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The Internet Entertainment Games

On Digital Distribution For Games - Does It Work? 43

Posted by simoniker from the bits-and-cds dept.
Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for its article discussing whether digital distribution can really work for videogames. The piece focuses on NP Cube, developers of PC MMO Dark And Light, who are based on the tiny Reunion Island, east of Madagascar, and intend to distribute free versions via "a peer-to-peer site", before charging a monthly fee later. Co-founder Laurent Paret argues of online distribution: "It's so much more cost-effective than signing a contract with a publisher... One peer-to-peer company wants to charge us $300 a month to distribute 'Dark And Light.' I have no idea how they can charge so little and I'm not asking." However, Mark Jacobs of Mythic Entertainment disagrees with the approach, suggesting: "I know they think they can make up some of their development costs earlier if they distribute online [thus getting higher profit margins]... But they're sacrificing long-term profits for short-term gains."
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On Digital Distribution For Games - Does It Work? More

On Digital Distribution For Games - Does It Work?

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  • I know how they do it... (Score:4, Funny)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:22PM (#9025178)
    $300/month to distribute their game...

    Here's how they do it. [slashdot.org]

  • MMO (Score:2, Insightful)

    by crackshoe ( 751995 )
    I think digital distribution is perfect for MMO pay per foo, but thats mostly because i find the concept of paying for paying for a game, and then paying to actually using it, insane. but thats just me.
    • I think digital distribution is perfect for MMO pay per foo, but thats mostly because i find the concept of paying for paying for a game, and then paying to actually using it, insane. but thats just me.
      That's because, like most folks, you don't understand what you are paying for. When you buy the box off the shelf, you are paying for the client, when you pay your monthly fee you are paying for the cost of running the servers. There's a distinct difference between the two.

      • Re:MMO (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pluvius ( 734915 )
        If the client could run multiple products without much consumer inconvenience (like a VCR or a console) then this viewpoint might be understandable, but I don't think I've seen an MMORPG developer do this yet. Selling a game separate from the entirety of its gameplay is like selling a car without an engine or an OEM computer without a CPU.

        Just because you can justify this sort of thing doesn't mean that you should do it.

        Rob

        • If the client could run multiple products without much consumer inconvenience (like a VCR or a console) then this viewpoint might be understandable,

          If they client were a piece of general purpose hardware or software, you might have a point. (And even then, as I show below, these items have ongoing costs to get the 'entirety of the experience'.)

          Selling a game separate from the entirety of its gameplay is like selling a car without an engine or an OEM computer without a CPU.

          Hardly. When you buy a car, d

          • Re:MMO (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Pluvius ( 734915 )
            When you buy a car, do you get free gasoline for life? When you buy a console, do you get free games for life? When you buy a VCR do you get free movies for life?

            The pricing systems of MMORPGs are hardly similar to any of those situations. You can separate a car from its gasoline, or a console from its games, but you can't separate a game from itself.

            Rob

            • When you buy a car, do you get free gasoline for life? When you buy a console, do you get free games for life? When you buy a VCR do you get free movies for life?

              The pricing systems of MMORPGs are hardly similar to any of those situations. You can separate a car from its gasoline, or a console from its games, but you can't separate a game from itself.

              ROTFLMAO. And what will your car do seperate from gasoline? Nothing. And what will a console do seperate from it's games? Nothing. Looks like you canno

              • And what will your car do seperate from gasoline? Nothing.

                What does your car doing nothing have to do with its existence as a car?

                Rob
                • I'm attempting to point out that a car without gasoline is useless in performing it's functions as a car. The same applies to consoles without games.

                  But I'm afraid the point is too subtle for you.
                  • I'm afraid my point is too subtle for you, so I guess I'll have to make it clearer.

                    A car without gasoline is still a car. A console without games is still a console. A game without gameplay is no longer a game.

                    Get it now?

                    Rob

  • Ragnarok Online does this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by feidaykin ( 158035 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:37PM (#9025242) Journal
    Ragnarok Online [ragnarokonline.com] is an MMORPG with ~$12 monthly fee. However, they don't make you buy a disc. Not only can you download the client for free, but you can play free for 15 days. And that's free, as in, they don't ask you for a credit card number or anything until your 15 days are up. I wish more games followed this model! Seems to be working great for them, but maybe the rules are different when you're based in Korea? ;)
    • Is RO still just a beta? If so, that might be why. They'll probably make you buy the retail version.
    • I started playing NC Soft's lineage 2. Which, admitedly is a pretty shitty game. I would have paid for about two months of play, $25, if it weren't for the fact that I'd have to buy a boxed version too. Besides, the way to trap customers is to make em build up a character and keep charging em. That way they HAVE to pay.
    • So does Eve: The Second Genesis. Subscription numbers really started to climb once the free client download came out. Especially since they had lost their publisher and it wasn't on shelves for a couple months. We also recently broke the 10,000 simultaneous users mark in the same game world. (not sharded) This is up from 3-4k when it was a box at retailers. Appearantly there is a market for this type of distrobution.
    • Yes, this is the only reasonable way (IMO) to run a MMORPG. I played and got seriously hooked on Shattered Galaxies when it was in beta, that game was mad fun and I was doing very well at it, moving up the ranks very quickly. Then they announced that even beta testers would have to pay for the client AND for service, and I dropped the thing. If I have to pay for a client, I want to be able to play without a subscription fee as if all of that money had been spent on the subscription. If I have to pay for the

  • It wont really work yet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Datasage ( 214357 ) <[Datasage] [at] [theworldisgrey.com]> on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:41PM (#9025263) Homepage Journal
    It could work, but we are not yet at the point were it will work exclusivly. A dialup user wont wait days to download a game. Some people dont have internet at home and couldnt download a game anyway.

    There is another problem, the consumer midset is that if i pay $50 for a game, i should get something tagible and not just a license. So if publishers want to charge full price for a digitally distrubuted game, its not going to fly. I myself would rather pay $50 for a box and cd rather than a digital file.

    The only market that could go exculivly online distrubution is MMO's, but there again, you better be charging less than you would for a boxed product.

  • Easy. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:47PM (#9025288)
    BitTorrent. [bitconjurer.org]

    BitTorrent Makes it easy to host multi-GB files from a relatively small pipe. Considering 768kbps upload can be had for $99 a month with 6Mbps down [speakeasy.net], $300 can buy you a lot of bandwidth. Once your P2P downloads are seeded (you have your customers uploading from their machines), your bandwidth usage tails off dramatically as your only demand now is that you have to run the tracker (ie: the thing that coordinates clients among themselves).
    • This would especially work well if the MMPOG included it in their application. What I mean by this, is: If you have the available bandwidth, you help out with the seed - while you're playing the game. With a large MMPOG this means that several thousand people are helping out other people that are downloading it.
  • you can download a game direct from creators, official/unofficial mirror, or better yet save bandwidth expenses and P2P it. All you would pay for is the unique activation file the creators e-mail you upon confirmation of receipt of payment. You've got tangible game, they've got your money. You paid less than retail for comparable game, they made greater profit margin by direct-selling. If you can't/won't do that, they mail you a CD for slightly higher price, probably at or below retail prices...It's like Le

  • Do both (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @10:02PM (#9025388) Journal
    It doesn't even have to be via P2P -- it's quite possible to let users download an installer to their hard drive from a website that takes a payment.

    But unless the publisher stipulates otherwise (and I'd imagine that there's probably a publisher that's willing to work with a developer on this), there's no reason that a game cannot be sold both through traditional channels and online channels.

    Distribution costs for a gig of data are a couple of cents. That's a lot cheaper than buying a box and CD, and many people are happy to just buy the software (and don't give a damn about a pressed CD). So provide both, and pass on the distribution savings to the customer.

    I suspect that some webmerchant retailers might be happy to provide both download services and physical boxe sales. I'd guess that in the Linux world, Tux Games probably would be willing to try something like that.

    Benefits of online distribution:

    * Small sales can be made, so budget/older titles can be available.

    * Warehousing costs do not exist, so titles that are unlikely to sell well can be made available, and there is no reason for something to go "out of print" (it irritates me to no end when a book goes out of print). That oddball game title that did well in Japan but was unlikely to do well in the US can, for the cost of no more than the translation fee, be sold in the US.

    * A reliable backup of your game. Ever lose a CD? It'd be easy for a retailer to verify your purchase information and provide additional downloads of the game.

    * Patches included in copies as soon as they are finished. Normally, a pressed run of CDs is locked in, with all the bugs that might be found. Users must go online, locate a patch (usually on a publisher's or developer's website -- and too intimidating for many users) and apply it. If Boomstick Development comes out with a fix for their rocket launcher and releases v1.09 of Rocket Launcher Rebels, they can have their retailer automatically provide an updated release, rather than forcing users to obtain and apply the patch.

    * Broader distribution area. It's easier to ship electronic copies of something than it is physical copies -- maybe you can't ship boxed software to a Mongolian plain easily or cheaply, but you can transfer it via satellite downlink.

    * Speed of purchase. I generally can't get an obscure game without combing the web and ordering something FedEx. If I download a game and install it, I can have it as soon as my Internet connection brings it down.

    * Risk. The more distribution that's done electronically, the lower the financial risk the publisher has to assume for deciding to committing to publish a game. That means they don't have to demand such a large chunk of money from the developer.

    There are a couple of issues.

    * Piracy is an obvious one, but really, there aren't many more barriers to ripping and copying a physical CD than there are to transferring a file -- in general, any form of remotely effecitve protection is going to take place in the form of checking in the game software itself.

    * Consumer Appeal. I'm not sure how people will react to buying something that isn't physical (though I can think of some partial solutions to th eproblem). People do certainly purchase services all the time.

    • Re:Do both (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Swanktastic ( 109747 )
      But unless the publisher stipulates otherwise (and I'd imagine that there's probably a publisher that's willing to work with a developer on this), there's no reason that a game cannot be sold both through traditional channels and online channels.

      I liked your post except for this argument. You learn the exact opposite in Marketing 101- channels cannot conflict with each other. No retailer is going to stock your product, give it good shelf positioning, in-store displays, anything, if you're out there hock

      • Re:Do both (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
        This is a good point, but I can think of at least some prescedent. The product *is* different in that you get a CD/box/paper manual, etc, and I think you *could* have it cost less.

        The best parallel I can think of is old personal computer systems that sold in "kit" form, like the Timex Sinclair. Admittedly, you'd still get them through the same channels...but you could buy a different product that replaced the first for a lower price -- but many people still purchased preassembled systems, despite the hig
    • Let's look at these realistically;

      * Warehousing costs do not exist, so titles that are unlikely to sell well can be made available, and there is no reason for something to go "out of print"

      Not true. You still need the servers and people to maintain them, and the bandwidth to transfer them across. True, it's not as expensive as a traditional warehouse, but it's not free, not by a long shot.

      * A reliable backup of your game. Ever lose a CD? It'd be easy for a retailer to verify your purchase information a

      • Re:Do both (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
        Not true. You still need the servers and people to maintain them, and the bandwidth to transfer them across. True, it's not as expensive as a traditional warehouse, but it's not free, not by a long shot.

        There is some cost; my point is that that is effectively either constant or per-copy-sold. Warehousing is an issue with physical because you have to predict how well something will sell and then produce that many units...and then it costs you money to have a bunch of units sitting around in a warehouse.

        • Re:Do both (Score:3, Insightful)

          by DerekLyons ( 302214 )

          With electronic distribution...I only need to pay once for the hard drive space for the game (negligable, even if you have servers scattered around the world) and for bandwidth for each copy sold.

          Not true. You have to pay monthly for the electricity to keep that hardrive spinning and your NIC pumping bits, and the computer clocking along that supports both. You need to pay monthly for the cooling, and either rent or property taxes on the building they are in. There's also the ongoing cost of replacemen

          • Re:Do both (Score:3, Insightful)

            by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
            Not true. You have to pay monthly for the electricity to keep that hardrive spinning and your NIC pumping bits, and the computer clocking along that supports both. You need to pay monthly for the cooling, and either rent or property taxes on the building they are in. There's also the ongoing cost of replacement hardware, and the ongoing cost of the personnel who supervise and perform these functions. It does not matter if you do it yourself, or pay a colo to do it, but you will pay it.

            Okay, I did over-sim

            • I don't think that e-distribution of software is infeasible.

              I never said it was. But having sold both physical and virtual goods, I know better than to [shrug] and [handwave] away the very real issues. It isn't as simple as you keep painting it, which is one of the very real reasons it hasn't been more widely tried.

              I'll buy that -- any time you try out a new scheme, you're going to run into lots of issues that you didn't expect.

              Being unexpected doesn't make them any less real, or any less problematic.

  • Maybe not for games (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe not for original games, but sure as hell it's a good idea for expansion packs.

    People already have your product and those who are willing to sacrifice the "nice box" for 10$ less in price will download it in an instant.

    Tie it into an online updater with friendly "buy an expansion" interface and off you go...

  • Existing systems (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rexz ( 724700 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @10:59PM (#9025627)
    I'm familiar with two currently implemented and successful systems for the distribution of commercial games:

    Sony's EverQuest allows expansion packs to be bought and downloaded with a single click using credit card details already saved server side.

    EverQuest is one of the few games that is practically unpiratable because of the massive cost of running a single server - each server consists of dozens of machines - and the amount of server-side content that is completely hidden from the client.

    Valve's offers Counter Strike: Condition Zero for download through its proprietary content delivery system, Steam. Steam's bandwidth is provided by Valve itself and a select group of donors, although a peer-to-peer extension is planned.

    CS:CZ does not rely on a centralised component for gameplay and so can be played singleplayer or on cracked servers relatively easily.

    • Re:Existing systems (Score:2, Insightful)

      by RotJ ( 771744 )
      Of course there's some controversy over user rights with Steam. Every time you play a game you bought with Steam (at least play online), you have to log in, and it can automatically patch your game and patches Steam itself without your consent. And for a while Half-Life single player mode coudn't be played without going online and logging into Steam.
  • Wow, Reunion Island was looking pretty good to me until this part:
    Natural Hazards: Periodic, devastating cyclones (December to April); Piton de la Fournaise on the southeastern coast is an active volcano
    Although... "substantial annual subsidies from France" does sound good...

  • I would do it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dan Farina ( 711066 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @12:07AM (#9025875)
    I certainly would buy/download my games. As aforementioned, it's easier to replace lost/broken copies, CD-keys easier to look up, and is simply a lot less hassle than going to your local store.

    A couple of examples of pay-for-download games that have done alright:

    Savage: http://www.s2games.com
    Escape Velocity: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/

    P2P is simply another method of distribution: are we really talking about P2P as a way to lower the cost barrier to distribution, or about the larger idea of selling games via download in general?
    • One thing that bugs me about some pay for download software is that they will only let you download the software for a certain period of time, sometimes as short as two weeks, so if you should lose the original copy due to hardware failure or something like that you're screwed. It's made me wary about buying software online.

  • It took them this long? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm stupified that it's taken this long for people to realise that this is going to be the future. Sell your product for less with online, Bit Torrent style distribution, and give them a key (works especially well with MMOG's because folks have to store the characters on their server, so they HAVE to pay sometime), but most folks will be happy to burn the distro and pay for a license. When I first heard about Valve and what they were going to do with STEAM, I thought it would be like this. I see now that

  • It works in China (Score:3, Interesting)

    by taweili ( 111177 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @01:43PM (#9028853)
    Most of online games distributed in China are via online download. Piracy of games is around 95% in China and most companies are not likely to even recover the cost of packaging/shipping/logistic/warehouse cost of packaged software. Plus, online games depends on subscription revenue instead of package sales. In fact, China's vast piracy network actually does a favor for the online game distribution by selling the online game's disc for about 80 cents for those who are too lazy to download the games.
  • Shattered Galaxy [sgalaxy.com] does this, and it's old. 2001, I think? They've been offering the free download since it started, and recently apparently started offering a free play alternative (minor downsides). Mind you, the game may not be as popular as other titles, but I'd say it's simply due to lack of marketing.. Have yet to hear any complaints about the online distribution.

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