It may be normal for business, but it's not good for the consumer. I have no idea why people play ball with companies who pull this kind of crap.. It's just supporting bad practices and throwing good money after bad.

I'd never pay money for that kind of 'service'.

If the problem is bandwidth, I'd prefer they started incorporating p2p functionality for file downloads. I don't care if my downloads come from other users or main servers, as long as it is the valid file. For people with capped monthly upload limits, it is more relevant though.

Frankly, nowadays I feel torrent downloads are faster and more reliable than ftp/http downloads. I e.g. tried to download certain big Linux distributions and the download just kept pausing and timing out, and sometimes claiming the download was completed while it had downloaded only part of the file.

Fortunately they had a torrent link as well, it worked perfectly with the first try and was way faster download too.

I had the same problem when I tried to download the Win8 consumer preview from MS site, I really wished they had offered a torrent download as well.



Generally: I'd wish similar guarantees would be made for how long the authentication of the game(s) will be possible. Currently it is way too unclear how long I can presume support for that, with DRM games and sites that is. They seem to want to imply "forever", but don't want to make any kind of guarantees that would bind them legally. Except OnLive, I think they make some kind of guarantee for how long you can at least expect to play your OnLive game(s).

That sounds less than ideal. I have games here I have yet to download. I would be a little peeved if I went to do so and found the game up and disappeared. I could understand them not wanting you downloading multi gig games all day long, but it sounds a lot like they are charging for something other places are giving away for free. I've had places (non-game) that just gave me download "attempts" and could tell if I downloaded an item. Maybe they could sell you additional downloads if you needed it, instead of charging you on the off chance that you might, maybe need it.

someone compared them to the extended warranties, thats probably a good comparison. I worked briefly for a store that pushed them and the running joke was it was "free money." makes you think companies are looking for suckers willing to pay money for nothing.

that said, being able to reacquire a purchase without paying for it after a house goes up in smoke is a pretty cool new thing we got going on these days. Even if not everyone wants to play.

And GOG, Gamersgate, Desura, Indievania etc. ;P

Well, Steam were the first. If they would have gone any other way (limited/timed installs, etc) the whole sector might have accepted this as standard.

Music downloads still often work this way, I don't see how the gaming sector would have been any different if it had started this way. And let's be honest, this is something that no retail game can offer, so who would have had demanded it when DD was coming to the market.

Yeah, fair enough.

It's not exactly as if installing a game causes your computer to go "Om nom nom nom!" and leave you with no disc, is it? :P

They could just give you the installer for a limited dowload time. After that, you better take care of that installer (like you have to take care of your disc). The whole "account package" that GOG offers is certainly not something you would have expected 10 years ago. The irony is that it was probably because Steam used its client as DRM, they "had" to offer this service. Otherwise it would have been really ridiculous, an always online DRM (yeah, yeah, offline mode...) but no option of a digital backup, who would do that (apart from Ubisoft).

If the first major DD would have had GOGs model, who knows if they would have been inclined to offer the "internet backup". Or they would have probably demanded a small fee/extra "warranty" or some of that BS.

GOG is "the best of both worlds", well, actually it is "better than both worlds", as you don't need the installer in a special folder to play the game.

It's a surprise when I see a major distributor (like THQ) still using DigitalRiver.

If I ever actually need to go back and re-download your software, and find that my download period has expired, I'm going to be angry and have negative feelings towards the product, not the middleman.

I'm pretty sure that Direct2Drive had similar limitations in place a few years back. I was overjoyed when I realised that I had access to my back catalogue, and they're back on my Christmas list.