i got three licenses for my family. I could finally see a reason to REGISTER with EA or Games for Windows. I know they don't get as much money, but hell Microsoft and Apple have been doing it for years. HELL adobe does it with their software, what the fuck is the hold up here publishers? I think I'll start calling publishers and bugging them with this issue
 
All well and good for people with 100GB+ caps, over here in NZ we are languishing on 10GB to 40GB plans mostly with some bigger but just plain expensive kicking around. Therefore for me I have to pick and choose what I want to download.

Also we pay over the odds here anyway for games, even from steam. COD:BO is 89.99 USD on the steam store, what a rip, other games are commonly $79 plus.
 
Decibel said:
Yeah... that.

*

I know I must be weird, but I still try to by from the local shops as much as I can. I try to hit the Farmers market at least once a month, and always, always, drink local beer.

As much as I love Steam as a convenience, I'm going to pick up my keys at retail whenever I can. (and it makes financial sense...)
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I like digital distribution, but not enough to just have it. It'll give companies control, and me nothing.

#1 Not all digital distributions allow you to download it again. Which is BULLSHIT!
#2 When and if the service is stopped, you can't get it. This is if like Steam just files for bankruptcy. How do you get the games when the service is gone?
#3 They can charge what they want. I got a great deal on Amazon for Portal 2. Only $30. Was there an offer like this on Steam? Probably not for a while.
#4 No more used game sales. Cause you know, every game is totally worth full price, and you'll play it again and again and again. I am of course kidding.
#5 Some people just really want something in their hands. I can assure you that Duke Nukem Forever is going to be on physical media for me. Probably hung on a wall, to show people that it finally happened.

Do it right, and it's a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, most of them are doing it wrong. Steam has it mostly right, and even then not 100%. Would like to see Steam support Linux (yea I know wishful thinking). Every game be multi-platform, like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for Windows and Mac, and not just Valve games. Most of all, I'd like to see some competitors to Steam. There's nothing really competing against it. Something to drive down the prices of games, besides its age. After all, they don't have to worry about used game sales.
 
polarman5k said:
All well and good for people with 100GB+ caps, over here in NZ we are languishing on 10GB to 40GB plans mostly with some bigger but just plain expensive kicking around. Therefore for me I have to pick and choose what I want to download.
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This is what Americans are afraid of. New Zealanders should really protest about those caps. What they're doing is criminal.
 
No real value to the citizen losing the option of a hard copy, but big gains for industry, which has had priority over human needs for some time now. It's akin to taking cash out of circulation in favor of a pure credit exchange. Anybody who thinks this is a better option is either retarded, too young, or primed to shove their maw into the gravy train. Amazing how americans always chant "freedom" then look for ways to reduce important options that enhance said "freedom."
 
Digital will mean no competition (at least on consoles where MS and SONY will have their own stores only) and no reason for sales based on the fact that they need to get rid of printed copies. Apart from a few steam sales physical copies are almost always cheaper. Games on Demand on the 360 usually cost much more than physical copies (at least in EU).

Fully digital would mean that MS,SONY and Steam would own the XBOX,PS and PC markets. Apart from the convinence there is nothing users will gain. There is no way it will lead to lower prices just because it's cheaper for them to not print discs, in fact it will lead to higher prices since there never has to be a sale based on the fact that they have a bunch of printed discs stores somewhere that they need to get rid off.

Digital means the whole supply and demand thing that is the basis of commerce is gone. Demand alone will determine price.
 
Zepher said:
Maybe consoles will evolve to a system like Onlive where the games are hosted on a remote game machine and the console is just a terminal interface.
No need to download the game, you just initiate it and it runs.
Main drawback would be the need to have internet access to play.
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And horrible lag
And having to buy a game at full price on a server that will shut down within a year
And worse than console graphics
And huge amounts of data for no real purpose
And getting cut off in the middle of a game
And playing at a crappy resolution (even for consoles)
And playing with a mass of artifacts everywhere.
And having to live within a short distance of the data center.
And having every game practically having Ubisoft DRM.

Would make more sense for gaming on a laptop, than consoles gaming where you have 100% of the equipment to do it already. Onlive is the stupidiest idea in gaming for a long long time, its a cart and horse situation.
 
My concern about this developer's DLC-future-is-golden simply comes down to the size of modern games and what will the size of next-generation games be?

Having played Mass Effect 2 via an online gaming source and buying a digital copy. I can for one say, downloading the 14.2GB of mass effects 2 rather hurt when considering that's a quarter of my monthly bandwidth limit right there. It would be a shame if during Summer months you had to choose between the many sources of legal online-tv-next-day sources or games. At the moment, I can downloda 4 games a month or watch 40 hours of online tv or some combination of the two with my bandwidth.

I'd hate if next-generation games become a standard 30-100GB designed to fit on a blu-ray discs of various potential sizes. In that case, downloading a single digital title might blow my bandwidth limit for the entire month or at least half of it. In that scenario, I'd rather just buy it from a store. I should mention downloading the 14.2GB download took 10 hours and I had to patently wait almost a day whereas a drive to the store would have taken 20 minutes round-trip but cost me a bit more.
 
The sooner we go digital the sooner some of us have no other reason to pirate games because not everybody has a visa card to buy digital.
 
steve30x said:
The sooner we go digital the sooner some of us have no other reason to pirate games because not everybody has a visa card to buy digital.
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A very good point indeed

When I was a young teen, my money for games comes from the cash I save up in a cash box. Wouldn't be possible to buy anything online back then, well, not on my own anyway
 
For digital copies, I would need to wait for download to finish, and pay for the bandwidth and electricity for the computer for that download. Unless digital copies are $20 cheaper I am still buying physical media.
 
Indeed.... I like physical media better, unless digital is cheaper, and most of the time they are not.

I also just like having the physical copy.
 
The last physical copy of anything I bought (outside of console games like MK) was sims medieval for a friends birthday. Then it turned out their DVD drive was broken.

Allos said:
For digital copies, I would need to wait for download to finish, and pay for the bandwidth and electricity for the computer for that download. Unless digital copies are $20 cheaper I am still buying physical media.
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You must have hideously expensive internet with a sucky cap and overpriced electricity if it costs you almost $20 to download a 15gb game.
 
fattypants said:
I haven't sold a game since I was about 15. Money means a lot less to me that it used to.

Plus digital copies have a tendency to be cheaper than physical copies for new games anyway (D2D and Steam preorder sales), and tax free, so buying digital offsets any money I would have made selling my physical copy. And it's much more convenient and wastes no gasoline for the drive to the store.

If people really want something in their hand, they buy some DVD cases and cuddle them at night. If people want to sell something when they don't want it, have a yard sale. There are other ways to scratch that itch.
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All of this; this a thousand times. I don't have the space for physical crap, who does?

For those worrying about bandwidth capping, too many people will complain. Government is already dead set on eventually forcing ISP's to bend to their will, and when joe schmoe sees his internet bill get in the way of his Hulu or netflix, he will rage and sputter to his rep who will in turn declare "the end of isp monopoly" congressional hearings .etc .etc

Bandwidth caps in the US surely are only possible if the people hitting them are pirates, but with HD netflix, hulu, and soon consoles all streaming their content, there's no way politicians won't leap on this as crusade opportunity for easy re-election "see what I did for this nation's poor and downtrodden?"

Hell, this is the country that made it a huge deal that everyone be mailed HD converters when broadcast television made the jump to HD. They realize that constituents are usually fat slobs who whine and scream about anything going wrong with their precious television - as this moves to streaming, there's no way ISP's will be able to justify caps. Laws will be passed here in the United States for better or for worse, mark my words.
 
Ualdayan said:
Good for consumers? I don't think so.

I can count on a retailer to mark a game down as it ages, and if a game is really old you can usually find it at a really enticing price if it's still in the store. Digital downloads, however, have no incentive to move inventory. There's no competition between multiple sellers. They sit there, at the same price, until the one and only person who controls the pricing decides to MAYBE lower it a little (and then it's usually only a temporary sale before it goes right back up to what it was on day one). If I had to pay $59.99 for every game, well, I wouldn't have any games except the very very very most personally well known franchises to me like Starcraft.
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Yeah because nothing ever goes on sale regularly on Steam....:rolleyes:
 
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