Anyone else dislike/hate/rage digital only downloads?

i would of preferred it if Nintendo built into the wii or even the game cube a cartridge slot or set of cartridge slots that allowed you to play NES AND famicom games SNES and N64 games

or maybe even an add on like they did for the game cube to allow game boy advanced all the way to original game boy games to be played

hell they could of sold the emulator on the wii for 5.99 and satisfied everyone

what i hate the most is the forced re buying of games or movies i already own

like with DVD what made me replace my VHS collection was the extra features

 

The future probably is digital only, but I'd also expect that as people get more exposure to digital only they may find themselves just as disgruntled with losing what they paid for for ridiculous reasons as I am.

Even if it means offloading files to multiple SD cards and a master storage "safe" that is physical I'd be OK with it given no other alternative. But I sincerely doubt anyone will make it easy anytime soon. Do I understand why Microsoft forces me to put my disc in my 360 to run it off the HDD? Yes.

I can even understand Steam's DRM - to an extent. What I can't understand is my inability to completely secure what I own for as long as I desire ownership. That includes resale/trade/transfer. This also applies to movies, music, et al. I've already lost music I've paid for due to lack of a Rhapsody account and I don't feel like maintaining DRM ties to Rhapsody over a single song I will just rip from a CD or download from a torrent. I've already paid for my license, what does it matter to me how I acquire the data for which I'm licensed and in what format?

Example, I own Dead Space under Steam which I realize one day I will no longer own. I have no moral qualms with downloading Dead Space knowing that I've paid for it in full. Now that applies to the PC version and not 360 or PS3 which were done by different development teams IIRC. Why should we be treated like criminals for removing restrictions that prohibit us from using what fair use has granted us?

 

Seriously??
Most loose NES carts are worth less than $5. And a download? That doesn't cost ANYTHING to make or distribute? How's that worth more than $5? :banghead:

And YES, I'd want to pay 50c! That'd still be too much though! I can get 10 loose NES carts for under $5 on a good day. And those are carts! Resellable, haptic, real, destroyable, able to achieve a special place in my memory of things that I used to have around me. Not one of those disgusting, devalueing files on a lame hard drive! Excuse my language but many people before have said that 'the sad future is inevitable' and they were proven wrong.

Of course, if everyone just supports it and cares shit about maintaining a culture of things rather than intangible bullshit, then yes, the future is inevitable. But so is obesity if you say 'fuck it, with all these burgers it's inevitable" and just keep eating burgers while there's also plenty of healthy food that costs more.

I dislike downloads with no extend. I never spent a single cent on download-software and hopefully never will. Every cent is too much for what you get... what pisses me even more off is that sometimes there's just no choice. I keep playing free lite-versions of iPhone games because I do not want to spend the $4 for a worthless piece of bits and bytes. I'd probably spend $15 on a nicely physical media version though (i.e. fruit ninja, angry birds).

My main concern: It's INTANGIBLE. The future we live in makes us pay for stuff that does NOT EXIST. Ever since people began trading, they traded SOMETHING for SOMETHING. Nowadays we are supposed to trade SOMETHING (work, money, time) for NOTHING (producer spent 1x sunk cost, then multiplied the product to infinity for variable costs of 0,00000001% of the selling price, creating one hell of a record margin).

"It's convenient", "It's eco-friendly", "I just want to play the game so I don't care"
IT'S A FUCKING RIPOFF.

Back in the day, you paid for a THING. Now you pay for NO THING, but you still PAY. Something's missing in the equation!

/LE RANT

 

This.

I, like the rest, disliked digital downloads, but actually got used to Steam as I find it has some advantages, in my case I find it really practical to download the games and install them as they download, having everything synced with the cloud, managing online play easily, not having to worry about no-cd patches, etc.

But the main advantage for me, being located in a shitty ass country where there's a mandatory import tax of 60% on everything, and where current gen games at retail stores cost 3x times than in the US, is that I can get games LEGALLY and without complications and at decent prices.

I believe Steam, and other ddl games platforms have brought a good fight against piracy with their special discounts and sales, I've seen lots of PC gamers who used to pirate every single game they played, turn to Steam and now paying for the games instead of "stealing" them.

What I do find not cool, is ddl games that are priced exactly the same as their physical counterparts, I only buy games on Steam when they are on sale, the only ddl game exception I made and paid full price for it was Starcraft II through the Blizzard store on 2010, as I had no other way to play on the US servers back then.

 

I totally agree with the part of your post that I cut out, but...you realize that games are the exact same "worthless bits and bytes" whether they're downloaded or on a plastic disc that costs a fraction of a penny to make? There are good arguments against digital downloads that have already been made, but this doesn't exactly qualify as one.
Also, LOL @ paying $15 for shit games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.

 

Obviously it's not exactly the same, otherwise publishers wouldn't bother altering their distribution strategy.

It's a big difference to the consumer though, being able to sell/keep/store an item you paid for or just paying money for a license - or in other words, something that does not exist. I don't want to trade in my shopping experience for buying licenses online. It's like I'm losing money without noticing.

 

Technically, you're just paying money for a license even if you get a physical copy.
I do think that games distributed online should be cheaper than retail games, since it saves a lot of money in distribution, but on Steam - the biggest seller of downloadable retail games - the prices are exactly the same. It's bullshit.