Physical Disks Going Away

[RGMage2]

 

I'm saying if you are in a position where you need to upgrade your rig to play the latest games and you like having the disk, you should consider a console. You will save a lot of money and the situation might be more to your liking.

 

I got a PS4 Pro last week, I did smile as I put the disk in but that smile didn't last long, it took an hour to update the game along with 50GB of drive space, 50GB for one game and only a 1TB drive, brilliant. To be honest modern consoles have all the negatives associated with PC games, patches, drive space, updates ect and none of the pluses, had I got that game on Steam it would have downloaded the entire thing in less than an hour and all that would be left to do is press play.

 

It took about an hour or more to setup the xbox, it had to download a 1.5 gig patch for the OS, and yes that was annoying and very slow. Maybe there might have been a better time to do it than a Sunday afternoon. The only game I've installed so far is fallout 4 and it gave me the option of downloading a 2.5 gig patch, which I cancelled out on for now. I installed it as is off the disk and it took what I thought was a reasonable amount of time considering the size of it.

 

I'm not saying it's better than a PC. I still think PC is the ultimate and I'm not giving up PC gaming. I'm looking at it as giving myself more options. Money was the main factor; at $299 @ Walmart it was too good to pass up. To get the new PC I would like would probably cost me around $1200 and I just don't want to spend that right now.

 

My only plans for my XB1 is to play a lot of games and have a lot of fun, and maybe do a little bit of modding for it. It also plays the old XB360 games which are very cheap if you're looking through the pre-played bin. Not to mention it is a very good blu ray player. I've watched a few movies on it, and though it could be my imagination I'd swear the picture is just a little bit better than my stand-alone blu ray player.

[JimboUK]

 

 

I'm saying if you are in a position where you need to upgrade your rig to play the latest games and you like having the disk, you should consider a console. You will save a lot of money and the situation might be more to your liking.

 

I got a PS4 Pro last week, I did smile as I put the disk in but that smile didn't last long, it took an hour to update the game along with 50GB of drive space, 50GB for one game and only a 1TB drive, brilliant. To be honest modern consoles have all the negatives associated with PC games, patches, drive space, updates ect and none of the pluses, had I got that game on Steam it would have downloaded the entire thing in less than an hour and all that would be left to do is press play.

 

It took about an hour or more to setup the xbox, it had to download a 1.5 gig patch for the OS, and yes that was annoying and very slow. Maybe there might have been a better time to do it than a Sunday afternoon. The only game I've installed so far is fallout 4 and it gave me the option of downloading a 2.5 gig patch, which I cancelled out on for now. I installed it as is off the disk and it took what I thought was a reasonable amount of time considering the size of it.

 

I'm not saying it's better than a PC. I still think PC is the ultimate and I'm not giving up PC gaming. I'm looking at it as giving myself more options. Money was the main factor; at $299 @ Walmart it was too good to pass up. To get the new PC I would like would probably cost me around $1200 and I just don't want to spend that right now.

 

My only plans for my XB1 is to play a lot of games and have a lot of fun, and maybe do a little bit of modding for it. It also plays the old XB360 games which are very cheap if you're looking through the pre-played bin. Not to mention it is a very good blu ray player. I've watched a few movies on it, and though it could be my imagination I'd swear the picture is just a little bit better than my stand-alone blu ray player.

 

 

A blu ray player for the bedroom was what I was originally going to buy, the PC is in there but getting blu rays to work on it is a pain in the arse, the DRM fights you every step of the way and the players are generally useless. I opted for the PS4 in the end for the few games not on the PC, FF15 was one and I wanted to play through the Last of Us again. I wish it had the backwards compatibility but the difference in architecture between the PS3 and PS4 make that very unlikely and I'm not paying for that streaming thing.

[LeddBate]

Like many others here, I used to love shopping for PC games. The manuals and foldout references were often a joy to behold. Mechwarrior 3 being just one small example. The manual looked like a mercenary reference book, the foldout was on thick, colored, heavily laminated cardstock. It had the keyboard control arrangement with alternate keys for commanding your lancemates. If you spilled a soda on it you could easily wipe it off with no damage.

 

When Steam first started, it was incredibly buggy and annoying. But Valve eventually got it (mostly) right and I gradually began purchasing my games on Steam (and later GOG) rather than shopping. Yes, I miss the old days, but not enough to go back. The ability to completely re-download any game in just 10 to 20 minutes if I bollix it with a combination of mods far outweighs the ability to reload from a disc. Remember, that disc is likely way out-of-date. You'll have to go through a lot of patching, at the very least.

 

Miss your physical books and manuals? Honestly, I'd rather have the PDFs. You can tab over quickly to check something, which is a lot easier than thumbing through a manual in most cases. Miss your mini-posters and cardstock references? Personal printers, even laser ones, are getting cheaper all the time. Even if the game company hasn't produced a PDF reference for the game you're playing, chances are good that some fan did.

 

"But I can't loan any of my games to a friend without a disc." Some say. Well, actually that's against the EULA of the vast majority of games. So that should not really be an issue. However, the good news (as has been mentioned above) is that some games are DRM free. Some even have EULAs that specify that you may loan or give your (single) copy to someone else if you wish. Also, some digital delivery services are experimenting with "trading-in" PC games. Obviously we have got a long way to go before any of these avenues mature, but they are steps in the right direction.

 

"But I bought that game. I paid for it. It should be mine to sell or loan as I please." That's often referred to as the "Used Car" argument. If you buy a car and ten years later want to park it on your front lawn with a 'for sale' sign on it, you can do it. So why not with your PC games? Well, less than a decade ago, you could with most most (though not all games) because even though the EULA might forbid it, there was nothing to prevent you from doing it. However, mandatory online registration (usually via the game's activation code in the box) made that more and more difficult to do. Some games would allow you to 'unregister' your copy during the un-installation process, but these games were in the minority. Nowadays, most EULAs say point-blankly that you are buying a 'license' to USE the game -and that the license (and your ownership thereof) is immediately void whenever you un-install the game. Simply put, today we RENT the vast majority of PC games, -we don't buy them. Personally, I don't like this trend. But this is one of the legacies of piracy. Yes, I know. It doesn't actually stop piracy much in and of itself. It is just one more mechanic that has been developed in the eternal war between those who wish to sell games and those who wish to steal them. Which, getting back to the point, is one of the reasons the "Used Car" argument doesn't work. Unless you have a car factory at your house, you can't duplicate your car and sell or give out thousands of copies of it. (Now, once 3-D printers can work with large, heavy metals and can crank out a vehicle in 10 minutes... Well, then watch the car manufacturers issue their own versions of game EULAs.)

 

As for internet availability for some folks, -yes, I can certainly see your point. It wasn't too long ago that we ALL had connection issues. (AOL dial-up anyone?) But that problem is decreasing around the world day-by-day. Right now, connection ability and stability already far outstrips the security and convenience of physical media for the vast majority of PC users. And the number of people who cannot get good internet connections is decreasing every day. Even cable is under attack (so to speak) by fiber optic networks which are starting to spread rapidly. Growth of such networks will continue to increase to the point where even people who describe their home locations as being in the 'Boonies' will be able to get good internet. How long will this take? I don't know. But I doubt it will take more than another decade, if even that long. I mean, look how much the world's internet has developed in just the last 15 years. We've gone from dial up with an average connection rate in the kbps and lousy stability (kicked offline an average of every 5 minues. -Yeah, good luck downloading that new 80MB Counter-Strike version) to cable in mbps speed with good stability for the vast majority of users. Fiber optic promises to up our connections to the gbps level! When that arrives for the majority of internet users, you will be able to buy a movie or game and download it in two minutes or less. Updates will take a couple of seconds, even for large ones.

 

"But, what if Steam (or Origin or whatever) goes belly-up? What happens to my games then?" Now THAT is a valid concern. The chances of Valve suddenly shuttering it's doors (and more importantly, it's servers) is minuscule. But that's like saying that the chance of an asteroid hitting Earth is tiny. Certainly it is. But what if it happens? Will Valve offer some sort of "unlock" code so that everyone with Steam games will still be able to play in off-line mode no matter what? Could somebody else (legally) step in to provide a similar service? Would the legal system bind Valve to provide such an "Exit Strategy" for it's customers? Would current EULAs allow individual game publishers to step in and allow former "Steam only" games to be unlocked for their customers? I don't know. Valve HAS assured us that, no matter what happens to their company, that they would not leave their customers stranded without options. But what would they actually do? What would they be ABLE to do if their company suddenly had to declare bankruptcy? So, yes, this is one of the valid concerns of the digital game delivery economy that we now live in.

 

I have a shelf full of games ranging from the original Battlezone through Civ V (the last game I bought at a store.) I keep those titles the way my Father kept his collection of hard-back books. But I rarely try to re-install them. Instead, I'll use my GOG-purchased version, -or Steam if it's not that old. Why? Because it is a lot less hassle now. By way of example, every few years I get the itch to re-install Mechwarrior 3 which currently is not (yet) available from GOG. So I have to use my disc. Every time I do so I have to jump through an incredible number of hoops (fixes, updates, OS tweaks, etc.) just to get it to work. And oftentimes it crashes simply because it is a game designed for computers that ran at a fraction of the speed our current PCs do. On the other hand, any title I have through GOG works because it has been updated to work with current OSes.

 

Sorry folks. I love my old physical media too. But the digital age is already upon us. Just like vinyl, cassettes and laser-discs, it is nearly time for CDs and DVDs to go the way of the Dodo. Even Bluray's days are numbered in my opinion. The proliferation of fiber-optic networks and massive solid-state storage devices will soon render all physical media (except USB-like memory sticks) obsolete. Haven't you noticed that hardly any new PCs are being sold with CD/DVD/Bluray disc drives? Haven't you noticed how many DVD and Bluray movies sold in stores now come with a code to download a digital version of the movie?

 

The internet killed the first "physical media" we knew as encyclopedias. It then moved on to kill physical-media-only outlets (Blockbuster anyone?) Now it is moving on to kill all remaining physical media with its ever-increasing speed. I like my old physical game boxes and their "goodies". But I think the transition to the digital age is for the better. It will be a rough (and sometimes incredibly frustrating journey) but it must be made.

 

Thirty Five Years Later...

"When I was your age, we had to download our games over cable, which took nearly 20 minutes, uphill, both ways... -and we was grateful!"

"Yes Grandpa..."

"I'm not wearing any socks!"

"Yes Grandpa..."

Edited December 26, 2016 by LeddBate

[Ethreon]

A crappy, plastic interface that is difficult to maintain and manipulate is going away? Good.

 

Also the environment will be a bit happier not dealing with all that refuse.

[JimboUK]

I don't think optical media for movies is going anywhere in the near future, 4K streaming comes nowhere near the quality of UHD Blu-ray disks and the early take up of UHD Blu-ray is four times what the early take up of HD Blu-ray was.

[LeddBate]

I don't think optical media for movies is going anywhere in the near future, 4K streaming comes nowhere near the quality of UHD Blu-ray disks and the early take up of UHD Blu-ray is four times what the early take up of HD Blu-ray was.

 

Uhmmm, good point, yes. But I still believe that between fiber-optic networks and tri-gate massive memory storage SSDs (once they become cheap enough) that streaming (and storing) UHD content WILL become practical enough to supplant discs.

 

But I'll grant you that Blu-ray will probably stick around a bit longer than CDs and DVDs. In fact, I'm reminded about how CDs first came out in the early eighties. Cassette tapes were already cutting into vinyl record sales, but CDs were a new beast. Even so, It took nearly a decade for CDs to replace records. Why? Well, because of the "install base" as the techies refer to it. There were millions of vinyl record/cassette stereo players out there. It took a long time for the install base of CD players to overtake that. Streaming (and local storage) of media is growing by leaps and bounds. So I don't think it will take as long for it to overtake the CD/DVD/Blu-ray install base as it took for CDs to overtake vinyl and cassettes.

 

CDs and DVDs in computing are already obsolete thanks to cheap, massive USB memory. When I bought Windows 10 (please don't judge me) my copy was on a tiny USB mem stick, not a DVD. I believe that Blu-ray discs are the last gasp of physical media format, -thought they might simply be supplanted by USB memory for local storage purposes. But as far as commercial distribution goes, I doubt discs of any type will last more than another 8 years.

[JimboUK]

I think it's going to be a long time before 4K streaming kills discs, at the moment upscaled 1080p Blu-rays look better than a 4K stream and I can't see that changing anytime soon, the bandwidth requirements for full quality with HDR and Dolby Atmos are very high. The movie companies will want to keep it alive too, it gives them another opportunity to dip into people's pockets.

 

Talking of physical media, these are cool, modern disks in laserdisc type covers...

 

[LeddBate]

That IS cool. Also, in a (slightly) related subject, vinyl records have been making a come-back in the last few years. I read somewhere that there's even been a slight resurgence in classic music stores (re)opening.

 

But, since I'm wandering off topic, I doubt this will extend to PC games. The "Used Car" argument actually applies much better to movies and records (and, to a lesser extent, console games) than it does to PC games.

Edited December 28, 2016 by LeddBate

[Soloquendi]

What concerns me is that the legal definition of "product" is being changed by the industry for their own benefit. On one hand they claim games are a product and deserve legal protection from theft(piracy), enforced by the laws of our governments. On the other, they claim that it's not a physical product, but a licensing of game code, which you do not actually own, but are being given permission to use under the terms of a EULA. This severely limits our rights as consumers. Basically, there is a vast grey area in the law concerning digital goods, which has yet to be addressed by our governments and corporations are taking advantage of it.

 

I remember when VCR's came along. Media corporations wanted it to be illegal to copy tv shows for later playback. The courts ruled that it was okay to copy said shows for personal use, but not commercial use. IE, selling those copies. I believe that this paradigm should also be used with today's video games. We just need some kind of ruling that games are "bought" and not just "leased". Until someone takes this through the courts though, it's the media companies who once again have us by the balls. They are getting to have their cake and sell it too.

[JimboUK]

On consumer protection they changed the law in this country last year, digital products are now treated like everything else, if it doesn't work you can get your money back, that also includes games on disks that have been opened or downloads.