No, it's just what you want to believe. And quite frankly, until you, or someone else can give me something besides biased opinion and conjecture, I'm going to completely dismiss your arguments. I've gone through the trouble of actually researching hard #'s that are easily verifiable by anyone who spends 15 seconds on google, to back up my arguments on why all digital is just not feasible at this point in time in the U.S., while you and the others have given me absolutely nothing to back up your opinions. Come back with some actual, verifiable evidence, and I might be willing to take your opinion seriously, but until then your arguments have absolute zero weight and credibility. Yes, I'm angry right now, I'm tired of being outright dismissed by you and others with NOTHING to back up your claims except pure opinion while I give hard evidence to the contrary. Give me VERIFIABLE PROOF.

Especially your one statement, I swear to god you must completely skip half my post: "The majority have stable internet connections" NO THE MAJORITY DOES NOT! Over half the country DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO RELIABLE HIGH-SPEED INTERNET. I've done the actual research on the subject multiple times. 22% of the U.S. doesn't even HAVE high-speed, and half of the 78% that does, don't have access to reliable high-speed. 22% + 39% = 61% That is the majority. 39% of people do have reliable, quality high speed internet.

Yeah, I'm done, I can truly feel my blood pressure rising. It's like I'm 10 again getting into an argument with someone whose only comeback is "Nuh uh, you're wrong" no matter how much proof I offer to the contrary. It's sad though, because if you or Defron, or anyone else would actually give me verifiable evidence to back up your opinions, I'd be willing to admit I was wrong and change my stance(some games being digital only is not proof. I can go to Walmart, or Best Buy, and find pretty much every major PC titles on their shelves right this moment). I've done it plenty of times in the past. But nope, just opinion and conjecture.

And please, for the love of god, stop trying to devalue my arguments and evidence by trying to paint me as a fanatical "physical copies only" and "My internet svcks so I don't think digital only is going to happen" type person. You've brung that up multiple times in your last few posts, and I've only mentioned it once this thread on my own(I've replied to it, but unprovoked I mentioned it just once). Just because I don't have good internet and prefer physical copies doesn't mean I can't separate my bias from cold hard #'s and facts. Gaming is a HUGE business, and alienating 61% of the total population is not feasible for such a major entertainment option.

I don′t see myself ever buying a brand new PC game or for that matter as time goes by, older PC games. I′m the consumer, I′m the one with the money and I therefore am the one who decides what I buy and what I don′t buy and I want physical single player games that do not require internet access. Sure, the companies don′t care about me but then I don′t care about them. Let them keep their games and let me keep my money.

I don′t crave new games all the time anyway and as long as I have power coming in I can keep playing the PC games I already have physical copies of. Not to mention my beloved NES

you want reliable info?n personally go into your closest EBGames and ask where their PC section went, they are near non-existent now when back in the early 2000s their selection was second only to the PS2's library

and biased opinion? seriously? you are missing the constant posts I have made saying I am a collector and love physical copies, or the posts DEFRON made in the past where he has said he doesn't even game very much anymore (at least, i think it was DEFRON who i remember posting that a couple times awhile back).. its not that we don't want physical media, its that we are acknowledging it is not the path PC gaming is taking any longer

and the majority of those people are not PC Gamers.. you seem to be missing what "majority" is.. yes, some may be, but once again its not any companies responsibility to make sure their game is available for every person

we have, we've given you examples of major titles that are just not available physically on PC, we have told you the current state of retail shops PC sections (which you can go in and verify yourself if you want), we have clarified what "target audience" is and that companies have to do whats best to reach those specific individuals and whats best for them as a company rather than trying to make it so every person across the continent can get if If they want it.. heck, I have even given examples of people in similar situations as you data cap wise still finding ways to get it, because thats how you get them now..


its funny that your saying we are going "hu uh, you're wrong" when we are providing reasons, examples, and explanations, and your ignoring all of it and your only counter-argument is "but not everyone has good internet"..



look, I am not trying to be mean in what I am saying here.. but, if you want to sit in Denial, thats your right as an individual, but it does not change the fact that this IS happening.. only way you can change it anytime soon is somehow finding a way to bend reality to your will as if you were a god, or finding the holy grail or something..





while I still personally do really like DEFRON's kiosk idea, i still somewhat question its feasibility for reasons i stated earlier

1 in 3 people are PC gamers in the U.S. Go google "percentage of people in the U.S. that are PC gamers" The very first result isn't even a link, it's a box that gives the general age range and the actual amount of people that are. So 1/3rd of the U.S. population are PC gamers. So if 61% of people lack access to, or reliable high-speed internet, and 1/3rd of those are PC gamers, that's a full 20% of the possible market gone in the blink of an eye.

And yes, all you give me are conjecture and biased opinion and guess what, I can to. "Go to your local EB games, tell me if they have a PC game shelf" I instead challenge you to go to your local walmart or best buy and tell me what you find there. A minimum of 20-30 different PC titles at any given time that frequently rotate out.

I've given you counter examples of games that started out as entirely digital, and the publishers realized they could make more money if they made it into physical boxed version, and the one is a very recent title: Divinity Original sin. Which btw, is the same amount of games you've specifically mentioned. I could go out and drag out more, and yeah you probably could to, but in the end it proves nothing.

I'm ignoring your "examples and explanations" because again, it's all opinion. You've given me nothing that I can go out and prove with statistical evidence. No #'s, no graphs, no trends, nothing. Just "This is my personal experience, so it must be right".

Anyways, I've given you actual concrete evidence of hard #'s. You give me opinion and one example. It's clear who is arguing with logic and fact in this debate, and who isn't(hint, It's me who's arguing with fact/logic). Until you can give me statistics showing a clear, defined trend of games moving towards digital, your arguments have no merit, it's as simple as that. Go to a major university and go to their statistical math course professor and try to argue something with no #'s or evidence to back up your argument. I guarantee you'll be laughed out after they completely rip your argument into shreds.

And please, for the love of all that is good in the world STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS. "Oh you can live in denial all you want". Yeah real classy. At least what I'm getting mad at is your inability to produce actual #'s to back up your opinion and your outright dismissal of the undisputable #'s I've used to back up mine. You're resorting to flinging personal insults to try to prove your point. That's not the way to prove your right in any debate.

your statistics suffer from a severe margin of error flaw, your comparing the amount of people that do not have good internet to the amount of PC Gamers.. proper statistics are not that simple. alot of lower class families as an example don't game on PC, and aim at consoles due to it being a cheaper initial cost..

the Majority of dedicated PC Gamers have decent connections.. sure not all of them do, and certainly not all people in the world do. but the majority of the core demographic do, which is the reason they are going digital, to target the core demographic. you can't say "this many people have bad internet, there are this many PC Gamers, proof!" because of the placement of those individuals across that spectrum is very different in actuality.. its like arguing cars are not the main form of transportation, by saying "this many people live in my country, there are only this many cars, proof!" while ignoring the fact some families share cars, some can't afford them, some people aren't even old enough to drive, some people are disabled or in nursing homes..

first, I was not trying to make personal attacks, I was summing up the stance you are taking (and you were making personal attacks in your previous post yourself).. and as said, your #'s don't add up like you think. not everyone with poor internet is a gamer, let alone a PC one. and by comparing people with poor internet to how many gamers you are your ignoring the fact is not an even placement, you have to look at the average PC gamer and see what demographic they fall in and what areas they are most present.. unless you somehow go personally data-mine personal info on every person who games on PC across the continental US, your not going to have statistics nearly as accurate as you think..

however, Companies have some such data, and have since at least 1999 when you installed a game and they asked you to "register" it in order to get info on their userbase.. they have info on the age of their audience, the city/town they live, and in many cases in those earlier registrations specifically what platforms you own and a rough estimate on how many games you bought a year.. this is far more accurate to see who the core demographic is and what services they likely have available than just going "this many people have bad internet, this many play games.. clearly they overlap perfectly!".. not to mention, online distribution makes it easier to examine and track who that core demographic is, which is a vital asset to any company (arguably more vital than a bit of additional income)

funny you say that, I know a girl i went to highschool with who works in the local Walmarts Electronic section, I just texted her and received a response (I sat here with this tab open hoping she would before i finished this post, and honestly, I am surprised she hasn't changed her number to be honest), heres a complete transcription of the conversation:

so if she is to be believed, to which I personally do because she was always a trust worthy and honest person, apparently Walmart doesn't have much of a selection either..


and no its not all simply conjecture, its understanding of how corporations operate.. and biased opinion? not at all, as stated i love physical copies as I am a collector, but i acknowledge thats not the way the industry is moving









I do agree with you Starwulf, that in an ideal world, all games and other products should be available physically for those who have issues with internet stability.. but this is not an ideal world we live in, its a very cruel and relentless world that looks purely in their own self interest and discriminate again those that they deem different, or those of lower financial class and living conditions.. this is not true with every individual, but it is by a huge chunk of society.
Humans are sinful creatures, ones lives thrive only at the cost of anothers.


its not just physical games though, there are alot of things that should be available more easily to those in somewhat lesser living conditions but aren't.. a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis should not have to pay hundreds of dollars a month out of her own pocket for medication she needs in order to semi-function and not be in constant pain while the government is willing to entirely pay for her sons anti depressants.. that couple out in BC should have been able to get the guys brain cyst removed here in Canada, and not sell their house car and most of their possessions, and have numerous family sell their own in order to afford getting it removed in the states. sure, the province stated they would have paid for it even if it was done in the states if it was recommended by a Canadian brain surgeon, but unless you are a literal millionaire willing to throw your money around, the wait list to see one to get the rec nearly anywhere in Canada can exceed over 4 years, in which cases is longer than the person may live without the surgery..



my overall point being, yes, it svcks that the digital format makes it harder for people with bad internet, who live in rural areas, or lower class families to obtain these games. it also svcks for collectors like me who like to look at our shelves and say "hey, thats a nice collection!".. but this is the way the industry is going, and in a manner how the world works in general.. not every product or service is available equally to everyone..

I am not trying to say its necessarily a good thing. I am just acknowledging thats how it works..

I'm not going any further in this debate. There is no point, neither of us going to convince the other that their side is right, and I've purposefully avoided the thread for the last two hours just so I could cool down. I will say two things, the first is obviously our Wal-marts differ. I was JUST in mine two days ago, there were copies of Starcraft II, Divinity Original Sin, Civlization V and it's expansions, Several variations of WoW, Skyrim(The ultimate edition or whatever), Fallout 3/NV, Fallout 1-2 collectors pack thingie, HOMM V(It's in a case like the bejeweled and nancy drew things though) and at least a dozen and a half other actual(not crap like bejeweled) titles. If I had a smart phone that could take pictures I'd happily do so and post them up later to show I'm not lying, but I have no use for a smart phone, my cell is strictly for phone calls only.

The other is, I'd still like to see some kind of actual #'s to support your argument. Go do some googling and find the % of games that were physical and digital both 5 years ago, find the % of ones that were physical only, the % of ones that were digital only. Then find the #'s for now. Show me an actual comparison because I would honestly(not even being flippant here) like to see what those #'s are like and if there is a significant enough difference to back up your opinion. I gave hard #'s to support my side, and while I agree that they can be interpreted in many different ways, the #'s are there and real for all to see. I won't respond to the #'s if you do post them, we've gone far enough as far as I'm concerned(and I'm sure you agree at this point), I'd just like to honestly see some, that's all.

As I said earlier, only time will tell. I've given my word that if the PC game situation goes to all digital within a decade, I'll happily come back to these forums and post admitting I was wrong. I hope(though I sincerely doubt) that if I'm proven right you'll come back and admit you were wrong. Have a great day and I hope to not get into another heated debate like this again with you, you're generally one of the few posters whose posts I agree with and respect.

That was extremely insensitive. First, you woke the poor girl up out of a sound sleep. Then you made a point of informing her, snootily, that you think you are over-qualified to work in the place of business where she works. Then, to add injury to insult, without getting her permission you publish a transcription of your conversation on the internet. You're a real classy guy. I'll tell you something: if you had pulled that little stunt on me I would be seriously be considering calling the police right about now. At the very least I would be changing my telephone number tomorrow when I wasn't so groggy from being woken up in the middle of the night for no reason. You're a real winner. I hope you don't treat all your friends with in such a rude, tactless manner.

I'm sitting here hoping that it was a bit of fiction that Funnybunny made up.

Ive had at least 3 game so far that refused to play without being updated, the play button is greyed out till the auto updates finish, and they would be games from this decade.

I notice you have Western Maryland on your location, so your in a regional area, please correct if im wrong i did look it up on the internet and ive never travelled to the U.S., and off topic the pictures of some of the areas look really lovely and id really love to see them, but back on topic. Im also in a regional area, if it wasnt for one small mom and pop business that started small and got investment and set up optic fibre cable in 4 regional cities it was the first real broadband outside of major cities, which was for many years the only way to get broadband, it didnt exist outside a capital city. And also the only service that actually gives you optic fibre to your modem, rather than the National Broadband Network that only is connected to a box on the side of your house and you have to pay to have optic fibre run to your computer, rather than the cat 5 cable.

I was part of an Australian government project to get decent speed internet to regional areas, i always remember that we thought the U.S. had awesome internet, and actually you were in the same position we were in, if you live in a big city, you get access to high speed internet further away worse it gets, sometimes not at all, stats ive read said Australia could outstrip the U.S. in coverage at its current rate.

I think one of the major problems is to many companies are believing the PR, only proof ive seen so far is if your in a large city you get good internet, further away it degrades, or only leaves you the user with expensive choices to connect, same here further out you need satellite internet, but even in some close in suburbs in major cities they wont run a decent service and get customers to get satellite which is insane.

Sadly, it's not that the major companies believe the PR or anything, it's that they don't care. I've actually organized two petitions, achieving nearly every signature that could be gained from here on the mountain and the surrounding area for about 10 miles around, over 2k people oddly enough(I never realized there were that many people living in this area before that, it's actually MORE population then the nearest town, just spread out over a larger area), handed it over to Verizon and they said "Sorry, but at this time the logistics and cost outweigh the gain of bringing high-speed internet to your area. Maybe in a few years". I mean, I can understand it wouldn't be exactly easy due to the geographic location, but it's not like where I live is outright boonies, no matter how much I like to joke about it. I'm only 8 miles from the nearest town(that does have high-speed), and the roads are all paved and lined around here. Not to mention I'd certainly think that if they brought high-speed out here it would just encourage growth and they'd make more and more money.

On the off-topic bit: Yes, it is absolutely gorgeous here, especially where I live, which is right on top of a mountain. Gorgeous view and forest on all sides. In general the area is quite nice looking, one of the few perks of living here.

Do we have the same Walmart? Same games in mine, we also have Diablo 3 expansion, Starcraft 2 and Fallout 4. Several other games too, my Walmart has a decent PC collection.

I am seeing this from a different viewpoint. Why are games getting so huge? What about them makes them so bloated? Is it necessary?

Why not work within the physical limitations? If folks are not buying Blu-Rays for their PCs, why not try to make DVDs work?

As for "digital only" distribution, I do not see this happening soon. Until 80-85% of end-users (worldwide, not just USA) have optical internet access, this is a terrible idea. 20-50GB of data over 100Mbs/sec connections? Do the math...

And given that the average internet connection is probably closer to 1-3 Mb/sec (DSL), the prospect of downloading those files becomes truly daunting.

[EDIT[

I meant to add that my "CableOne" connection confuses me to no end. They "brag" 100Mb/sec and the best I ever get is 2.5Mb/sec at places like Steam and GOG.

About half of Skyrim's size comes from sound files, and most of that comes from voice files. So I'd guess it's the same with Fallout 4. Bethesda has been bragging about how much dialogue they've recorded for Fallout 4 and that has to add a lot of gigs. In particular, the male and female protagonist voice files are certainly adding many new gigs we never had to install or download before.

That's kind of what I thought. Then the next part of my post comes into play, "Is it necessary?"

higher res textures and higher polygon count models models are part of it, but probably one of the biggest contributing factor is uncompressed audio,


without getting to far into it (because if i let my hand go, It will keep typing on the subject for the next 2 hours):

for years, studios used more compressed audio formats in order to save space.. which while it did cause less space to be taken up, there was some noticeable loss in the quality of the tracks or voice over as result.. as years and technology advanced, they started to compress audio to a lesser extent. this has caused some higher quality audio, but an increase in file size..


some people argue "keep compressing it then, no one can tell anyways!" but if you compare the two same tracks, one more highly compressed than the other, you can certainly notice the difference (an example would be one of my favorite games, Skies of Arcadia. it had a really great sound track and sound direction for its time. the Dreamcast Version was on two CDs, one of the contributing reasons for 2 was they tried to compress the audio as little as possible.. then we got the Gamecube enhanced port, which had slightly better visuals, and loads of additional content. but Nintendo insisted they try and make it fit on a single disc, which made them compress the audio much more to try and fit everything in.. and you can certainly notice the difference if you compare the two next to each other.. i wish they would make a port with the GC's extra content and visuals, but the DC's audio quality )



since games these days usually have far more audio files, and they compress them alot less, that can add alot of additional space requirement

Heh, I bought my first blu-ray drive for my computer just a week ago, a LG BH16NS40.

But, do anyone remember how long it took for PC games to start using DVDs? While games for the PS2 and original XBox was released on a single DVD, PC games were still shipped on 3-4 CDs. So the PC was late to use the DVD as a physical media too, and wasn't commonly used for PC games until 2006 in the US, and a bit earlier for European PC releases for some reason.

That said, I don't think we will see blu-ray grow up to be a common game media to PC games, Steam pretty much grown to become the monopoly of PC gaming, and the PC developers/publishers are pleased about that because of the higher profit margins. When they sell a game a game on Steam they get 70% of the sales, when they sell a game on physical media they get about 30% of the sales. So a digital sale give them much more money, so whatever people having troubles with digital sales are probably just counted as an acceptable loss.

One thing to be careful of is that ISPs like to use Mega bits per second (Mbps) to brag about how fast their connections are, because BIGGER NUMBERS! for advertising. A 100 Mbps connection actually translates to about 12.5 Megabytes per second (MBps), since there are eight bits in a byte.

I have a 35 Mbps connection through my cable provider. It took me an hour and a half to download Fallout 4 at a speed of about 4.4 MBps.

Thank you. I thought it was that little detail, but can never recall which is which (Mb/s vs MB/s)

The download time was not a big deal for me - I just fixed some dinner and did some cleaning in my apartment while I waited.

To me, the basic problem boils down to this - don't claim to be selling a "physical copy" of the game, when all the player is getting in the box is 20% of the game data. If you're going to sell a physical copy sell the whole game as one, and if that means burning five DVDs and stuffing them into the box, burning one Blu-ray disc and telling the player to go buy a drive, or shipping it on a USB stick, then so be it.

Would you buy a car from a dealer who just sells you the engine and transmission, and then tells you to go someplace else to pick up the rest of the vehicle? Not the best anology, but close enough.

I can only answer for myself. My answer is, "No." I loathe the very idea of voiced protagonists. It is anti-roleplaying. It is anti-imagination. As far as I'm concerned it is nothing more than acoustic hand-holding. It adds unnecessary bulk to the size of game downloads.

Graphics also contribute to size. And I think there is way too much emphasis on graphics these days as well. To hear the sales pitch of developers and to read the posts on gaming forums you would think that video games consisted almost solely of graphics and nothing more.

I am a dinosaur. I admit it. I want interesting gameplay. I don't care much about graphics or about cheap attention-catching gimmicks like voiced protagonists. I want gameplay that stimulates my mind and writing that engages my emotions. But the fact is that games these days are not made for me. They are made for people who are easily distracted and who are apparently unwilling to use their imaginations.

So, no, I do not think it is necessary at all.

You mean MB/sec there, not Mb/sec. In your case, the limitation is probably happening at the server end. I get a peak of about 2.5 MB/sec from GoG, too, but I get slightly faster speeds from connections elsewhere.

I find I can generally expect to d/l about a GB per 6-7 minutes, so a large game can take as long as an hour or more.

On the other hand, I remember downloading a 1 MB file on a 2400 baud modem. An hour to download something, in 1992, that would take less than half a second today. And this over a timed pay-per-minute dialup connection.

Not much more I can add here, except I think a voiced protagonist can work in a series such as The Witcher, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and such - games that are highly narrative driven where you're playing a character who's already well established in lore via previous releases, novels, movies and such. The problem with voiced PC in a series where your character is much more of an open book (such as Fallout and TES) is that the writers have no frame of reference to determine how this character would react based on that previously established canon, and as result has to craft anodyne, generic, emotionless dialog that has to fit many different situations.

Whether or not those type of games are your cup of tea is something only you, as a player, can decide.