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Games Entertainment

Gaming On Demand 77

Posted by CmdrTaco from the coming-to-a-broadband-line-near-you dept.
hetfield writes: "Cruising around today, I found this. Run by Electronics Boutique, EB1 allows you to rent PC/Windows games on demand. Five bucks gets you 72 hours with a few fairly new titles, which are streamed to your hard drive using a client called IntoPlayer. If you decide to buy the boxed game later, you can copy the save files over and continue right where you left off, according to the FAQ. These are FULL games, not demos. Modem users need not apply for the service, however."
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Gaming on Demand More

Gaming on Demand

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  • Re:Tried It. Here's my review... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Thanks for testing it out for us. I thought about testing the service too. IMHO, $4.95 was too much for Serious Sam. The game itself can be had for $19.95. In case any one wasnt clear on the rental time (I wasn't when I first found the site 2 days ago), the rental is for 72 continous hours, not 72 hours of gameplay. IMHO, it should be 72 hours of gameplay. Why would you need to limit a rental to X number of days or hours? It isnt like a Blockbuster where you need to return the rental before the next person can rent it.

  • 17 usc 109 forbids this... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:19PM (#163792)
    Unless these people have cleared it with the software publishers, they're going to face copyright liability. Even if they've bought all the copies of the games they're renting out, they're still violating copyright law. There's a specific provision in 17 USC Section 109 (b) (1) that prohibits renting computer programs (that aren't video games or otherwise embedded), despite first sale doctrine rights that adhere to other kinds of copyrighted works (like video rentals, books, audio tapes, etc.) "Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending."

  • I Used to work for ... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:55PM (#163793)
    Into Networks...based in Cambridge. The are the creators of the IntoPlayer and they have the rights to all the games that they offer. So no worry about lawsuits. try going to www.playnow.com. that is their store front. as far as copying the game goes..im sure someone will find out how to do it. but, it doesnt stream the whole game at one time. it sends little blocks of encrypted info little by little. sends it,loads it,plays it, removes what it has, then asks for more. i know a lot more info on this but not sure what i can tell the public. its a very interesting setup though and im sure that Into could make a fortune off of this...right now they are struggling though. just a few months ago they had big layoffs..::sigh:: :) . as far as game spped and quality goes.. it feels like you're playing it straight off of your hard drive. some things do delay though. i know UT has a big delay in the beginning loading screen but after that its flawless.
  • It's been this way for years: cheap, bug-free, or available. If you're lucky, pick two. Software project management guru types will tell you that the time for a release date isn't 100% bug free -- it's 90% bug free. That last 10% takes so long to find and fix that by the time your product is to market, it won't be relevant. Sure, they could delay games for even longer (B&W took three years already!), or they could charge $500, and you could have a bug free product at release.

    As it is, wait six months or so after the initial ship date, and there'll be patches bringing the game up to perfection. And, those of us who want to play with the neat stuff right away can, with the understanding that it's probably not actually final.

    Or, wait a year, and buy it for half the release price. Or wait two and buy it for $10.

    (Obopensource aside: things work slightly differently if you're releasing all along, but the basic principles apply. This is why Mozilla isn't at 1.0 yet, but Netscape 6.0 came out forever ago.)
  • There's a specific provision in 17 USC Section 109 (b) (1) that prohibits renting computer programs (that aren't video games ...

    This service is renting video games, right? Or did I miss something?
    I mean, so they're video games for a PC and not for a game console. As far as that law is written, I don't see the difference...

  • An old idea modernized... (Score:3)

    by ZxCv ( 6138 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:15PM (#163796) Homepage
    Anyone else remember a service delivered by the cable company that brought on-demand games to the Sega Genesis? The cable company out here in Vegas, Prime Cable at the time, had this service for around 2 years if I can remember that only cost $4.95/month on top of the cable subscription that gave you access to like 40 Genesis games on-demand. They had most of the popular games and even if a little slow on updating their system, they usually had the "new" ones in a reasonable amount of time too. As far as hardware, it was just an adapter that plugged in like a game and had a connection to the cable line. If I remember right, they eventually shut down the service because of lack of demand. Talk about a few years too soon... I know I'd easily fork out that 5 or 10 bucks a month now to get on-demand games for my dreamcast or ps2...

  • I remember this, I was really hyped for it too. It wouldn't work for your DC or PS2. Look at your average genesis rom, a couple of MB. Then look at your average DC Iso (Gb-Rom) and the PS2 which is on DVD's.. you'd need a huge pipeline, massive storage and so on.

    ---
  • You paid a subscription fee and got a special game console that connected to the cable system. I never knew anyone who ever tried it, so I have no idea how good it was, but I guess that's the point: Very few tried it.

    The first version of this that I saw was a modified Mattel Intellivision, and all the games were standard Intellie games. The game selector with the Intellivision font was cool though.

    Thought I'd also point out that renting software is illegal according to the copyright act:

    Sec. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

    b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. - Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.


    --
  • "The majority of people still use regular dial-up accounts since broadband connections (i.e. DSL) still aren't that readily available in many areas"

    I'd buy this if it were still 1998. But the market has exploded in the last 3 years. DSL and/or cable modem access is probably available to 90% of the US population.

    The only real barrier to broadband for many consumers (especially young gamers) is cost... it costs a lot more ($40-60 a month) for broadband than the $21.95 dad is shelling out for the family's AOL screennames, or the free Earthlink account you stole. :)

  • Well in this specific case, you appeared to be arguing against the business model for this company providing this service. And in this instance, it is an American company providing a service to Americans. :)

    Not that the rest of the world is unimportant, just irrelevent to this particular article.

  • We had it here, but it didn't really catch on. Sega was the ever-losing player in the console industry; by the time that the Sega Channel came out, most of the people I knew with 16-bit systems were using the SNES. The games were better, and there were more of them.

    My friend had Sega Channel, though. I tried it out, and I liked it. If I had a Genesis, it really would have been worth getting.
  • To add to the points you brought up:

    Hardcore gamers will go out and buy the game, casual gamers will rent once or twice a month. Maybe, but how much buffering is there?? Even on cable broadband, the access can get awful slow, especially at peak times. In addition, as more services start eating up this bandwidth, it just keeps getting slower. If the casual gamer finds that there is a 10 minute or greater wait for the buffering, kiss it goodbye.

    In addition, why rent Quake?? In a few days you might get past the area where the demo ends?? This is true for most games. The demo usually has the first few levels, and that's really all you could get through in 72 hours.

    Imagine renting B&W, you'd get nowhere in that game during the rental time...

    And on the hacking front, when they start combatting cracking on the system, it will most likely involve software updates that will have to be downloaded every time. This will add to the delay of getting in the game, will most likely require a reboot, and will generally make people ticked.

    Heck, you wanna spend less on games, join a trading ring. "Have you finished Diablo II?? Wanna trade for my copy of BG II???" With 7-8 guys, it comes out to 4-5$ a game anyway....
  • Think about this:

    Electronics Boutique is the company offering the games, but obviously Into Netoworks is the company providing the service. Who else is going to join up? Probably more than just game companies. I wouldn't be surprised if more websites start showing up that use this "IntoPlayer". I don't think they're leaving modem users behind at all. The entire world seems to be headed for broadband. This stuff is exactly what makes everyone /want/ broadband. I bought net access to get on the web and get email. I bet lots of people will get broadband to run software over the net. Software companies will probably love it. When your one year contract for WinXP expires, you get disconnected till you pay for it again. It has good and bad overtones, but it'll probably drive broadband sales, which in turn will drive broadband research since capacity is desperately needed and everyone will win. (Hopefully...let me remain the optimist.)

    -UT
  • Performance was good. It does require some patience if you're bandwidth impared though. I beleive it's caching.
    I only tried one game so far.
    -UT
  • Found some info on their service. Can't quite determine what's tech-talk and what's marketing-speak, but maybe someone else can digest this and offer opinions.

    http://www.intonet.com/tech/platform.htm [intonet.com]

    -UT
  • Dude. As far as difficulty settings are concerned, I was checking out the service, not trying to prove that I'm a 'l33t qu4k3 d00d' (which I am...*wink*). I agree that 72 hours won't work for many games (RPG's are a good example.) I spent over 200 hours on FFVII over a couple monthes when it came out.

    But it's so obvious that the people who built the service understand that there are many different pricing models. I didn't mention it in my first post in detail, but one of the links on the service page (the link said "my stuff") was "Manage Subscriptions", so it seems that someone there is aware that people may want to play this stuff for more than a weekend. I didn't see any options to subscribe to anything, but like most new things, they're probably just trying out different pricing schemes, or maybe Electronics Boutique only wants video-tape-like rentals. The service has been up for what? A couple days? You can bet it's going to change as more people use it and the companies involved get more feedback. (If they're smart, they're reading this and any other forum where people are yacking about it.)

    It would be awesome if I could subscribe to a piece of software and if a patch came out I wouldn't have to do anything, it just updates automatically. The service provider has to worry about updating their content, but I don't have to keep track of patches.

    This is a good idea. Like I said in my first post, I'll always pay more for simplicity and convenience, and I think I'm an average user. Sure there was a time when I was a hardcore gamer, and wanted to get into the guts of my system and hand-hack everything to optimum perfection. I've overclocked and bios hacked, and hex edited games for fun and profit, but these days I've got other things on my mind and don't want to spend my time managing all that. I think the people behind this know that most of us want something that just works and doesn't need to be managed.

    Imagine what would happen if you could use more than games on this system. Imagine if there was a link on my online banking service where I could fire up Quicken, or MS-Money. That would be sweet! I could telecommute to work and not have to install any apps beforehand since they'll just stream down to my PC as I need them. IT people might love this! Sure makes setting up a PC easy.

    Good god! [Insert huge gasp] What would the world come to if I could use only the parts of MS-office that are actually useful?!?! Since I never actually use 95% of the menu options, does that mean that I'll never stream them down to my machine? This could mean that MS-office wouldn't take up any more room that it /needed/ to on my HD. Saints be praised!

    They're almost banking on the laziness of the average user...not a bad bet in my book. *grin*

    -UT

  • Tried It. Here's my review... (Score:5)

    by Uncle Thumpy ( 21667 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @07:11PM (#163807) Homepage
    Tried it out ($5...big deal I'll always pay more for convenience). The verdict: Not 100% perfect at my bandwidth (540kb adsl) but very /very/ cool.

    Purchase Details:

    You start at EB's Flash driven site, and when you rent you get a HUGE license agreement. After you agree you bounce to a site the has the game ("Serious Sam", a fp-shooter in my case) and a link to download the "IntoPlayer" (Funky power button logo combined with the letter "I"). I downloaded the player from "www.intonetworks.com" (feels like the RealPlayer without all the "Big Brother is watching" corporate schtick,) and it bounced me back to the game page. The button that had said to get the player now displayed a rental offer for $4.99 for 72 hours. There wasa link for me to check "System requirement" which ran some test that told me that I had directX 7 installed and that everything was cool. I clicked the offer and paid my money (Visa, and I had to create an account, so I assume this will facilitate future purchases.) After some processing it sent me to a page that had a play button, there was also a link to "My Titles" and various account managment links. It looks like you can maintain a library of software online.

    Play Details:

    When you click the play button, the IntoPlayer comes up and a bunch of message zipped past in a little dialog, then a progress bar and timer told me that my title would be ready in 20 minutes. It was bringing down about 90 meg of the game (so says the progress bar) and the game would start when the transfer finished. There was a check box you could select to make the game ask you before starting up. 25 minutes later (close enough estimate for me) the game started up. Everything seemed normal. I did notice on subsequent runs of the game that the loading time was almost nil...caching?

    I couldn't tell any difference between playing a game locally and playing it this way except for load times. The games was level based, and at each new level there was about 2 minutes of load time. I suppose this would change if I had more bandwidth. The actual in game play was superb! I finished the game (on the easy setting) this morning and have about 36 hours left on my rental. Pretty sweet for $5! Load times are a small price to pay for not shelling out $60 for a game you'll finish in a weekend.

    This has awesome potential. It's convenient and simple. I like not having to screw with installations.

    Other notes: There's some sort of caching going on. I Saved multiple times, and when I went back to an old save there was almost no access on my dsl modem. I think it saves the data locally.

    Very, very cool. This thing can only get better as bandwidth improves and the companies involved get more saavy about this space.

    -UT
  • No, see you take the first one, return it to the store saying there was something wrong with the cd can you swap it out for the same game. Then you have one with the wrapping on it, go back at a different time and swap that out :)
  • Perhaps Serious Sam isn't the best example of this technology's application (at a retail price of $20, Serious Sam is already super-cheap), but it's an excellent example of the kinds of games this sort of rental would be ideal for. Some action games out there are still forty bucks and up (MDK and Oni immediately spring to mind), despite the fact that the games are over in a matter of hours. At best, you take your 72-hour rental and finish the game. If there is no replay value, then you got your five bucks worth. Just like going to the arcade.

    If there turns out to be considerable replay value, then you can go out and buy the game...shame EB isn't (or doesn't appear to be) giving a discount option to buy after your rental is up.

  • Most new games have a demo available from the publisher's web site. Usually the demo is available before the game is even released...
  • &gtPaying for software? Come on this is the Linux age. Software wants to be free.
    &gtI have a personal policy, ignore software restrictions whenever I see them.
    &gtGPL, who cares! MS EULA, who cares!

    Unlike almost all GPL'd software, games contain a large amount of data as well program code. It is mainly for this that you are paying when you hand over your money at the counter.

    I mean, a lot of games companies now are starting to realise that opening up the source code is a Good Thing, but what good is a game without maps/textures/models?

    Have you seen the quality of home-coded GPL'd games? They just CAN'T compete with commercial games. They don't have the resources that a properly-funded commercial games house has at its disposal.

    imho, you should pay money where money is due

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:49PM (#163812)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • sounds cool but... (Score:3)

    by joq ( 63625 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @11:56AM (#163813) Homepage Journal

    Those on modems... Personally I would be reluctant to install anything which is going to stream data onto my hard drives especially with all these articles surrounding privacy, cookies, etc. Last time I played a game over PC was about 2 years back which was Q2, but FYI, many gaming companies place demos on cd's in magazines, and many gaming companies have demos on their sites.

    IMHO this service is probably going to allow rampant piracy to occur since the full game is downloadable. It's only a certain amount of time before cracks start appearing all over AstaLaVista [astalavista.com], and then the companies will wonder why.

    If I did play games, personally I would rather go out and buy it in a store, this way I can get out of my house for one, secondly I can get the whole box complete with graphics, instructions, etc.
  • There used to be a couple places here in Austin, TX that would rent software. You would pay full price for the boxed software and then had like 3 days to return it for a full refund, minus a small rental charge (like $5.00). But this was like about ten years ago. All those places seem to have magically disappeared. But I can remember being in high school and guys pooling money to go rent the latest game and then they'd install it on each of their computers and then return it. (I didn't do this because I had an Amiga at the time)
  • I guess everyone cannot rent PC games like you can PSX and N64, etc?

    Weird, up here you can just rent them. $2.00 CDN for a night or so, $1 for every night after.

    How odd, I didn't realize this wasn't common.
    --
  • Well, some games are not available for rent, maybe only those with copy protections are allowed to be rented.

    I dunno the details, but I must say that being able to rent a game out and try it for a couple days has lead me to buy games I would never had considered before.
    --
  • It's about time someone came up with something like this. My problem with buying PC games is that I never know whether or not I am going to like it or not. Usually I can do a *fairly* good job of picking a game title based on magazine/web reviews and talking to friends, but unfortunately this process is not 100%. I've bought some "duds" based on some really good reviews and/or friend recommendations. On the flip side, I have bought quite a few "gems" despite lukewarm reviews. Unfortunately I've wasted a LOT of money in this process. The problem is that I am a unique individual, and it isn't guaranteed that I will agree 100% with the reviewer(s) and their likes and dislikes, etc. Also, even if I am pretty sure the reviewer and I are on the same wavelength, it is still hard to judge a game and how it will play based on a bunch of static text and pictures found in a review article.

    Nah, the answer for me is "try before you buy".

    Unfortunately the software companies do not accomodate this model well. Although many companies do make downloadable demos, many more still do not. And VERY few stores are able (or willing) to demo the games to you.

    This EB1 service looks like just what the doctor ordered. Soon as my replacement credit card comes in (I lost mine and had to call it in to the bank, oops) I'll be checking it out. In fact there are some games up there now that I have been curious about... I've been meaning to buy Oni, even though it got some pretty lukewarm reviews, because I really like the concept of a kung fu type fighting game, instead of the usual "have lots of weapons, shoot anything that moves" Quake type stuff. However I just can't justify plunking down $40+ on a game that I am not certain that I will like or not. But with EB1... try before you buy, baby...

    I just hope they continue supplying the site with the latest and greatest in PC games. Only then will it truly be of value.

    --
  • > Modem users need not apply for the service, however.

    Anyone remember the Dvorak article a few days ago about how dialup was the standard . . . ? A bit ironic . . .

  • And this differs exactly how (Score:3)

    by _Mustang ( 96904 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:44PM (#163819)
    from the concept of my lending a friend the actual CD? I ask because as I recall, that behaviour was termed "piracy" by that industry anti-piracy association, and such corporate wonders as Microsoft [microsoft.com] themselves.

    In fact, according to this [microsoft.com] item on the MS website, this IS piracy.

    Software piracy also occurs when someone makes more copies than permitted, or when, for example, he or she borrows a copy of a program from someone else.

    It is supposed to be a full-version that arrives on your desktop, right? So that does sound like I will be "borrowing a copy from someone else.", right? So why is it is that when that someone else is a large corporation this is classified as renting, and is legal but my lending the CD is *wrong*/*evil*/*illegal*/immoral*/pick your term..

    It's nice to know that if money is to be made that it's legal.. Guess from now on I'll have my friends drop a $0.25 piece on my kitchen table as they leave with the CD..
  • Most countries have laws that allow you to swap products of purchase within days, for instance 10 days in Norway. In cases of REALLY bad games, eg Wing Commander 2 looked nothing like it did on the package, I've returned the game and gotten another. If you've broken seals, you're at the mercy of the store though, unless the game is really unplayable on your computer. Some lame kids use this to pirate games, so your mileage may vary from store to store. However, too many people accept too buggy and unplayable games without returning them IMHO. I suspect it has relation with too much money in their pockets, or being afraid to assert their rights in person.

    B&W was a huge disappointer. Maybe I'll continue it later, but I will never buy into hype of this magnitude again. I said so about Ultima 9 too, so maybe I should shut up *bonks head really hard* ;*)

    - Steeltoe
  • Surely EB is paying the game publishers money for the right to do this (either a cut per game or some lump sum).
    If they weren't doing this then they would have a LOT more games available. So, EB makes a little money for streaming out the game and the publisher makes a little money as well.

    Also I haven't looked into it but it looks like the content is streamed somewhat like a WMP stream, using pre-caching of content. It may not be easily to get a local cache of the ENTIRE game (since content is sent on demand), so although nothing is impossible, it would be very difficult to pirate the game.
  • If we were to include those from other parts of the world (which is what I meant), that percentage would surely be lower.
    That would depend on what parts of the world you are speaking of, because in some parts broadband access is probably more common than in the US whilst in other places hardly anyone owns a computer, and if they do, they will most likely not have xDSL/cable access...

    /Mikael Jacobson

    "But surely we won't be still stuck with Linux in 25 years!?"
  • until this gets hacked and we can then download the full game? A week? A Month? Then they'll probably get charged with distributing copyrighted material.

    But then again, there isn't a CGAA (Computer Gaming Association of America) with money up the wazoo to sue them...
  • This is a *really* cool idea -- get to play a game for virtually free when I need a diversion, without having to wait for the sun to come up to drive over to the local ComplUSAr just to buy a game that might not end up being any fun.

    But it is a bit of a bummer to have to spend a half hour installing Win9x/WinME on one of my machines definitely is a bit of a drawback (though I suppose most people out there already have a working copy of consumer windows available), and its too bad they only have a handful of games (though that will probably change if it takes off)

    Cool!
  • Also...Most games these days dont come with much more than a box (that's 20 times larger than it needs to be for the purposes of shelf-visibility)...So you don't lose much by just downloading the rental version.

    That's something I don't understand at all - given the uproar over the waste due to audio CD longboxes ten to fifteen years ago, I would have thought that people would clamor over the same situation in video games. I mean, come on, a box measuring 9"x11"x2" to hold a jewelcase?

    So when is the first Green gamer gonna stage a protest at your local Babbage's?

  • I don't think I'm the only person here who is reluctant to install software on Windows machines. Far too many programs have broken installers or uninstallers, and far too often the solution for degraded systems is "just re-install windows." Far too often, the worse offenders are the games that were not hits, and were pushed out too soon by the publishing house long before the testing was done, but shortly after they realized they weren't every going to make any money. A system that makes it easier to install and uninstall dozens of these games isn't going to be good for anyone.

    Other than the generally poor quality of many games, and Windows installation programs in general, two things worry me about this system. First, one of my co-workers has tried it, and was disappointed to learn it didn't work under Win2K. I'm extra reluctant to endorse Windows softwarwe that isn't even 100% compatible with Windows -- it's usually a good sign that the publisher is less than committed to a quality, bug free product.

    Second, it's probably targeted towards the casual gamer -- the person who doesn't have seperate, dedicated productivity machines and game machines. I'm certain I'm not alone in having entirely seperate computers (or partitions), one on which I'll install any stupid Windows program that comes along, and one on which I'll do real work (uhh... guess which one runs linux). This is targetted towards the kind of person who always looks so crestfallen when they learn the vendor-approved way to fix most WinME problems is to simply re-format the hard drive and re-install everything. Ironically, the casual gamer is often the home user that has the most to lose when the computers craps out, but is the person most likely to do stuff that will crap out their computer.

    A cobbled up system that allows casual users to install and un-install dozens of games, across possibly unreliable network connections, in a way that's not entirely Windows compatible, is just a good way to ensure that even more people will discover the internet just isn't worth the damned trouble. Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
  • DC Iso (Gb-Rom)

    DC-ROM, you mean?

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • (Someone's already posted this, but it's only at score 1 and I have no mod points. So I'm going to shout at score 2.)

    If the company negotiates a contract with the game companies, then it's all in the clear -- the reason why you can't do that is because you haven't made such an agreement with the software developers. (And that's because money's involved.) Not insightful ... simply an excuse to cash off a standard slashdot line.

  • It would be nice (Score:3)

    by Narmi ( 161370 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:15PM (#163829)
    if there was a free game that I could test the system with. I wouldn't want to pay $4.99 to find out that it really blows, or waste part of the 72 hours configuring my firewall to make this work.
  • well that depends...

    do they download the whole game to your hard drive and then have it "expire" in 72 hours, or do they only give you parts of the game, and when your 72 hours are up, they just stop letting you download the game info, and you're left with some code that doesn't add up to a complete game.

    I don't know what they're doing, but I suspect that it's the second method or something like it. The first one probably wouldn't make it past too many feasability studies...
  • >>Everyone seems to be talking about how easy this will be to pirate. I think the solution is fairly obvious:

    One thing about obvious solutions is that if they're so obvious to you then they were probably obvious to others. Once you consider that you have to think about -why- they didn't use such an obvious solution. In this case the reason why not is obvious, too.

    Think about the amount of data required to be actually processed in a word-processor or a spreadsheet or any office program. It's miniscule, really. Not a whole lot of processing going on there.

    Now, consider how much processor time it takes to run a game with it's AI and all that craziness. The load on the servers would be terrible if they had to run those parts of the game onserver all the time!

    -Drassk
  • So, is this playing full games, like quake3 or UT, over an NFS mounted file system and caching data for later use? So performance? Does it suck?
  • Isn't this just Network Computing applied to games?
    [obligatory Microsoft comment] Bet this is how the Borg do Windows XP2003...
  • Modem users need not apply for the service, however. That should say Modem Users and Australian Telstra Broadband users need not apply for the service, as you can't use the amount of data needed if you're on Australian Broadband. I had to do it LOL.

  • Do they stream the patches, too? (Score:4)

    by tenzig_112 ( 213387 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:14PM (#163835) Homepage
    How could they do this with games that are shipped broken like Black & White and Myst Exiled?

    I've rented scratched Playstation titles before. But I can't imagine renting a PC game that has as many inherent problems that many recent games do.

    Of course this would be great for some games for which there can be no "demo" version. I usually realize the game I just bought was a lemon about an hour after removing the shrink-wrap.

    After paying $50 for B/W I didn't even have the will to get to world 4 to discover the problem. I hated myself that much for buying it.

    Renting PC titles may mean more talk of violent videogames causing murders- like the recent "fragfest" in Nepal [ridiculopathy.com].

  • Too bad they don't let you "try" the service by making the demo available as well. Thus, if I like the game, I might spring for the $4.99. Plus, with my old system (P5-300, non-GL card), I can try the demo to see how the game might run on my system.
  • I have a playstation but never buy any games, and no i dont copy them.
    I rent

    For the price of one new PS game you can hire a game from the local video shop for 5 days, twenty times.
    This means i can play new games all the time and as you get to know the video shop ppl they give you all sorts of freebees.

    -------
    Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
  • >>One thing about obvious solutions is that if they're so obvious to you then they were probably obvious to others. Once you consider that you have to think about -why- they didn't use such an obvious solution.

    After posting, I discovered that Into Networks (the provider of EB's streaming technology) certainly appears to be using this obvious solution:
    "To enable you to play the latest graphic- and video-rich software titles without interruption, EB1 buffers bandwidth-sensitive data before launch." [eb1.com]

    >>In this case the reason why not is obvious, too.

    You're not very polite for someone who seems to be wrong. (Sorry, couldn't resist saying that.)

    >>Now, consider how much processor time it takes to run a game with it's AI and all that craziness. The load on the servers would be terrible if they had to run those parts of the game onserver all the time!

    This statement is wrong for at least two reasons:
    [1] You are assuming that Into Networks is making extremely bad decisions about which code to buffer (which I doubt, since buffering is their business). Basically any function that doesn't run frequently or require extremely low latency could be executed by the server. For example, the specific movements of Unreal bots would be determined on the client, while their long-term strategy could be calculated on the server. Anyone attempting to crack UT would need to reverse engineer the bots' decision-making through observation alone.
    [2] You are severely underestimating how powerful servers can be. There are already websites that carry out extremely complex algorithms in real time for each and every visitor they receive. For example, Amazon uses pattern matching to produce individualized buying recommendations. MapQuest calculates complex driving directions (and creates custom maps) in a matter of milliseconds. Secure online transaction processing is extremely CPU intensive, yet e-commerce sites can handle thousands of transactions per second. Thanks to clustering technology and SMP, it seems that anything is possible.
  • Everyone seems to be talking about how easy this will be to pirate. I think the solution is fairly obvious:

    Buffer the parts of the game that, if delayed, would slow down gameplay (textures, sounds, etc). Leave much of the logic on the server. This will allow for a responsive gaming experience while keeping key parts of the code away from crackers. It can be fairly trivial to crack "offline" forms of copy protection, but if the crackers need to rewrite entire AI routines, I think they'll look elsewhere. You can't crack code that you don't have.

    BTW, this is the same reason why .NET programs *should* be difficult to crack.
  • Hey, It's Saturday so I better get dressed and download The Nations [ebgames.com]. They claim I will get in touch with babes.
    They also mention something about aliens and bugs, but there must be a option to remove them.
    Oh wait, it's for the Xbox, damd. Then the content must be painfully PC.
    --------
  • Wonder how this prog works (if it does at all, as you will probably need more than DSL, if you would want a nice game of UT)

    Has anyone actually tried this stuff out? It would be kewl to stream the whole app onto a CD for 5 bucks, beats the hell out of leeching a bogged FTP ;o)

  • from the concept of my lending a friend the actual CD? I ask because as I recall, that behaviour was termed "piracy" by that industry anti-piracy association, and such corporate wonders as Microsoft themselves.

    Well what do you call it when you rent a movie from Blockbuster? Or how about a playstation game? From what I read, the system doesn't download the entire game to your hard drive, just the parts that you are using at that point. Also, the software publishers are giving their blessing to doing this... When was the last time you emailed MS asking if you could let someone borrow one of your CD's?

    One question... if you rent something from the service, how are you going to get a permanent backup of the software to install/reinstall as many times as you want, or to get to that next level once you beat the current one?

    -C

  • um... IDSA
  • I agree with ZxCv... plus, you don't think someone like EB has researched this?
  • i was thinking this too. talking with some american friends, it seems there are few or no video stores that rent pc games down there. how tragic.
  • Did anyone happen to view the source of the 'bandwidth testing' page at www.eb1.com?

    It has a long commented out tract of what appears to be random characters... I can't post an excerpt here because /.'s lameness filter thinks it's garbage...

  • _Mustang said on Sat June 09, 16:44 EDT

    It is supposed to be a full-version that arrives on your desktop, right? So that does sound like I will be "borrowing a copy from someone else.", right? So why is it is that when that someone else is a large corporation this is classified as renting, and is legal but my lending the CD is *wrong*/*evil*/*illegal*/immoral*/pick your term..

    Because when you "rent", you either:

    • Pay huge premium on the title (a la video store.)
    • Share the revenue with the publisher (the same way blockbuster does.)

    This also means that you need an arrangement with the puyblisher, probably the reason they only have 6 titles. I mean, Unreal Tournament has already been reaping cash for so long it's worth trying to rent. It was probably a good title to try this technology, it has already made most of it's cash and it is succesfull.

    I would venture to say that EB1 is an innovative experiment that has great potential. The model that Duet and MusicNet are pursuing with their service is a monthly subscription to access a certain number of titles. I know I would subscribe to get access to like 10 or 15 titles per month to play.

    In fact, I am ready to bet that offering say 100 game/hours increment (that is being able to play up to 100 games for 1 hour or 100 hours of a game or any combinations) would be a succesfull, lucrative business. The market might not be ready yet, but it could easily develop.

    This would mean more revenues and more diversity. Succesfull games would be leased very often (say 20-30 hours per player on average) and lemons would get only an hour. This means that games like Project IGI that take about 15 hours to play through wouldn't be very succesfull, but that games like Halflife could get hundreds of hours of download (or just be bought outright for competitive prices like 40$ - (hours_played)).

    Maybe Microsoft was right, the future of software is in renting.

    Alex

  • rampant piracy is already occuring. Anyone that would go through the trouble of trying to pirate these games for full use would more easily be able to download the crack of the retail/CD version of the game.

    Also...Most games these days dont come with much more than a box (that's 20 times larger than it needs to be for the purposes of shelf-visibility)...So you don't lose much by just downloading the rental version.

    And, finally, there's a ton of games that I'd rent for some time limit but wouldn't shell out $50+ dollars for a permanent copy because they just don't have enough replayability.

  • Black & White...so disappointing.
  • ok, seriously. how was that offtopic? the parent post made multiple references to the Black & White. geomcbay was being redundant, if nothing else. (THIS is offtopic)

    -----

  • Anybody remember DIVX? You know, the DVD thing from Circuit City? It went over like a lead balloon. What, exactly, makes these people think this will work any better? Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

  • It's been done (Score:3)

    by SomeoneYouDontKnow ( 267893 ) on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:31PM (#163852)

    A much "lower-tech" version of this was tried on cable over 20 years ago. I can remember the ads. You paid a subscription fee and got a special game console that connected to the cable system. I never knew anyone who ever tried it, so I have no idea how good it was, but I guess that's the point: Very few tried it.

    I can't see how this will succeed any more than pay-per-view has. Some people will use it, but I find that most people evaluate games by seeing them on their friends' computers, then go out and buy the game if they like it. And if none of their friends have the game, they download a demo. Considering that most games cost in the $30-$40 range, renting the game more than once or twice gets rather expensive relative to the retail price. I'd imagine that the hard-core gamers will prefer to buy, and casual gamers will only rent once or twice a month. And with broadband stilll only used by a minority of Net users, their potential market is going to be limited for a while.

    And, as others have already stated, this thing is going to be hacked. Then the race between the cracks and the security patches begins. If they can't keep the system reasonably secure, game publishers aren't going to make their titles available, and the only way this has a chance of succeeding is if it has a massive library of games to choose from.

  • Piracy would be hard to do because You only download the parts of the Games that you are playing. So you would have to beat the game ( and find hidden areas that are not loaded). Cheat Codes would be very helpful. Now what you could do is write a proxy to cache all the data and send it to the Game as it requests it. Of course since you have just beaten the game You don't want or need an other a Copy.

    I Would love for this Service to go with out Piracy but see no way of this happening.

    My other Sig. is actually Funny
  • shouldn't you get some kind of credit if you try the game out then buy it?
  • Well as the old favourite Microsoft happens to be one of the biggest games distributors in the world I suspect they may have a little bit of money down the back of the sofa which they could use to put EB out of business.
  • I would have bought a sega just for it. 5$ for all the titles... just too cool
  • Win2K has direct X embedded in it, anything written for Windows in the last 3 years or so works great. [If you have the hardware].

    -- Playing X Wing Allegiance on his Win2K laptop.

  • How long until someone hacks the time-limit.
  • They have partnered [intonetworks.com] with the software companies so provide this service. Monolith, Infogrames and others. This would make it legal as the software companies own distribution rights and can distribute the software they own in any means they choose.
  • If you struck a deal with the companies that own distribution rights for the software to let your friends "borrow" it and then made sure the companies got paid for the distributed software then it would be legal. And, oddly enough, that's what Into Networks has done [intonetworks.com]. The fact that there is money involved just makes it a little more enticing for the software makers. See if you can try to convince them to let you distribute their software without the company getting something back. Basic capitalism... I'm not saying that it is evil to let your friend borrow a CD. Just that Into Networks is legal.
  • GB-ROM - A modified CD that holds 1 gigabyte(GB) of data, used in the Dreamcast. Although, I believe it's been referred to as GD-ROM. Certainly never heard of DC-ROM though.
  • how successful this will be considering "modem users need not apply for the service."
  • how successful this will be considering "modem users need not apply for the service." The majority of people still use regular dial-up accounts since broadband connections (i.e. DSL) still aren't that readily available in many areas. And if someone were to get a DSL connection solely for this service, they might as well spend that $40-$50 on the game itself as it would probably be cheaper to do so in many instances.

    When I tried the service with a regular dial-up account, I got this message:

    You don't seem to have the minimum broadband connection (265k) required to enjoy gameplay from EB1.

    Your tested speed : 96Kbps/sec

    Possible reasons for your speed are:

    Net congestion
    You don't have a broadband (dsl, cable) connection
    If we're wrong, click here to enter anyway, or click here to test your connection again.
    You can sign up for connectivity through any broadband provider, including:

    @Home
    Roadrunner

    For the latest gaming news, game reviews and a huge selection of video and PC games, click here to go to EBgames.com.

  • I'd have to disagree with your 90% availability estimate. According to some of the stuff that I've read [zdnet.com] and heard, DSL/Cable access is more likely in the range of 70-80%.

    In either case, I wasn't refering only to U.S./North American availability. If we were to include those from other parts of the world (which is what I meant), that percentage would surely be lower.

  • If I want to evaluate a game, I'll download the demo. If I decide I like it, then I want it on a nice shiny CD I can reinstall with as many times as I like. Why would I want to download game data over and over again to play the full game for more than a few days? And if I just want to evaluate, why would I want to download the full game, even streaming, when I could grab a demo in a half hour via cable access?

  • I still don't like the idea of paying for a game o/l and having nothing to show for it , i'm sure i'm not the only one to pull out a dusty quake box and install it just for fun and old times. And on the note of playing a game for one weekend, Either up the difficulty level or choose a harder game... Each to their own i suppose.
  • What can i say "Touche'" you got me. I replied b4 i thought of the REAL idea it was put 4ward...mr Bill Gates and his empire.thats the way things are going, Just look at office and the way it's heading, pay by the year. What you're saying is just the next logical step Mabey i'll think b4 i type next time *Grin*

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