That PC gamers really need to stop resisting the upgrade to blu-ray.

There seems to be a chicken egg situation here. Publishers won't release PC games on blu-ray because the install base is too small. Nobody wants to install a blu-ray drive because there's nothing published on them.

If we want future physical releases to start holding entire games once again we need to step up and accept that DVD's are just too small to be cost effective now.; games are simply too big. Blu-ray is the future, and beyond that USB drives, for physical media at least. If you want a true physical release on any format the best thing you can do is go out and buy yourself a blu-ray drive.

PS: No "digital is the future" opinions here. It's already been well threshed out that there are millions of people with genuinely no option for unlimited or even fast broadband.

I'd love physical copies of games to come on funky little USB sticks, but ultimately I believe physical distribution is doomed. Few years time it'll be download only, for better or worse.

I used to be very anti blu-ray because I was ignorant of just how much more space it could store, and I felt that it was just a gimmick by companies like Sony etc to get people spend money replacing their dvd players.

having gotten past that hang up. I wonder how expensive blu-ray drives/readers are now? I agree that is kind of a chicken and egg situation, or maybe like a catch 22 rather. I feel like if one or two AAA developers released a blu ray version with limited number of copies to start, that they could break through this cycle. Market these blu ray versions specificly to the people that can't/don't want to download over the internet, and would drive up the demand for blu ray readers.

Aren't blu rays becoming obsolete in comparison of stuff like 32gb and larger micro sd cards?

I think blu-rays are still cheaper per unit than any other physical media of equivalent size. For backups and storage then other physical types are better, but for distribution of software blu-rays aren't excessively more than DVD's. Bethesda would pay far less putting Fallout 4 on a blu-ray than a micro SD card.

I don't disagree either that they'd probably rather every one just digitally download their games, rather than having to deal with the logistics of shipping physical copies. However, since they still are shipping physical copies, they may as well do it as blu ray. That said, I don't have a blu ray drive either...

They aren't expensive. I put one in my rig three years ago and it was ￡50. Now they're much cheaper than that if you just want a reader.

I know a lot of people would say it's still an unnecessary expense, but in my mind if you can afford a good gaming rig a blu-ray drive will not hurt your budget. The benefit of doing so could be huge.

They could buy in bulk USB drives and have all the space they need. And if used as a hardware lock could also be used as anti copyright. It would be cheap and if they added 1-3 dollars to the game price there cost they lose nothing.

Personally I prefer digital now any ways. I used to be super against it, as I was afraid of the possiblity of losing my games forever. but its possible and pretty simple to have copies of all the necessary files and folders. and I've entered a stage in my life where I absolutely hate to have too much stuff or clutter. If i was still doing every thing physical I'd need a couple boxes for all my games, and I would absolutely loath that.

USB drives could work, as Microsoft now uses them for Windows deployment. The problem is price. Retail price for a 32GB thumb drive is ~10USD even with bulk pricing its still at least half that, whereas a optical disk is <1USD. They would have to increase the cost of the package over that of a digital copy (or increase both). It gets worse when they need more space than 32GB.

Blu-ray drives are 50USD, so not really expensive. If people actually used optical drives nowadays then this would definitely work; dual or more layer would cover everything (currently). People have just moved on from physical media (for the most part).

not going to happen man, the direction the computer industry is going is entirely opposite infact.. sure, upgrading to Blueray would be nice, but the industry is more heading in the direction of no Optical drives at all for average consumers..


a former co-worker of mine refurbishes and repairs PCs for a living, and last I heard from him they have moved to installing windows entirely off USB (back when I worked there, we still installed them via DvDs, and the only USB's were used to store and move basic drivers in the case we needed to install them before we could get it to recognize the ethernet cord, so it must be a relatively new policy). I was in Futureshop (its not Futureshop anymore is it? I think its Bestbuy now? they haven't changed the sign outfront yet anyways) a few months ago, as when I am in that part of town I like to chuckle on how overpriced their stuff is, and I noticed the majority of the machines they are selling do not have an optical drive included by default (but according to a saleman i asked out of curiosity he said will sell you one for over twice the price of what you could buy one of Newegg for, he said they just aren't in demand anymore). from what i have heard from another guy I know who works at staples, they don't issue back-ups via disc anymore either, now its USB..


now while I like Physical Copies personally as a collector, and I know this is not what you want to hear, but the industry (as far as PC gaming goes) is going digital and there is almost nothing we can do to change it at this point.. alot of developers have even stopped releasing Physical Media for PC entirely

last time I was in EBGames (October 20th, fyi) their entire PC gaming section consisted almost entirely of Gaming Mice, Keyboards, and Headsets. the only actual games they had was a copy of XCOM: Enemy Within, 2 copies of The Witcher 3, a copy of the Diablo 2 Battle Chest, a copy Crusader Kings 2, some old Yugioh game, and a copy of Bet On Soldier, and a game I had never even heard of called "Mace Griffin the Bounty Hunter"?. that was their entire section, with the exception of the Witcher, it looked like they found stuff fallen behind the rack out back and decided to put it out for the "illusion" of a PC gaming section.

out of curiosity I asked if they had more in the back room, and his response was "nope, its pretty much all digital these days.. you want some steam cards?" (to which i responded no, i'll just take this PS3 game thanks, was just wondering")

add this to the fact that EBGames has announced they are now going to start opening up "Steam Sections", which will sell product codes for games only available on Steam, its clear physical media is becoming obsolete for PC gaming



sadly, its not just the gaming industry. everything is digital these days, you can't collect unemployment without filling out online reports biweekly, most stores and businesses won't let you apply in person or drop off a resume (you'll get a "go to our website and fill out our application"), due to the falling numbers of physical mail Canada Post was going to stop delivering to peoples doors (though the newly ellected government has put a pause on that plan for the time being)..



do some people not have access to fast internet or reliable internet? well sure, but I was around before high-speed was a thing, when dial-up was the only option anybody had, and you had to spend the entire day to download the latest Windows update and the second you tripped over your phone cord or someone picked it up to make a call you had to start all over from scratch..

do some people have data-caps? while sure, but gaming is a luxury after all, sometimes to experience a luxury you have to spend a little more than you had hoped, even if that manner of spending is in overage charges.. and they always have the option of downloading a bit now, wait till their usage resets and downloading some more of it, thats what a buddy of mine had to do before he could play GTAV. you don't have to download it all in one sitting, it pauses till you relaunch

even then, its not nearly as bad as the very early days of home internet, where you were not only charged by every kb of data you used, but actually how far that data traveled (meaning just viewing an image from a server hosted across the country could have netted you a small fortune)..



now I really know this isn't what you wanted to hear, and hey, I love physical copies to, but this is how things are now, and unless you find the Holy Grail in your backyard, it isn't going to change anytime soon (and if you did find the holy grail, i can think of better things to wish for haha)..

The problem with "everything is digital these days" is that the industry is racing ahead faster than the infrastructure. Yeah, it's great if you're somewhere with wonderful service. Everyone else is screwed, though.

(I don't even have bad service, myself, but I found the FO4 download to be a pain. 4 hours? That's nuts/terrible. That's no way to distribute software. I can't even imagine what it'd be like if I were one of the folks who have 1-2 day download times for files that large. Meanwhile, the folks who're sitting on pipes that let them do things like casually backup their entire computer to the cloud & back, wonder why all the luddites still have disc drives.)

Exactly! I was going to post earlier but wasn't feeling good so I laid down.

A lot of people on this thread seem to think that "All digital" is going to happen, and happen soon, but it really isn't. I have, in the last 2 years, posted on these very forums 4 or 5 separate times, statistics that show that 15-20% of people in the U.S. don't even have access to high-speed internet, and roughly 50% of the people who do, don't have either a quality high-speed connection(ie: it cuts out on them frequently, or just isn't that fast), or they have a severe enough data cap that prevents them from doing stuff such as streaming or downloading large things.

If I, a complete idiot when it comes to googling stuff(seriously, I svck at it) can find these statistics, I can absolutely guarantee you that every executive and CEO of devs/publishers have access and knowledge of those same statistics, and they realize that if they move to an all digital format that they will be alienating a serious portion of their consumer base(60-75%!). Do you all really believe they are dumb enough to do that? I mean, I know some of them can be kinda dense, but even I don't think they are that dumb.

Until there is a complete and total overhaul of the internet grid in the United States, all-digital is just not going to happen. And no-one in government is to terribly interested, and the major internet companies are far to lazy/money grubbing to bother expanding their reach right now. Hell, Maryland got a $150 million dollar grant to bring high-speed internet to all of Western Maryland back in 2012. It's 2015, and nothings happened. I doubt the U.S. as a whole will be totally covered until 2025 or later barring a major change shaking things up.

Too much cost associated with it. Physical that is. It's cheaper to do digital distribution so that's extra money in their pockets.

For the people with slow internet: Kiosks. You go up to one, stick in a USB stick, and it copies the game to it. Maybe even some will have an option to spit out a disc if you pay a bit extra for those without a big enough flash drive. I remember reading a year or so ago about some company thinking about doing it (most likely gamestop) so it's only a matter of time.

And the gaming industry for the most part doesn't care about these people anymore, because they can't milk them for money as easily and can't record their statistics.

The issue is, it's not just millions, it's tens and tens of millions. Just the people who don't have access to any high-speed alone # in the 30's of millions(going with the most common statistic I've come across of 15%, and a total population in the U.S. of 300 million). Add in the people who don't have access to "Good" high-speed or have data caps and they would be losing literally half their consumer base.

This next part isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I would like to note/address the simple fact that the people who have been going on and on about "All digital is happening, and it's happening soon" have been spouting that particular line since at least 2010(and that's just in my experience, I imagine that cry has been resounding since the moment Steam came out). It's now 2015, and we aren't particularly much closer to it then we were in 2010. Hell, the outcry alone from when that idiot from Microsoft told everyone to "Just deal with it" when talking about moving to digital should prove that there is a large # of people not interested/capable of doing such a thing. I fully expect that in 5 years, we'll still have the same people going "Oh, all digital is coming and coming soon" and it still won't be much closer.

I am not saying all digital for everything is coming soon, but already for PC games, there are digital-only ones.

Even in the 10s of millions, it doesn't matter. Heck there's billions of people without a personal computer. There's a thing called target market, and in the PC gaming world, those people aren't them. The fact is that most PC gamers, for better or for worse, do have access to high-speed Internet.

I myself am not a fan of digital distribution, and abhor streaming, but I too am not the target market. Businesses don't care about every little person and making sure they have everything they need, businesses care about where the money is, and the most money is to be made on impulse buys and DLCs by people with plenty of spare cash. Digital distribution jives well with all of those things.

And nothing you brought up has any merit if distribution kiosks in brick-and-mortar stores are set up, which allows for people without high-speed internet to buy digital goods and sneakernet them back home.

It may seem gimmicky, but I think it could work, especially if it's tied in with the product. Like a little skyshard for ESO or a little pipboy head for Fallout. Imagine your collection of games being little USB sticks ingeniously disguised as mementos from the game.

It is so true, ive read the same statistics myself, even Australia is creeping ahead but taken a step backwards due to the implementation of the National Broadband Network, slowing everything down, but the way ISP's work here the cost of your internet package isnt really just based on speed its based more on the data cap, we have expanded them from the past decade, even just from early this decade, they were still poor in comparison to other countries especially cost wise.

I personally have a grandfathered plan from a company that the ISP im with now purchased, since id been with the same ISP since connected in early 2000's they gave me an extra 20 gig, but the plans are split 50/50 i have 50% from 8.00 am till 2.00 am and from 2.00 am till 8.00 am, in the highest percentage of cases the 2.00 am part barely gets used and thats a total of 140 gig split into 70, 70, digital isnt viable, Tuesday i got Fallout 4 and Starcraft, if these were digital downloads it would mean half of my daily limit gone, and i wouldnt to download any other games if its from a physical disk id have no problems.

I know people that are on 20 gig a month data cap even less, i had a game on steam, i walked away while it was downloading, it patched it up to 15 gig, that nearly made my heart stop when i saw that.

The local EB games was going to set one up, this was about the start of the year, so far theres no sign of it, speeds have been fluctuating badly of late due to national infrastructure works, and the last thing you'd need is a queue in front of a hole in the wall waiting for a game to download onto a stick.

No need to wait for any actual downloads from a kiosk. In an ideal world these things would cache like mad so that anything downloaded will stay available so the next person doesn't need to wait for it to download.

I play PC games, I have since about 92 when I first played Arena, and then later daggerfall. Not much until Diablo and Starcraft, but after that I've been a PC gamer(not exclusively though) steadily. I fail to see how I, a PC gamer, is not the target demographic. And given how many people don't have access to high-speed in our country, I'm not sure how you can make the assumption that they wouldn't be cutting into their target demographic by going to an all digital format. Do you really think that the upwards of 150million people that don't have access to, or don't have good high-speed aren't PC gamers? That seems like a bit of a stretch if you ask me.

I will say though, the Kiosk idea does sound good. I'd be alright with that. Would svck not to get the box and booklet, but as long as I had a hard copy available I'd be content. I'd imagine the really big releases like TES, Diablo, Fallout, and a few others would still do physical releases at least for CE's anyways so there would still be that option. Where did you hear this at, I'd love to read about it, it is honestly a fairly good solution to the lack of internet infrastructure here in the U.S.

I know I've said it before, but yeah 5gb Data cap right here, and that's pretty much the absolute best you can get in my particular zone, unless you go to Satellite, which is awful for anything but web-surfing.

For those curious, a quick web search shows that the U.S. ranks NINTH in developed countries for internet saturation. That is...pretty damn bad as far as I'm concerned. Not getting into any patriotism or anything, but the U.S. likes to tout itself as the greatest country in the world, and yet we are behind 8 other countries for internet saturation. And even though I didn't plan on it, another quick web search indicates that while Broadband saturation has gone up since the last time I really looked into it(2013), we still only have 78.1% of our total population with access to high-speed internet(when I looked in 2013 it was 75%, so we went up 3%, yay!). That's so absurd it's not even funny. Especially when you consider the other statistic that shows that of those 78%, nearly half don't have access to a good high-speed internet(like myself, with a 5gb Data cap, and top download speeds of 1mb ><).

You may already know, but one can set Steam to only auto-update during a specified time period. Not a solution to the underlying problem, but should help with spreading data usage between peak and off peak .

I knew that, its just that it didnt say there was 15 gigs worth of patches, otherwise i would have, only found that out when i came back, and its made me sit and watch every steam download to make sure that doesnt happen again and i can dump it into my offpeak.

you can also set some games to not update at all (with the exception of day-1 updates, those are kind of required )

look star, you clearly don't want digital distribution to be a thing (and I am really sorry to hear your data cap is 5GB), and i respect that opinion, but that doesn't mean its not going to happen. actually, i should say it doesn't mean its not "happening"

as I said before, alot of developers have already stopped releasing games physically entirely, most gaming stores stock of PC games have become a mere formality with other than than a few recent AAA titles most appear to be games from nearly a decade ago that never sold or something nad mice & keyboards. you ask about any other PC game and they say they won't be getting it and then say "what denomination of steam card you want?".. add this to the fact that EBGames announced near the beginning of the year (I think that was when anyways.. my comprehension of time isn't great these days so i may be a bit off) that they are opening up "Steam Sections" which will be selling steam codes for games, it is clear they are moving away from physical PC games entirely. and they are the single biggest retail gaming outlet in the country.


does this mean some people may have a harder time getting them? well sure, but thats true with any hobby or luxury, not everyone will be able to experience it as easily as others.. some shows these days are only available on Netflix, sure svcks for the people who can't get Netflix but thats the way it is.. some shows are only available on specific channels, or premium channels you have to pay quite a bit extra for, does it svck that these mean some people can't watch them because they can't afford it or their provider does not carry the channel? yeah, but thats the way it is.. some products can only be found at certain stores specializing in that single product type, sure svcks for those whos town doesn't have one of those stores, but thats the way it is.. some things are pretty much only reliably available from online retailers like Amazon or Newegg these days, and not everyone can either afford or have the credit to get a credit card with a high enough spending cap to order what they want or need (and not all banks will issue pre-paid cards with denominations greater than $500, which depending on what your looking for means you can't get it), sure svcks but thats the way it is..


yeah i know, it svcks that this has become a thing and some people have a harder time getting games, but gaming is a luxury and with most luxuries it can involve a different amount of sacrifice depending on the consumer, and its that consumers responsibility to weigh that sacrifice against the joy they will get from it and see if its worth it..

granted, there are still ways to get it, if you have exceptionally slow internet you can run the download while your at work or out buying groceries or even sleeping, and turn it off when you get back (sure, may take awhile till its playable, but you don't have to DL the entire game in one sitting, Steam or Origin will save whats downloaded when the client closes and continue where it left off when it boots back up).. if you have data caps, you could take it to a friend who doesn't, or high-jack a family member who doesn't when you go over for thanksgiving dinner. or, download it piece by piece, a little this month, a little next to save on your data cap (sure, will take a long time till its playable, but i have a buddy who is doing this for GTAV atm).. or, if you deem the joy you will get from the product significant enough, pay some overage charges for a month (granted, overage charges vary by provider and plan, i think my brother pays $3-$5 per gig, but i know people who spend quite abit more)



Will say this though, I really do like DEFRON's kiosk idea alot.. but, I question its feasibility somewhat. first, do the big digital DRM services (Steam, Origin, UPlay i guess) support moving a game over from a USB? i suppose it wouldn't be the hardest feature to add, but is it already there? cause i never heard of it .. second, would this be tied to a specific DRM service, or work for all of them? depending on this it could vary the selection.. and finally, no one wants to stand there for a couple hours getting a game to download (which time could vary depending on the connection the store provides for it, and by the read-write speed of the drive your putting it on) while a line forms behind them, sure i suppose it could store the data on a drive located within the kiosk, but i imagine this would highly limit the selection it provided, due to the required space it would take to store the majority of Steam and/or Origins libraries would be far to large and costly for what is essentially a mass-produced Kiosk..

I would like to hear your opinions on these issues (or, more questions) I have asked on the kiosk subject though DEFRON

You talk about how it alienates "some" of the player-base, but I've repeatedly said that digital only would literally alienate half of the flipping U.S. That's not some, That's 150million people. It's not that I don't want it(well, I don't), but the fact of the matter is, if publishers did that it would literally be financial suicide. If you, or anyone else, truly believes that out of 150million people that don't have access to high speed internet(or good high-speed) aren't PC gamers, you are absolutely deluding yourself.

Some quick math: If just 1% of those 150million are PC gamers, a publisher just lost out on 90 million dollars. If just half a percent, they lost out on 45million. If even just a 10th of a percent they still lost 900k cash. Given the popularity of gaming nowadays(quick google shows that literally 1/3rd of people in the U.S. over the age of 9 are PC gamers), saying just 1% is absolutely ludicrous. 30%, or 45million out of those 150million are almost certainly gamers. That is 2.7billion lost in revenue(obviously not all of those people are going to be buying the same game, but you get the point by now I'm sure). Again, financial suicide to alienate that many people.

And also, you completely missed the part where I mention that people have been talking about PC gaming going all digital for at least the last 5 years, and we are really no closer to it then we were back then. The only publishers that have done so, are the smaller, indy ones, or games that are funded via kickstarter. And even some of those eventually release physical copies(Divinity Original sin, Amnesia are two right off the top of my head). Again, look at the backlash that got that idiot from Micrsofts Xbox division fired. That was only a year and a half ago. Nothings changed since then. We may be "eventually" moving towards an all-digital format, but that time is at least a decade or more away. If it does come before then, I'll publicly post that I was wrong on this and GITP forums, but I'm more then willing to bet that if I'm right and it doesn't happen till then, not a single person that's argued with me over it will do the same. In the end, only time will tell though. I'm going to drop the subject in this thread though, because I honestly feel your entire post was highly condescending, felt you were trying to talk to me as though I was a child, and I can honestly feel myself getting quite irritated, and this really isn't something worth getting ticked off over. None of us can give definitive proof that the others opinion is right or wrong. Even the statistics I've posted can't give a clear indication.

yes it alienates some people, but its no companies job to make sure every single person can use their product, its go the direction that best benefits them as a company, and that route in the PC market is digital


around 40% of Canada (at least, last time i heard numbers) no longer subscribes to cable or internet packages..are TV channels or providers worried about those people? no, because they know its not their duty to make sure everyone can enjoy a product the same.. if it was a company's duty to make sure everyone could experience a product in the same manner, you wouldn't have that data cap at all..


and if you have issues trying to DL it at home, there are numerous alternatives that mentioned in my previous post.. or, switch to console gaming..

yes, some of those people in your statistic may very well be PC Gamers that have issues getting games, but there are also alot of Game of Thrones fans who can't get HBO..


like I said, its no companies obligation to make sure every single person can enjoy their product the same, its to do whats best for them as a company in the long run.. as DEFRON said, sure some PC gamers may have internet issues, but the majority either have stable internet, are willing to pay a little overage once in awhile, or utilize any of the alternative methods i mentioned in my prior post.. that is exactly what DEFRON meant when he said "Target Audience"


as for your "we are no closer to all digital" statement, go read what i said about EBGames which is the largest retailer in the country, other than a small number of recent AAA titles and games appearing to be left over from when StarForce DRM was still the popular choice, their PC gaming sections are non-existent except for Mice and Keyboards. this is why they are opening up Steam Sections, where they are going to sell product codes for steam games, because they make no profit from steam Wallet cards and realize with the lack of physical releases they are losing out on money from the PC audience.

as for the uproar from that XBox decision you mentioned, your ignoring the fact that the Average Console Consumer is different from the Average PC consumer.. sure many people enjoy both, and they are both gamers, but there is still a thing called "target audience", even if some people outside that target still enjoy the product..


and finally, no its not only indie games or kickstarter games that no longer have physical releases.. let me look at my steam list.. Okay, heres a good one, Valkyria Chronicles, a extremely popular and critically acclaimed game made and published by a major studio, sure the PS3 had a physical version, but the PC never got one.. lets look at another shall we? Mortal Kombat X, arguably one of the most well known fighting franchises, pretty sure it never got a physical PC release although it did for the consoles..



I know this isn't what you want to hear, but its how things are