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General discussionHow to make physical copies atractive to the modern gamer?(148 posts)(148 posts)
(148 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 24, 2018
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Linko90: Only if staff are good.
As in not on Santa's naughty list?
Posted August 24, 2018
Don't know about modern gamers but back in stoneage I loved my physical games without any kind of online requirement; be online activations of any kind of the game being such a buggy mess that it day one patches where a must have.

I stopped buying singleplayer games when it was all origin here, steam there in the stores; it became just more and more depressing. It pinged itself back into life for a very short moment when EA announced (and released) Dragon Age & Mass Effect 2 without origin requirement. I got them both but both went full retard on the need patches now; register to origin to get them mode which essential stigmatized the games in the same way online activations did.

I love buying games. This year I spend (excluding a 7,xx bucks gog-wallet savings) 0,11 $ cents on games.
Posted August 24, 2018
I'll take all digital over physical, any day of the week. I can do without all the clutter, and not having to faff around with a multitude of discs is a-okay in my book. Real manuals were nice to have once, but for the most part they've become pretty pointless these days. I also never truly cared about special boxes or what have you. All I ever wanted was the game inside; that's it.
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Linko90: Only if staff are good.
So the rest run around topless? I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing. =P
Posted August 24, 2018
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nightcraw1er.488: ...The future is completely online, give it a few years and streaming will be the norm - it already is for music...
Sure that, if "the norm" is your thing. According to your crystal ball, GOG doesn't even exist!
Posted August 25, 2018
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Leroux: I stopped buying physical copies due to DRM, prices not being competitive compared to digital sales, and the expectation that the game discs will be outdated pretty soon as several updates/patches/DLC content are to be expected after release. And if I look at the number of games I own digitally, I'm really glad they don't take away physical shelf space. Then again, I was always the type of customer to go for the "nice price" / bargain bin games, not fully priced collector's edition boxes, so the development on the digital market is kind of catering to my preferences.

I agree though that gamers not buying physical copies anymore is due to physical copies not offering any real benefits anymore compared to the higher prices.
It's been (many) years since I've bought a new game at full price. Why? I have a giant backlog. But I'd still buy a physical release of a great game at release date. But it should be without online DRM and have at least some documentation in the box.
I stopped buying collector's editions when they replaced paper documents with toys.
Posted August 25, 2018
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Linko90: Only if staff are good.
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HypersomniacLive: As in not on Satan's naughty list?
Fixed that for you.
Posted August 25, 2018
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nightcraw1er.488: ...The future is completely online, give it a few years and streaming will be the norm - it already is for music...
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teceem: Sure that, if "the norm" is your thing. According to your crystal ball, GOG doesn't even exist!
I never said gog wouldn't exist. I said they would follow suit with steam and other sites offering streamed or online only. They have already made steps towards it.
Posted August 25, 2018
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teceem: Sure that, if "the norm" is your thing. According to your crystal ball, GOG doesn't even exist!
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nightcraw1er.488: I never said gog wouldn't exist. I said they would follow suit with steam and other sites offering streamed or online only. They have already made steps towards it.
To me, that's losing its reason for existence. I buy games here because they're DRM free.
Posted August 25, 2018
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nightcraw1er.488: I never said gog wouldn't exist. I said they would follow suit with steam and other sites offering streamed or online only. They have already made steps towards it.
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teceem: To me, that's losing its reason for existence. I buy games here because they're DRM free.
So Gwent, absolver, witcher adventure game, goblins inc, the doc for two worlds 2, these are all fine, except of course when they turn off the servers. Online is THE drm, streaming is the ultimate form of drm. If it requires online - and I will pamper to those who don't define online as drm - then it is far worse than drm as drm can be cracked, if you don't have anything you cannot do anything at all.
Posted August 25, 2018
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teceem: To me, that's losing its reason for existence. I buy games here because they're DRM free.
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nightcraw1er.488: So Gwent, absolver, witcher adventure game, goblins inc, the doc for two worlds 2, these are all fine, except of course when they turn off the servers. Online is THE drm, streaming is the ultimate form of drm. If it requires online - and I will pamper to those who don't define online as drm - then it is far worse than drm as drm can be cracked, if you don't have anything you cannot do anything at all.
I'll correct my post:

To me, that's losing its reason for existence. I buy single player games here because they're DRM free.

Of course I wish any form of DRM on any kind of media would stop existing - but I don't play multiplayer anything, so I won't go into that discussion.
Posted August 25, 2018
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Yeshu: The general idea is that modern gamers don't buy physical copies.

However, the problem seams to be that it's not about gamers not wanting to buy boxed games, but that those boxes (especially PC versions) do not provide anything beyond a game disc that doesn't even have the whole game on it. Or heck, I saw empty DVD boxex with a code inside (Tekken 7) or even just a Steam Installer file on the disc.

In the end it's mostly publishers wanting to kill of the used games market and maximize profit by all means necessary.

I'm maybe an old fart but give me nicely designed box, all the game files (optical disc, SD memory card or whatever) a manual that provides some insight in the game and maybe a poster or something similar and I will buy that $hitt up.

Basically the Wither Games box sets.
Buy us larger houses? Games were distributed that way primarily because there no alternatives for a very long time. Few people had internet until well into the '90s and some people still don't have broad band.

The boxes and physical copies were mostly about selling things to people that were used to buying physical things. Sure, there were mailorder services since at least the 19th century, but it was a common thing until relatively recently to expect to be able to hold something that you've just paid for.

Personally, I barely have space for just the discs that I bought, if I had to also store the boxes and games that I bought digitally, I'd have to move someplace larger.
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toxicTom: I love big printed manuals with loads of background information (like Microprose did them), large color maps - ideally on cloth and other physical gimmicks... But I don't miss being stuck with translated or even censored versions (because Germany) and having to search for the disk run a game due to copy protection.
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Ixamyakxim: Yup this!

I still have my Baldur's Gate 2 gorgeous spiral bound manual that was basically a D&D Player's Handbook. And that sweet XCOM manual.

But this stuff is totally out of favor. I hate to sound like an old fart, but this is a time of "reading" less than 20 words in a go. A big fat manual would probably TURN OFF a larger section of the audience than it would draw in.

There was a time I wouldn't even fire up a game until I had read the 75+ page manual. Now it's all "glance at the leaflet for ten seconds (maybe!) and have the in game tutorial spoon feed you all 5 of the game's mechanics."

Now get off my lawn. ;)
Depends on the player, personally, I don't like games that have large manuals, I'd much rather discover what's going on by playing. If the game developer can't figure out how to get a player playing the game by button mashing until the controls are worked out and experimenting, then they haven't done their job properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRGRJRUWafY
Post edited August 25, 2018 by hedwards
Posted August 25, 2018
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Yeshu: The general idea is that modern gamers don't buy physical copies.

However, the problem seams to be that it's not about gamers not wanting to buy boxed games, but that those boxes (especially PC versions) do not provide anything beyond a game disc that doesn't even have the whole game on it. Or heck, I saw empty DVD boxex with a code inside (Tekken 7) or even just a Steam Installer file on the disc.

In the end it's mostly publishers wanting to kill of the used games market and maximize profit by all means necessary.

I'm maybe an old fart but give me nicely designed box, all the game files (optical disc, SD memory card or whatever) a manual that provides some insight in the game and maybe a poster or something similar and I will buy that $hitt up.

Basically the Wither Games box sets.
Whether you like it or not, you need to face up to the fact that you are no longer a modern gamer.

Welcome to GOG ;)
Posted August 25, 2018
the problem with luring the modern gamer has nothing to do with what physical games looks like.

Exhibit A:
Attachments:
dm.jpg (93 Kb)
Posted August 25, 2018
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Yeshu: The general idea is that modern gamers don't buy physical copies.
Has very little to do with to it the market cannot exist for videogames because the average videogame buyer is technologically illiterate and has no idea how tech works.

So the videogame market is not a market. The people buying the most games are the ones who are least computer literate. The vast majority of gamers are tech illiterate.

The success of games like destiny and battlefield with overwhelming drm is testament to this fact. The fact is publishers and Valve got away with stealing games thanks to the rise of mmo's, mass high speed internet and the fact that the average person is fucking retard level stupid in terms of consumer buying habits.

The real issue was high speed internet allowed companies to basically hold the game hostage, so high speed internet undermines the very concept of accountability because you'd need to be physically close to the business for your outrage to have any effect or influence at all. AKA asskicking distance.

MMO's were the original trial balloon to push future generations of gamers away from tech literacy and game ownership. Publishers and the tech industry knows the average consumer is a fucking moron. I lived through the 90's when regular rpg's /w single and multiplayer were relabelled mmo's in order to sell the same game for more money. The average person who bought into Ultima online, everquest and World of warcraft, paved the way for this future.

There were three major developments:

The rise of iphone and ipod during the mid to late 2000's, World of warcraft hit in 2004 and everyone was chasing the mmo dollar for a while, steam came out in 2004, when DRM was forcibly inserted it into halflife. Valve a company that built an empire on theft of half-life, CS and TF2. All valve and game companies had to do was wait a decade for a new generation of kids and idiot adults to grow up and buy games they didn't own since the average game playing teenager is a moron. That is why gaming is so fucked up
Post edited August 25, 2018 by supp99
Posted August 25, 2018
low rated
deleted
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionHow to make physical copies atractive to the modern gamer?(148 posts)(148 posts)
(148 posts)