Games on Demand 155
Laurens Simonis writes "Yesterday, the Dutch ISP Planet Internet introduced a games subscription service. For a small monthly fee, about $10, you get unlimited access to a growing list of (sort-of) current games which you can legally download from them. Currently, you can pick from 20 titles including Tomb Raider Chronicles, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and Commandos 2. New ones are added monthly. To my knowledge, this is the first time an ISP offers this kind of service. Personally, I'm all for the idea. Could this be the future? Half-Life developer Valve Software seems to think so." This looks really cool, but I'm curious as to how well it will catch on. It feels about 5 years too early to me, but here's hoping it performs well.
Good for occasional gamer (Score:5, Insightful)
But for the hardcore gamer, I think they'd prefer to have the game in hand.
Not only that, some people like to have the origin (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, this is offtopic as it comes, but I just recently threw away my VOODOO card box. I still have the card :) Sucker cost 250 bucks when it first came out. OUCH! But boy did it make GLQuake a work of art. I bet you old cards like that will be come like old baseball cards down the road. Well probably not. =p
Re:Not only that, some people like to have the ori (Score:2)
A friend of mine just got the OG duke3d with the mousepad..still wrapped in celluphane. Fun hobby I've picked up..should be interesting to see what else I can get.
Re:Not only that, some people like to have the ori (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'll bet you that 15 to 30 years down the road, almost all material possessions - including most antiques, caviar, diamond, and SLI voodoo's - will become almost worthless thanks to nanotechnology being able to manipulate atoms like bits.
The only way to help preserve the value of a one-of-a-kind material object is to make sure that NO ONE EVER gets their hands on the master molecular scan backup(s) (and there WILL have
Re:Good for occasional gamer (Score:5, Insightful)
This service would allow them to best decide which games they actually want to have in hand.
Re:Good for occasional gamer (Score:3, Insightful)
Though for casual gamers I guess it's a good idea. But casual gamers generally only play one title for a while, at least the casual gamers I know anyway. (My wife is
Re:Good for occasional gamer (Score:1)
Re:Good for occasional gamer (Score:2)
But I concur, this is a godsend for those people who would rather sit on their ass downloading stuff than actually go to the game store... Or people who are just too damn busy.
Re:Good for occasional gamer (Score:3, Funny)
Heh. I've seen quite a few young "hardcore gamers" who don't actually have a copy of the game "in hand" at all...
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Smart move though.
Since its in German (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Since its in German (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Since its in German (Score:2)
Re:Since its in German (Score:1)
And even worse: don't compare us to the french. That is a real insult.
Not worth the money (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not worth the money (Score:5, Insightful)
What will the availability of new games be? (Score:2)
I suppose that wouldn't change a great deal for me, since I refuse to give over $45 for a game, I end up waiting a month or two anyhow.
-Zipwow
WOW (Score:2)
And I can download all the other games too!
Even if you just want one game it pays off.
Something is missing here. How would a company make money like this.
Re:WOW (Score:1)
You stop paying, you lose the game (at least, in theory).
Re:WOW (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WOW (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm guessing it's a loss-leader to make broadband more attractive.
My attempt to read their site only got as far as "Om deze site optimaal te bekijken is versie 5 van de Macromedia Flash plugin benodigd. U kunt deze installeren door hier te klikken.", though. Hopefully "U kunt" means something different in Dutch, but I'm not taking any chances and won't be klikkening hier.
making money (Score:2, Insightful)
Tolerance For Piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you download a game, you have the install media. It's a simple matter of building a app or a device to circumvent the copy protection it has at that point. There are no hardware controls like broken CD specs built into this kind of system, so I can't see it depending on hardware copy protection either.
For online games, using an account tied to the download account will keep people from using piracy that way, but look at all the people who downloaded Warcraft3 and then never played online.
Long and short, there has to be a margin built into this business model that's tolerant of a certain level of underground distribution. If the system is not tolerant of this, and tries to depend on legislation, litigation, or user controls to keep users from distributing copies then it won't work.
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:1)
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.pikhat.dk/kali.htm [pikhat.dk]
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:1)
This is an extremely simplistic view of the process. Of course if you view it like it's just a glorified "click here to download and install" kind of process, you'll assume it's a "simple matter" t
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that at some point, the decryption information is in the hands of the user, even if he doesn't know it. All it takes is one guy to do adqueate packet sniffing or memory reading (ala ShowEQ) to intercept the key and then build an app that acts as a licensing server.
If you look at any of the high-end grphical apps (3dsmax, for example), this is the way they enfoce their licenses... with a manditory server connection. One of the 'cracks' for 3dsmax is an app that installs as a windows service and intercepts the app's request for authorization. It masquerades itself as the authorization server and tells 3dsmax to run. The crack comes as a windows installer, easy for a novice to install and run. (I've heard of more than one novice user opening themselves up to BO or other trojans in this manner.)
3dsmax is a fairly esoteric modelling application with a relatively small possible user-base, including those who are running illigitimate copies.
Games such as those listed in the artcle would be in *much* higher demand than a modelling application and subject to significantly more attention from crackers and warez distributors.
As complex as it is, I think this is a situation of 'infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards'. Sooner or later, probably sooner, someone's going to crack this. Unless the system is tolerant to having that take place, it won't survive.
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:1)
Re:Tolerance For Piracy (Score:1)
Just a thought.
Maarten
Game sites blocked at work (Score:1)
Re:Game sites blocked at work (Score:2, Funny)
Which consumes more of anyones time?
(cough)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Not new - but definately a neat idea (Score:3, Informative)
Already been done... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.gamesmania.com/display.do
No idea how this Gamesmania service is doing, but this is actually the second such service our major telco (yes, Bell Canada) has tried to launch. The first one, Software Lane, was about a year in the planning, but never even went fully live. That was back in about 1999 to my recollection.
Re:Already been done... (Score:1)
Now, let's not get carried away...
Re:Already been done... (Score:1)
Of course, all those are only rumours, isn't it?
Re:Already been done... $15/m for all games (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Already been done... (Score:1)
Although some of us have trouble providing a proper link [gamesmania.com].
Already exists (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Already exists (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, and they're even powered by the same company, Exent.
Yahoo offered Civ3.
Let's see.. this one:
Thief3
Ghost Recon
TR: chronicles
Vrally2
Rainbow6:RS
Rcoaster tycoon
Silent HunterII
Supreme Snowboarding
IL2 - Sturmovik (what?)
Monopoly II
Outcast
Project IGI
Deus Ex:The conspiracy
Driver
Gangsters 2: vendetta
Hitman: condename 47
AITD:New nightmare
Anachronox
Commandos2; men of courage
Conflict zone....
nice lineup.
Old news... (Score:5, Funny)
Though because it's an advanced feature, they don't publicize it. I have to google for these games myself. They even code-named them "ROMZ" so that newbie users don't stumble on them by accident and cause a support nightmare.
Dear Mr. Editorializing CowboyNeal, (Score:2)
Nah. Now, The Sega Channel -- THAT was Early! (Score:2)
Games on demand? Too soon?.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the factor that will truly bring this idea success will be when you don't have to download to play the game. You visit the URL, and the game plays... Maybe that would require the game to install on demand... or maybe it already exists with languages like java and flash, where all yo
Yahoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yahoo! - How it works. (Score:5, Informative)
It works pretty well, but I have noticed a few problems. There were some things that were delivered as they are downloaded on some games, when they shouldn't be (primarily, movies). Age of Wonders gives me a lot of hard drive chatter on the main screen of the game. Looks like data was placed sub-optimally and it has to seek to hell and back to read something over and over and over and over (basic animations, perhaps). Bad programming or layout.
From a service standpoing, I'm happy with it. Their back-end enging is EXEtender, which you'll see some other game-on-demand services use as well with some of the same game titles (usually from Infogrames). For them, it has got to be a nice way to squeeze more profits out of dead titles.
Re:Yahoo! - How it works. (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo! (Score:2)
Do you really use this? $5 for only 3 days seems like a lot for a PC
Re:Yahoo! (Score:2)
It's great..... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's great..... (Score:1)
GSP? (Score:2)
If this proves to be good youll see things like "command and Conquer generals: EXCLUSIVELY at Verizon Internet Services"
or something like that...
but its a good idea. I mean imagine if all your opponents are on the same core ISP - the ping time average for all users would be around the same (ideally).
anyway - what if you take the SBC/Yahoo model further.
You will get ISPs and Gaming/Conte
Re:GSP? (Score:1)
I think that would be the worst drawback beside to lame and 10 year old games. There are to many good but indexed games and providing those games online would be nothing other then the forbidden advertising in store. And $10 for a green blooded robot-only Doom version seems to much.
Good for game developers too (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of it as like the web for games. Before the web, the basic modes of mass publishing were huge and daunting. Want to write up a description of how you mod'ed a computer case, and reach a world wide audence in a pre-web world? Forget it. Now days, just get Cowboy Neal to post a link
Linux or other OS support? (Score:1)
Great for cheapskates (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't this plan allow me to sign-up, download all the games available for $10 and then quit. I could then play those games for a few months without paying monthly. Then, later if they had more games I could sign up and repeat. If I can work it that way, this company will not get the recurring cash flow they expected.
On the other hand it is still a win. A bunch of games that otherwise were getting dusty in the bargain bin or bit bucket get another go round because they are available easi
Re:Great for cheapskates (Score:1)
Haven't we seen this before? (Score:1)
powered by exent... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Caution: Exent Technologies Ltd asserts that this content is safe"
exent.. exent.. where have I seen that name...
Yahoo! Online Games Contain Spyware [slashdot.org], the story on Civ3 downloadable from yahoo.
So they just moved to another platform, right?
game subscription (Score:2)
but in general, the subscription model can be amazingly profitable. even if games-on-demand bring only a fraction of the incredible revenue from on-line games [com.com], it's still a lot of money. not to mention they do
Want Legal NES/SNES Emulation? (Score:2)
Re:Want Legal NES/SNES Emulation? (Score:2)
so long as you can get away with it, everything's legal
How do the authors get compensated? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do the authors get compensated? (Score:2)
Of course, there could be a one week grace period where they can cancel it at any time and get a refund.
Sound much better than (Score:1)
5 years too early? (Score:2)
G.O.D. (Score:3, Funny)
Here's my idea for gaming-related ISPs (Score:2)
Wonder if people would pay for that. The only thing it depends on is a lot of subscribers wh
Re:Here's my idea for gaming-related ISPs (Score:2)
GamesMania - A Bell Canada Service (Score:4, Informative)
The service is available at gamesmania.com [gamesmania.com]
Thought these were old hat (Score:2)
Yahoo Games on Demand (Score:4, Interesting)
The selection is pretty good, again, mostly older stuff like Civ III and railroad tycoon, but also some really interesting games like Legion and Tropico. I'd prolly say I buy about 4 computer games a year, spending about $200...probably more. For me, $15/month is a bargain and I get to try many more games.
The technology isn't quite 100%, but it's good enough and getting better. I think everyone should try it out, especially considering you can get started for $5.
The Sega Channel??? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what ever happened to that.....
Re:The Sega Channel??? (Score:2)
I managed to pick up a Sega Channel modem recently (50 cents, can't be beat!); anyone know of any groups trying to reverse engineer these things, so a person could somehow set up a local server for themselves?
Sounds kewl (Score:1)
This Is A Step In The Right Direction (Score:1)
"(sort-of) current games" (Score:2, Interesting)
As for piracy, the games on demand technology being used here is probably bas
TELUS.net in Canada. (Score:3, Informative)
You can find information at TELUS.net Games [mytelus.com]
skeptical about Valve (Score:2)
Very clever (Score:2)
However, when old games are distributed through stores they still have to be burnt on CDs, put into shiny boxes, shipped to stores and stored there.
This solution is a win-win. Gamers get access to more games cheaper, and developers get increased revenues.
Tor
I know, (Score:2)
games for 10$ / month? (Score:1)
don't get trolled!
Already implemented (Score:1)
It's the Divx fiasco all over again (Score:1)
Casual gamers? They won't subscribe. They can download all the demos they can eat for free. Download all you want and then quit? It seems unlikely that anyone offering this service wouldn't add a big "catch" such as a download limit or a minimum term for membership.
"Hardcore" gamers? Why would they want to try this, wh
This is GREAT (Score:1)
well... (Score:2)
Also, I would imagine they would need some current, A-list titles for this to really take off. However, it is probably beyond their means at this point: unless Valve is backing them. But what the heck has Valve done except sit on things? I remember lusting
Bandwidth Caps and Complicated Billing (Score:2)
Sorry guys, Canda got you bead! (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a new idea... (Score:2, Informative)
Well, for limited versions of "ISP", it's actually a pretty old idea. The Blue Sky Rangers' site notes PlayCable [intellivisionlives.com], a service for playing Intellivision games across your cable TV line.
Of course, no geek story about the PlayCable would be complete without noting the story of how the Intellivision's version of Bump 'n' Jump was developed [intellivisionlives.com].
Five years too early? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't consider the cracking issuing to be of much importance. As it was pointed out before, this is aimed mostly at casual gamers and gaming history has shown that casual gamers don't spend their time getting a white pasty skin look at night while looking up cracks, warez, and pr0n.
Bell Canada's doing this too (Score:1, Informative)
I don't think so.. (Score:1, Interesting)
The main reason is that it gives the company more control over the software. At least when I own the physical disk, cd, dvd, etc, I know that I can keep using it as long as I like, have the security knowing that if something goes wrong I still can reinstall it, etc. Then there is with some exceptions (mmorpgs, virus protection, etc) the fact that they c
didnt sega have something kinda .. Sega channel (Score:1)
decrease in playability? (Score:2, Insightful)
downside: If this distribution platform became really popular, it could encourage game developers to create games that had a lot of short-term flash, but not a lot of long-term replayability. So we'd see even less of a focus on gameplay over graphics than has already been the case with PC games these days. It also could further reduce the creation demos for games, as it would be easy (and tempting) for game publishers to say
To my knowledge... (Score:2)
I'm sure people are holding back on their wisecracks concerning your knowledge.
To my knowledge...this is old news, and not that great.
For example: OnDemandGames.PlaySite.com" [playsite.com] uses Stream Theory [streamtheory.com] as the wizard behind their curtain. That's right, it's just a Citrix Terminal Server type of thing...
Imagine paying only $10 per month for games like Unreal Tournament. You'd have to ask: why not buy the GOTY edition at the local store
Are you willing to pay? (Score:2)
About this ISP (Score:2, Interesting)
games on demand... (Score:2, Informative)
recency/quality of titles is important (Score:2)