A new downside to digital downloads

[Hazerd]

@Hazerd: again, I agree physical copies are great. I will always prefer physical copies. But I'm just saying that there is sometimes an economical convenience that makes digital versions of games justifiable even if we can't be promised that we'll still have them the day we die.

Oh i agree, i just disagree with people who want to go ALL DIGITAL like some certain people on this very forum, people who may have well over 200+ digital games from steam and other such services, i think its a very bad decision in the long run.

I mean your HDD could fail and you might have 1TB of games down the drain, i wouldnt want to re-download all that, hell you might not beable to re-download all that if your internet ever goes down! or some other craziness.

Yes the same could be said about your Physical collection, maybe a tornado could rip through your house or a Hurricane or some other disaster! but i think the later is alot more rare believe it or not.

[gtmtnbiker]

Spending $10 on a Dsiware game is analogous to buying a ticket to a movie showing except that you still have the advantage of playing it multiple times while the device is still operational.

When you watch a movie at a theater the experience is different than watching a movie at home. I don't think the same can be said when comparing digital to physical. The game is the same either way, but one format has more downsides.

I'm referring to the idea that you pay $10 for 2 hours worth of entertainment (the movie in a theater) and then poof, that's it. You can't watch it again without buying another ticket and you don't have physical possession of it.

Games in their physical/electronic forms have their pros/cons. It's up to you to weigh the pros/cons versus the price to see if it's worth it to you.

For those folks who poo-poo the idea of digital downloads, can you honestly say that you never bought an item in purely electronic form?

I remember in the 90s having these big binders of CDs/DVDs in my office from my MSDN subscription. Each month, I would get more CDs/DVDs. I had several filing cabinets worth of them until I tossed them and kept the isos on the file servers. I'm glad that I don't have to keep physical media anymore.

[dsheinem]

@Hazerd: again, I agree physical copies are great. I will always prefer physical copies. But I'm just saying that there is sometimes an economical convenience that makes digital versions of games justifiable even if we can't be promised that we'll still have them the day we die.

Oh i agree, i just disagree with people who want to go ALL DIGITAL like some certain people on this very forum, people who may have well over 200+ digital games from steam and other such services, i think its a very bad decision in the long run.

What if they just care about playing and not collecting?

I recently got "free" copies of Silent Hill and SOTN from PSN+ and am debating selling my hard copies as I have more flexibility about where and when I play the games if I play the PSN copies (PS3, PSP, soon Vita hopefully). There is something to be said about ease of access and portability that isn't true for physical releases.

This is part of a constant debate about whether I want to really have a giant collection or not (John and I talked about this at length in the most recent podcast). I actually think I am getting to the point where I would be more inclined to play older games if I could access them more easily...

[gtmtnbiker]

I mean your HDD could fail and you might have 1TB of games down the drain, i wouldnt want to re-download all that, hell you might not beable to re-download all that if your internet ever goes down! or some other craziness.

If you don't have your data backed up, then it's tough luck to you. Plus, is it really a big deal to redownload what you want again from the cloud? Are you really going to redownload every single bit or just the games that you're interested in playing with at the moment?

[Zing]

EA came out with this response:

Update: EA has released a statement regarding a message users received stating that Rock Band on iOS will no longer function after May 31st.

"Rock Band for iOS will remain live - the in-app message users received yesterday was sent in error. We apologize for the confusion this caused. We're working to clarify the issue that caused the error and will share additional information as soon as possible."

It is amazing just how much ineptitude or straight up lying corporations like this are willing to display. "Message was sent in error"? So, somehow, this message automatically spread like a computer virus to the EA support web server, writing an article confirming the app would be disabled? And how, exactly, do you "clarify the issue that caused the error". The "issue"? As if there were no humans responsible for the notifications on various media and somehow a computer AI went live due to a programming bug and started spreading rumours?

[Bikeage]

Playing Rock Band on a Droid or Android tablet sounds so lame. Caveat Emptor!

[MrPopo]

As if there were no humans responsible for the notifications on various media and somehow a computer AI went live due to a programming bug and started spreading rumours?

That's just it; this is the first stage of Skynet's eventual takeover of the world. And you're foolish enough to think it's just executives screwing around. I certainly won't be wasting energy saving your skeptical ass from the machine internment camps; I'll be busy fighting for survival against our robotic overlords.

[Hazerd]

You just can't replace playing a Cart based game on it's original console on a good old CRT tv.

[Stark]

What if they just care about playing and not collecting?

I recently got "free" copies of Silent Hill and SOTN from PSN+ and am debating selling my hard copies as I have more flexibility about where and when I play the games if I play the PSN copies (PS3, PSP, soon Vita hopefully). There is something to be said about ease of access and portability that isn't true for physical releases.

This is part of a constant debate about whether I want to really have a giant collection or not (John and I talked about this at length in the most recent podcast). I actually think I am getting to the point where I would be more inclined to play older games if I could access them more easily...

I'm in this camp. I recently played FFIV for PSP on my PSVita. All possible because of it's digital nature. I even had this game on PSP UMD and didn't play it. It was the fact that I could switch between games on my Vita with no disc swap that got me to play it. If they made PS1 games playable on the Vita, I think I would revisit alot of those old games.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

Did anyone even know that you can buy XBLA games on a physical format? Selections are limited but they do exist.