Digital download?

[Greybriar]

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Why change to what is undoubtedly the next format for distributing games? Who needs progress? Hell, we should have never invented the car,...the horse was good enough. Antibiotics,....never should have been  made the first place,....leeches and bleeding were fine,.....if you were an undertaker they were actually good for business.

The world changes, you can change with it or get left behind.

Some of us gamers don't have internet access. Others only have dial-up. And what with Time-Warner Cable (for one) checking out the possibility of charging its cable subscribers based on usage instead of a set monthly fee, the increased cost of a monthly cable connection may increase dramatically.

So what part of the future are you referring to? I think you might do well to take your own advice.

[Scott_WAR]

Actually you have a valid point Greybriar........ add to it that war gamers are the type of people that typically dont need high speed access since most muiltiplayer games they play are PBEM.

When a high speed access ISP goes with charging based on usage they almost always see the same results. A loss in customers, and an increase in competitiors.

One of the key areas that is being looked at to trim fat off of the price of video games is the digital download. It completely does away the costs of the production of CD's/DVD's, the box, the manual, the insert that goes in the box or the artwork on the box, warehouse space, inventory management, damages-which always happen when dealing with a physical product, products being lost in shipping....etc. There is a LOT of money to be saved there.  However, as you pointed high speed access is not everywhere quite yet, so there would be lost sales. The question is are the lost sales made up for by the lower cost of production? Im not an exert so I cant say,....but it sure seems more and more games are available as downloads everyday, and it also seems like the number of games ONLY available as downloads is growing every day.


But I will concede the points you made, the future isnt quite here for the doing away with cd's and boxes. Yet.

[Phatguy]

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Actually you have a valid point Greybriar........ add to it that war gamers are the type of people that typically dont need high speed access since most muiltiplayer games they play are PBEM.

When a high speed access ISP goes with charging based on usage they almost always see the same results. A loss in customers, and an increase in competitiors.

One of the key areas that is being looked at to trim fat off of the price of video games is the digital download. It completely does away the costs of the production of CD's/DVD's, the box, the manual, the insert that goes in the box or the artwork on the box, warehouse space, inventory management, damages-which always happen when dealing with a physical product, products being lost in shipping....etc. There is a LOT of money to be saved there.  However, as you pointed high speed access is not everywhere quite yet, so there would be lost sales. The question is are the lost sales made up for by the lower cost of production? Im not an exert so I cant say,....but it sure seems more and more games are available as downloads everyday, and it also seems like the number of games ONLY available as downloads is growing every day.


But I will concede the points you made, the future isnt quite here for the doing away with cd's and boxes. Yet.

And yet 99% of games that are direct download cost the same as ones that have a box and the travesty that passes for a paper manual these days.....Yes, companies save oodles of cash doing direct download but we really dont see any savings attached. Same price, different distribution.....

[Scott_WAR]

But of course, very rarely is the money saved by an increase in efficiency passed along to the consumer.

[David Heath]

ORIGINAL: Greybriar

I have never purchased a game via digital download. Nor do I plan on doing so. I have all my PC games in the retail boxes they were in when I bought them.

Just thought I would post this to let Matrix know that not all of us spend our money on digital downloads.

We never expected everyone to do this but it is here to stay. We do offer a box version for those who do not want to or can't download one of our products.

David

[David Heath]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

Question regarding digital downloads; is it possible to re-buy the rights for DD for a fee of like $5-6 or so in case you lose your original downloaded file, or the game discs; and Matrix still has your customer information on file?

Hi Ryan

I can not re-buy the rights but you can purchase the download insurance but that has to be done at the time of purchase. This will allow you to download the game for an extended period of time after you purchase the game.

David

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Greybriar

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Why change to what is undoubtedly the next format for distributing games? Who needs progress? Hell, we should have never invented the car,...the horse was good enough. Antibiotics,....never should have been  made the first place,....leeches and bleeding were fine,.....if you were an undertaker they were actually good for business.

The world changes, you can change with it or get left behind.

Some of us gamers don't have internet access. Others only have dial-up. And what with Time-Warner Cable (for one) checking out the possibility of charging its cable subscribers based on usage instead of a set monthly fee, the increased cost of a monthly cable connection may increase dramatically.

So what part of the future are you referring to? I think you might do well to take your own advice.

That's not good news. As it is, TWC is overcharging for it's cable internet service to subsidize it's VoIP giveaway. They are so desparate to get the land line business they give their bundling away. I have to pay for a boat load of channels that I will never watch because they group them so we pay for a lot of crud that nobody would otherwise want to get on ehtat you do want. Of course there is no optional 'pick your channels' package that would allow you to get what you want and only what you want.

If they try and dig me for more $$ for RR service I'm gonna dump them like a hot rock.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Actually you have a valid point Greybriar........ add to it that war gamers are the type of people that typically dont need high speed access since most muiltiplayer games they play are PBEM.

When a high speed access ISP goes with charging based on usage they almost always see the same results. A loss in customers, and an increase in competitiors.

One of the key areas that is being looked at to trim fat off of the price of video games is the digital download. It completely does away the costs of the production of CD's/DVD's, the box, the manual, the insert that goes in the box or the artwork on the box, warehouse space, inventory management, damages-which always happen when dealing with a physical product, products being lost in shipping....etc. There is a LOT of money to be saved there.  However, as you pointed high speed access is not everywhere quite yet, so there would be lost sales. The question is are the lost sales made up for by the lower cost of production? Im not an exert so I cant say,....but it sure seems more and more games are available as downloads everyday, and it also seems like the number of games ONLY available as downloads is growing every day.


But I will concede the points you made, the future isnt quite here for the doing away with cd's and boxes. Yet.

And yet 99% of games that are direct download cost the same as ones that have a box and the travesty that passes for a paper manual these days.....Yes, companies save oodles of cash doing direct download but we really dont see any savings attached. Same price, different distribution.....

Exactly why you should have both, for now anyway. Until they start jacking the price of physical copy over DL, I'll take both.

[cantona2]

Im hoping AE will be digital download.

[2ndACR]

If you can get Verizon FIOS, jump on it......it beats anything TWC has to offer. Never goes down and never had a single glitch. Super fast internet speeds.

[Phatguy]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Actually you have a valid point Greybriar........ add to it that war gamers are the type of people that typically dont need high speed access since most muiltiplayer games they play are PBEM.

When a high speed access ISP goes with charging based on usage they almost always see the same results. A loss in customers, and an increase in competitiors.

One of the key areas that is being looked at to trim fat off of the price of video games is the digital download. It completely does away the costs of the production of CD's/DVD's, the box, the manual, the insert that goes in the box or the artwork on the box, warehouse space, inventory management, damages-which always happen when dealing with a physical product, products being lost in shipping....etc. There is a LOT of money to be saved there.  However, as you pointed high speed access is not everywhere quite yet, so there would be lost sales. The question is are the lost sales made up for by the lower cost of production? Im not an exert so I cant say,....but it sure seems more and more games are available as downloads everyday, and it also seems like the number of games ONLY available as downloads is growing every day.


But I will concede the points you made, the future isnt quite here for the doing away with cd's and boxes. Yet.

And yet 99% of games that are direct download cost the same as ones that have a box and the travesty that passes for a paper manual these days.....Yes, companies save oodles of cash doing direct download but we really dont see any savings attached. Same price, different distribution.....

Exactly why you should have both, for now anyway. Until they start jacking the price of physical copy over DL, I'll take both.

I get both....Couldnt live without my boxed version taking up valuable real estate by my computer

[Mobeer]

Why scrap the option to buy a boxed copy only?

[Arctic Blast]

ORIGINAL: Mobeer

Why scrap the option to buy a boxed copy only?

I would guess it probably wasn't getting anything close to the number of selections as the other options were.

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Mobeer

Why scrap the option to buy a boxed copy only?

What reason was there to keep it? It serves no useful purpose; as Marc said you don't have to download while waiting for the box if you don't want to. Matrix never charged any more if you wanted the download option as well unlike, for example, Battlefront. And with it you can always get another copy of the game should you manage to break the CD, or something.

[Grell]

I prefer DD myself.

Regards,

Grell

[tucson3217]

My laptop stopped working about three weeks ago and I got a new one. I downloaded the 7-8 games I have bought via DD from matrix over the last 3-4 years w/o any problem at all. Even the ones I did not pay the extra few dollars for extended download were available, and some of these were bought years ago. I used to get the physical copies, but have had such a good experience with DD (in fact this holds true for my experience with Direct 2 Drive, and Stardock as well I must add) that I find the physical copies are never used and just a waste of space, time and trouble now.

I am not sure what problems others are running into, but I have not had them. I do pay for the extended download service, but the truth is so far even the games I have not purchased this for have been available as well. I still will continue to pay the extra cost for the extended download since there is no guarantee policy won't change at any moment. I don't mind the prices not really being any lower either. First of all we pay very little in the US compared to europe and Australia for Video games anyway. I have spent more time living in Germany the past 5 years than in the US and have been all over the world recently and we pay 1/2 and sometimes as much as 1/3 the price for video games across the board...meaning this seems to be true for new and old games as well as big publishers and small.

Also it takes years of effort to make some of these nich games and sometimes the audience is very small. Look at the number of orders for games on the p500 lists at some major board wargame makers. Even allowing for 3 or 5X more orders on a PC game (which I have no idea is accurate and use just to make a point), at $30-40 a title it would appear to be very hard to make a living making wargames in any capacity. I am happy to support matrix any body else doing this, it is obviously a labor of love and to be honest I would spend much more per title myself if that was what it took to keep the hobby going.

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: tucson3217

I still will continue to pay the extra cost for the extended download since there is no guarantee policy won't change at any moment.

I haven't and never will pay it as I consider the whole idea a complete rip-off, particularly as the 'option' gets checked by default. I'm not sure if the fact you can always download again whether you fork out or not makes it better or worse. As you say, a change of policy is always possible, but I have copies burned to disk and should the worse come to worse I'll just come here and bitch a lot. [:-] [:D]

[killroyishere]

ORIGINAL: daz1333

hello all. These people are an absolute disgrace. I have had multiple problems trying to download a game I purchased. I've had nothing but the same response over and over again. None of these responses has assisted me in downloading the game despite my continued feedback. In addition to this, they outright refuse to offer a refund or even provide a hard copy. They also have this stupid policy of disallowing any further attempts to download after 30 days, which means that I am now unable to continue to try and solve the problem. So basically beware; these people will defraud you of your money.

Afraid I have to disagree with you here. I recently had an issue with 'Advanced Tactics' and though Victor and I tried to solve it we couldn't get it to work on my system. I sent an email off to Eric and I was given a 'refund' for Advanced Tactics. I did buy the direct download plus the boxed version and now all I need is the address to send the boxed version back to. Not sure if they want me to send it back to the distributer address or to the main office? Eric? David? Anyone?

[murat1809]

for my own i am unable to download the purchased product despist help request (to reset my count...i have been actually never replied. i m a very worried and strongly disappointed by matrix policy and digital river service. i m still waiting but i begun to be very unsatisfied ! [:-]
im a an old wargamer and have been very astonnished by the matrix and digital river custom care ! [:(]
i m going to ask a refund !!!

[Erik Rutins]

Please see my response in the COTA forum, Murat.

Regards,

- Erik