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General discussion (archive)Thoughts about the future of digital distribution(43 posts)(43 posts)
(43 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 14, 2011
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hucklebarry: If there is consumer reason, there is, by default, distributor reason. Its why all the fast food restaurants copy each other. Sure it costs more to add a menu item, but you don't want customers going to the competitor because they are the only ones that carry a fish sandwich.
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Coelocanth: Yes, I understand that. What I mean is ideally game publishers, music publishers and movie companies would like nothing better than a pure digital distribution of their good. That way they control it completely and can soak the consumer for more and more money.

Imagine if they could charge you for each time you access a movie, song, or play a game. It's a wet dream for them. And don't for a second think they wouldn't do it. This is a big part of what the fight for stricter and longer copyright as well as DRM is leading to. I can well imagine a future where this type of thing will come to pass.
Absolutely. Its Why I'm here ;) I don't give those companies money and therefore don't use their products. What makes me the saddest is knowing that if no one bought a DRM game the day of release, it would be patched and DRM-free on day 2 and it would be a decade before they tried that again. But I still think there is enough of a market to beleive that we won't go all digital for a while and when/if we do, there will be pains that I think will cause a regression to physical devices again.
Posted July 14, 2011
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KingofGnG: Yeah. Over a 100 years time span, given you store it in appropriate conditions.
You can preserve anything if you assume "appropriate conditions". What about patches, additional content such as mods, stuff created by the user ?
What about disk-finding, disk-inserting, disk-swapping ?
What if your appropriate conditions turn out faulty and you actually lose your only copy ?
What about saving physical space ?

Favoring physical media is a cute fetish, but it's far from rational.
This place exists for a reason.
Posted July 14, 2011
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Vestin: If you buy the game on a DVD, guess what ? It is gonna deteriorate.
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KingofGnG: Yeah. Over a 100 years time span, given you store it in appropriate conditions. HDDs? Burned media? Their lifetime is way fainter than commercially-pressed media. So my argument is as valid as it gets.
Don't forget, your DVD reader has to last 100 years too for those disks to be useful. ~30 years ago, 8" floppies used to be a standard distribution media. Good news, many of them still work. Problem is, drives are now pretty rare and good luck interfacing them to your Win7 pc.
Posted July 15, 2011
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Vestin: ...
Favoring physical media is a cute fetish, but it's far from rational.
This place exists for a reason.
It's is kind of rational. Only physical copy can be really owned and inherited and resold. Downloads are always only a license. It's a legal difference. In a way, physical copies give you more ownership. Some people seem to like it and to rely on it, even if the costs of producing a copy is significant. But I would actually vote for a change in the legal term ownership, so that you obtain (and this should be standard case) full rights about a copy to pass it on and to resell it and to backup it, ...

The second thing is for books that you can access the physical book without an additional electronic device. Directly start reading, even hundred of years in the future. That could be seen as an advantage.

Nevertheless, digital content without the need to provide physical storage is definitely much more economic. Incredibly more economic. True. But it is not perfect because it has these legal drawbacks.

And from time to time I just like the sensorical input of touching a real book. You might call it a fetish, but then we all did it in the past, so I don't feel strange about it. ;)
Post edited July 15, 2011 by Trilarion
Posted July 15, 2011
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Trilarion: It's is kind of rational. Only physical copy can be really owned and inherited and resold. Downloads are always only a license. (...) But I would actually vote for a change in the legal term ownership (...)
Exactly - let's simply change the law. For one - even now I'd feel justified to bequeath my GOG collection. Secondly - I think most of the stuff we buy should enter public domain before we die. I know it probably won't, the way the law works right now... but it should.
Otherwise we end up in a strange world where people inherit (or not !) software that's older than their great-grandpa...

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Trilarion: The second thing is for books that you can access the physical book without an additional electronic device. Directly start reading, even hundred of years in the future
That largely depends on the quality of a book. After a few decades the glue can mostly evaporate, the pages get loose, discolored... Of course - that's not counting any accidental, avoidable damage.
In relatively short term - yes, physical goods are really accessible and reliable. They're a big clunky, though.

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Trilarion: And from time to time I just like the sensorical input of touching a real book. You might call it a fetish, but then we all did it in the past, so I don't feel strange about it. ;)
Yeah, I definitely know the feeling... But as far as the content of the book is concerned, I might live without it. Just like we end up with only virtual game boxes here on GOG...
Posted July 15, 2011
It seems that many people's main argument for going digital is that whatever you have will last longer, and as many people seem to hope indefinitely. Well I wanna throw out that that wouldn't necessarily a good thing. I can't exlplain my meaning any better than this. It's a short story (not an article) set at some point in the future but the point it makes is a very good one and I think pertinent to this discussion in some way.
Post edited July 15, 2011 by Dhuraal
Posted July 15, 2011
I've always viewed physical media as... well... media - a transient means of transmitting whatever it was I was actually after. When I buy music I rip the CD. When I buy a game, it always goes straight into Alcohol 120%. Discs are just a way of transporting bits to my computer (after which they remain as a backup). Internet's the same principle.
Posted July 15, 2011
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Dhuraal: It seems that many people's main argument for going digital is that whatever you have will last longer, and as many people seem to hope indefinitely. Well I wanna throw out that that wouldn't necessarily a good thing. I can't exlplain my meaning any better than this. It's a short story (not an article) set at some point in the future but the point it makes is a very good one and I think pertinent to this discussion in some way.
I just finished digitizing my DVD collection. That way I've got the physical discs if need be and I don't ever have to take them out of their cases ever again.

But in doing so, I found a couple disks which wouldn't read.

The same thing can definitely happen to downloads as well after you lose access to redownload your copy. Cosmic rays can and do hit HDD at times and you can end up with bitrot in other ways as well.

Personally, I'm more comfortable with physical discs because it's less likely that I'll end up with nothing than if I have a digital download.
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Barefoot_Monkey: I've always viewed physical media as... well... media - a transient means of transmitting whatever it was I was actually after. When I buy music I rip the CD. When I buy a game, it always goes straight into Alcohol 120%. Discs are just a way of transporting bits to my computer (after which they remain as a backup). Internet's the same principle.
Beat me to it. Same here.
Post edited July 15, 2011 by hedwards
Posted July 15, 2011
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Snickersnack: Don't forget, your DVD reader has to last 100 years too for those disks to be useful. ~30 years ago, 8" floppies used to be a standard distribution media. Good news, many of them still work. Problem is, drives are now pretty rare and good luck interfacing them to your Win7 pc.
Indeed, the guys at JPL have this problem with data coming back from the Voyager probes. They foresaw needing lots of blank disks to store the data on (which isthen transferred to modern media), but not the disk drives or the processing hardware this end. Voyagers are still sending back useful information on the outer limits of the solar system, so it's important data.
Posted July 15, 2011
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Dhuraal: It seems that many people's main argument for going digital is that whatever you have will last longer, and as many people seem to hope indefinitely. Well I wanna throw out that that wouldn't necessarily a good thing. I can't exlplain my meaning any better than this. It's a short story (not an article) set at some point in the future but the point it makes is a very good one and I think pertinent to this discussion in some way.
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hedwards: I just finished digitizing my DVD collection. That way I've got the physical discs if need be and I don't ever have to take them out of their cases ever again.

But in doing so, I found a couple disks which wouldn't read.

The same thing can definitely happen to downloads as well after you lose access to redownload your copy. Cosmic rays can and do hit HDD at times and you can end up with bitrot in other ways as well.

Personally, I'm more comfortable with physical discs because it's less likely that I'll end up with nothing than if I have a digital download.
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Barefoot_Monkey: I've always viewed physical media as... well... media - a transient means of transmitting whatever it was I was actually after. When I buy music I rip the CD. When I buy a game, it always goes straight into Alcohol 120%. Discs are just a way of transporting bits to my computer (after which they remain as a backup). Internet's the same principle.
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hedwards: Beat me to it. Same here.
I personally prefer to have physical media myself too. For the security, because I love to have the physical object of the things I care for (as in I'd be fine just digital copies of random FPS ##29502 but I want my physical copy of DA:O and whatnot), and also some things just scream having to have physically, like the leather covered compilation of H.P. Lovecraft stories I just bought about 2 hours ago :)

But I am kinda confused as to what your post had to do with mine?? Haha

EDIT: I'd also posted on here a good while ago with other reasons that I think are good points in favor of physical media
Post edited July 15, 2011 by Dhuraal
Posted July 15, 2011
I guess what we can all take away from this is that there are many valid reasons to have one or the other and an equally diverse desire for one way or the other. If we truly live in a consumer driven market, physical media will be here to stay for at least the foreseeable future as well as digital versions. Personally, I hope GOG.com sticks around until well after I am dead... :-)
Post edited July 15, 2011 by drhoads
Posted July 17, 2011
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Dhuraal: It seems that many people's main argument for going digital is that whatever you have will last longer, and as many people seem to hope indefinitely....
I thinkt that this is not the main argument. People even think that digital games on Steam could be lost even before any physical media gets corrupted for example in the case that Steam ceases to exist. I think the main argument is the price. It's just a lot cheaper to not produce a disc or book and send it and store it and store it at home.... And with a lot I mean a factor of 10 at least...

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Barefoot_Monkey: I've always viewed physical media as... well... media - a transient means of transmitting whatever it was I was actually after. When I buy music I rip the CD. When I buy a game, it always goes straight into Alcohol 120%. Discs are just a way of transporting bits to my computer (after which they remain as a backup). Internet's the same principle.
This is the best example that physical media for you is useless. Sending data per post is probably quite slow and expensive compared to a direct download.

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drhoads: I guess what we can all take away from this is that there are many valid reasons to have one or the other and an equally diverse desire for one way or the other. If we truly live in a consumer driven market, physical media will be here to stay for at least the foreseeable future as well as digital versions. Personally, I hope GOG.com sticks around until well after I am dead... :-)
Yes, that is true since there will always be people who would pay for a non-digital copy. But then the economy is not perfect and above all, keeping the choice means paying opportunity costs. Somebody might as well decide that it's not worth to cater to the few physical media enthusiasts and just ignore their demand because it's not mainstream.
Posted July 21, 2011
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Trilarion: This is the best example that physical media for you is useless. Sending data per post is probably quite slow and expensive compared to a direct download.
You'd be surprised. Things got a lot better last year, but prior to that Internet was one of the most expensive media available where I live. In 2009 I bought the collection of Cowboy Bebop DVDs, shipped from Australia. When they arrived I decided to do some research to see how much it would have cost me if I had downloaded it instead. It turned out that downloading would have cost 8 times as much and taken far longer. On the other hand, shipping is quick and costs next to nothing if you go through an importer rather than an exporter.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Thoughts about the future of digital distribution(43 posts)(43 posts)
(43 posts)