I remember when I first started playing electronic games. I was 8 year`s old. My dad was obsessed with getting the high score on Pac-man at our local arcade. So, Pop`s took me along for the trip. This is when my own obsession started. I loved the arcade. Dad was on Pac-man, I was on Punch out, Karate champ, Pro wrestling or whatever it was called. Then Double dragon, Slaughterhouse, TMNT arcade and T2.
I finally got an NES for christmas. Final fantasy, Metal gear, Zelda. The list could go on forever. I owned pretty much every console upto the Dreamcast. That was my last console. I then graduated to the PC. I don`t have any of my console games anymore, I have most of my PC games.
Electronic games have been my hobby(obsession) all my life. I`ve always felt like all of them were small treasure`s. I collect games. Not just for the games, The boxes and manuel`s too. I love adding new boxes too my collection. I love looking at the artwork on the cover. I really enjoy holding the boxes and reading the description`s on the back. I buy classic PC games on Amazon. I do it just so I can have the "mint" condition boxes and manuel`s. I pay a "mint" price for them too.
The point of this post is this. I`m not going to be able to continue this hobby much longer. Digital distribution is the way of the future. I`m not going to be able to get those fancy boxes anymore. EB games(In Canada,Gamestop in the state`s I think) PC selection get`s smaller by the week. They might as well just get rid of the PC section cause there`s nothing there anymore. This bother`s me alot. My games, Are my library. Imagine a library without any new book`s, This is how I feel.
I guess this show`s my age, I`m 31. The younger generation is being raised on digital distribution, The console`s are going this way too.
Am I alone in feeling this way? It`s the end of an Era...
EB Games isn't the only PC game retailer. Best Buy, Fry's, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Play.com, GoGamer, etc. still have generous PC game offerings.Every new PC game is being shipped in slim DVD cases. You might get a quick start guide if you're lucky; the manual will likely be a PDF file. Over the years, I've watched games go from big boxes --> miniboxes --> DVD sleeves.Special editions are the only way to get the goodies these days.If retail wasn't 20-40% cheaper than digital games (excluding insane weekend deals), I'd write it off altogether.But yeah, I do miss the good ol' days of awesome packaging and detailed manuals. Still have my SimCity 2000 box sitting on my bookshelf
There will be a market for boxed games for quite awhile yet, but you won't necessarily get them at the same place. Publishers are moving toward selling "special boxed editions" online instead of selling them retail.
First game I ever bought was Civil War Generals II; then Caesar II, then Age of Empires II: The Conquerors (which is when I realized what PC gaming could be - and has been evolving into). I've never owned a console. In one of the back rooms is a stack of old game boxes and manuals and I still go through them sometimes and remember them fondly. But now I order stuff exclusively through Steam/Impulse/D2D. It's just easier for me, and the retail versions of games aren't what they were. Sins of a Solar Empire was the last PC game I will ever buy boxed (and funny enough, if I'd ordered it online I would have gotten nice goodies). The physical Sins manual was kinda fun but now it's massively outdated anyway (hurray for post-release support!).
/my 2 cents
Your definatly not alone in feeling nostalgic about the good ole days of gameing. I'm with ya there. I read your above post and I thought, wow, I know exactly how you feel! I'm a few years older, 38. And your post made me remember the first video game my brother and I got when we were kids. I do not remember the name of the console, but I can describe it. It was in the shape of a triangle. The games were cartridge-like but small and triangle shaped, 4 inches by 4 inches maybe, that kliked on to the top of the console. Each side of the console was a diferent game. One side had two pong knobs, another side had a toy gun to shoot targets on screen and I think the last side had a steering wheel to drive a car that was basically the letter "I" and you avoided hitting other symbols. I mean "pong", dot shooting, and symbol avoiding. Woa, look out, high tech. And we loved it!
The end of an era, true. But, the start of a new one as well!
Valkajin
Yes I feel betrayed by Ebgames as well, ever since Gamestop bought them out they shifted focus. I mean a PS3 is hard to compete with, but nothing beats the depth of a PC games.
I remeber the good ol days too of Electronics Boutique, and Egghead Software. Then Computer City, and Comp USA.
I loved it when certain games like Falcon 4.0 gave you something like a folder with a nicely detailed manual (I felt like I could jump into a real Faclon and maybe even shoot another fighter down =-p), I still have it BTW.
I mean HAWX is pretty, but the arcadish feel is a deal breaker for me.
While I welcome the Digital aspect of buying games, nothing beats a printed manual that is good quality. One major gripe is that the price is still the same. I think it is unfair because the publishing cost have to be a fraction of what there were, isn't that how Stardock competes with EA? Then they could cut us some slack and be $10 cheaper than a retail box.
Here in Europe Steam just shot itself in the face with a new pricing system where they pretty much changed all products prices from dollars to euros using this system:
1 $ = 1 €
Meaning that empire total war is now 49.99 € while you can get it in a normal webbased stores for 33,55 €.
Thats a difference for 16 € or nearly 22 $ !!!!
AND you get the game in DVD form which can be added to your steamlist without any troubles, so its pretty much the exact same product.
If you are looking at the difference in price to a local retail the difference is still 8½ $ in the retail stores favour.
Steam just singlehandedly revigorated retail stores in Europe. Now I know steam don't price their products themselves but their publushing partners do, but they should have known this, they should have warned the publishers. Clearly, we are dealing with a bunch of troglodytes.
I plan to be using Impluse as much as possible from now on, as long as they are cheaper than retail and have a great range of products.
thats my 2 cents
In the long term yes, digital distribution is probably going to be how it all is. Reason is partially because it's a little cheaper, but mainly because of convenience. When net connections are of a speed that you can get a game downloaded in 5 minutes or less, people aren't going to want to go to the store. They'll want it delivered right now.
However, that is going to be a good long while in coming. While GameStop hates PC gaming it seems, many places still have lots of shelf space for it. Best Buy has an entire isle for PC games including major titles, casual games, edutainment and so on. That's about the same amount of space any of the consoles have. At Target, it's about the same deal. So while some stores, notably GameStop’s group, have decided to pretty much (or even entirely) get rid of PC games, that's not universal.
It'll be a long while before digital distribution is the main way of getting games, and longer still before it is the only way. At this point, net connections have to get much faster. It can literally take people days to download a game, and many don't want to wait. On the other side of that is that the distributors have to be able to deal with it. Impulse seems to work great, giving full speed downloads, but Steam is badly overloaded. I rarely get better than 100kbytes/sec from Steam.
So you won't start to see a wholesale movement over to digital distribution until it has progressed to the point of being faster than going to the store. Once you can get pretty much instant gratification, then it is likely to start to squash out retail sales.
Though you never know, many people like owning physical goods. I know plenty of people who buy CDs in addition to or instead of online music because they want the actual disc, even though they listen only on an MP3 player and computer.
At this point, it sounds like you just need to find a better store. I'd check your local general stores (like Target, Wal-Mart and such) and electronics stores (like Best Buy). One or more of them is likely to have a large PC games selection.
The title of my post may have been a little misleading. I`ve been to all the store`s mentioned above, It`s not that I just can`t find PC game`s at retail anymore. It`s the quality in which theyre released. Example, Call of Duty 4, It came in a box when I purchased it. It included a DVD jewel case and a 10 page install, Keyboard layout guide. That left me feeling a little empty. I would use Baldur`s gate 2 as a comparison. It included a 260 pg spiral bound manual and a map. The elder scroll`s Morrowind and each of it`s 2 expansion`s include a Full color map of the new territory. I love those pack in`s. It`s not the retailer`s, It`s the publisher`s who decide too release game`s in as stripped down state as possible.
My issue with retail is that it won`t be around for much longer. I won`t even be able to get that stripped down COD4 box anymore. I`ve bought alot of game`s from Steam. A couple from impulse and a few EU game`s from gamer`s gate. I like the convinence of digital distribution. I love looking at my Boxed game collection. It`s like collecting comic book`s. The digital version of a great Batman issue isn`t worth alot. Looking at the boxed version`s of great game`s I`ve played is worth alot to me.
A while back I started a topic called "Where has the value add gone" with the subtitles of "Dude where's my cloth map?". I too think like you, however the overwhelming response and thus the will of the forums is that we're wrong. We're wrong to want our Microprose 'black box' games, we're wrong to expect a full god damn manual in the retail packaging, we're wrong to not accept the crappy DVD jewlcases as 'normal' and we're completley and utterly wrong to want high quality pressed CD's (not ones with cheap and easy to scratch bottom layers).
Retail will eventually die for the PC. As it stands, it's the only machine which allows itself to be plugged in to content distribution systems AND has the raw storage capacity to pull it off, I too think that the next incarnation of the Wii, PlayStation and XBox will have their internal storage heavily boosted and plugged in to their respective owners digital content feed.
What irks me is that digital downloads isn't seen by publishers as a way to remove the idiocies of DRM (and by DRM in this case I mean limited activations, limited installs and similar) its seen as ANOTHER layer of DRM they can add to the game. So not only are you locked in to that publishers content system (or their chossen 3rd party) but you still have all the fun and games you did previously. I can clearly see a day in the near future, when people are faced with a game they've paid for, used repatedly and quite like, refusing to download on their new system due to a limiter the publishers have placed on it.
I'm also, to a degree, against digital distribution as they seem to be taking programming shortcuts (.net) and it locks me in to a specific OS (Windows) making it harder to me to use things like (DAR)WINE to run games on a different OS (OS X and Linux respectivley).
GG and GOG are client free, so assuming they haven't snuck any .net into the account page somewhere you shouldn't have that problem any longer; the GG games I've downloaded since they dropped the client last month were both zip archives. I'd assume more distributors will probably follow suit too.
I find it interesting that Steam will be the only major digital distributor still forcing you to use a client. Once GG dropped their client, I actually became interested in buying from them.I think special editions can be to the videogame industry what vinyl records are to the music industry. Vinyl sales are actually booming, despite the huge growth in digital sales. Many records even come with a code so you can also download the mp3 files. With vinyl, you get a nice record, the mp3 files, album artwork, inserts, etc. Plus you can't really pirate an album, right?
I don't think there will be a day where it's common-place for people to not be able to use the games they've bought. There's already been outcry about draconian DRM like starforce or limited activations with little to no way to replace them. Piracy and DRM are reaching a tipping point and I think programs like Steam and Impulse will become the norm for distribution and DRM since it's impossible to keep pirates from cracking and distributing games for free. These are reasonable practices, imo. Yes, Steam requires internet to play(or setup offline mode) and to be running, but things like that will be tweaked if gamers are truly against it(not just saying it, but actually showing it by not buying products that use steam).
You also can't complain that a game made for Windows use windows applications and doesn't work well on non windows machines. That's like saying I don't like non-desiel cars because they don't work with desiel. They weren't designed to run that way, so why should I expect them to?
On the topic of the OP - I find no nostalgia in my old PC games boxes. I haven't bought a boxed PC game in over 3 years and I feel I've lost nothing in the process and gained tremendous convience by purchasing things digitally.
Actually, there are some very good reasons to roll your own outside of "run on other OS's". The first being, to use the example of .net. Which version? v1, v2.x, v3, v3.x or a newer flavour I'm not as yet aware of? What happens when Microsoft retires the runtime components of the earlier version? What happens when you discover that some of the API functions in the latest version don't quite spit out the same thing as they did previously? IE is another fine example, bolt in to its DLL's and rendering engine then find the latest version does things in a never before seen way, with no warning from Microsoft this change was hitting you. Your working application is now horribly broken. The customer blames you, you look like a fool.
Better to do the leg work, roll your own and then your only reliant on the glacial progress of the basic Windows API's rather than any bolt ons to it (even Vista still has some Win16 API functions avaliable).
And finally, yes, yes I can complain that a Windows program doesn't run in WINE. It should.
I find my boxed games irksome sometimes too. But then I remember than I'm beholden to no content system to run them (I have a RW full of retail version noCD cracks I keep tucked away for future yse). The lifespan of a product avaliable on say Steam has yet to be proven, it's still a very new system.
I can't argue with your first point. I don't know the specifics of designing a program to files to work with already present software vs developing your own. However, Wine isn't made or supported by Microsoft. How you could expect games to run flawlessly on a third party software is beyond me.
Again, no arguments. If people are against that practices used by Steam then they should say that through their wallets. I personally havn't bought games that use Steam but I have no problems with Impulse or Direct2Drive.
I didn't buy Empire: Total War simply because of the Steam requirements, which is saying something as I've bought every single Total War product released since Shogun. Frankly, I found the sudden requirment for to install redundant third party software a slap in the face to long time supporters of the series.
I don't. Flawlessly that is. However if you use standard, documented API calls in Windows and all of the commonly used DirectX9c API calls. It should work near flawlessly in WINE. If it doesn't work at all then you've gone off the beaten track, using an uncommon call or more commonly you've got a whacking great bug in your code (simple example function should return 1, you assume it returns -1 further on in the code).
Sins works in WINE (to a degree). Impulse, doesn't as it requires .net 2.0. If it was built from the ground up it would quite probably also work in WINE.
How do you think i feel. i live in a town that has a population of 12,000 (more or less). We have three places that sell video games (one of which is a second hand store, and another a K-Mart). And the third place is the only one that sells PC games and only has 7X8 shelf for them, half of which are Starcraft and Diablo 2. And for those wondering how backwater my hometown is, its actually biggest commercial hub between Pendleton and Portland in Nothern Oregon (cause of all the little towns around us). We got (i think) 8 car dealerships at least!
Do you know how long i had to wait to buy a copy of Gal Civ 2? EIGHT MONTHES! I about tempted to order a copy.
Needless to say i feel that PC games in general are treated as the redheaded stepchild of Gaming(no offense to any redheaded stepchildren).
I do agree that PC games are dying at retail - when I go to have a browse in shops the PC section is very often ten-year-old games being sold at 3 for £10 (is there really anyone left that still needs to buy a budget box version of Theme Park?), plus of course the ubiquitous World of Warcraft.
But I hate shopping, so I don't care. If I can have something to delivered to me off the internet it's less hassle and often cheaper.
Also I would have thought that .Net should make porting programs easier. Ok, not for the specific case of Wine, but in general managed code is going to be easier to port than native code. Meanwhile the other benefits that .Net (or, hey, the JVM, why not) provides likely outweigh the small Linux market if you're a desktop developer.
I mean, what exactly is the alternative? Are we all to be forever programming in some twilight 80s world of GCC and Emacs?
'Write once, debug everywhere'.
ROFL
Truth be told, it's been a damn long time since I bought a PC game from a shop. I order off the internet almost exclusively - cheaper, easier, less head ache.
[quote]I do agree that PC games are dying at retail - when I go to have a browse in shops the PC section is very often ten-year-old games being sold at 3 for £10 (is there really anyone left that still needs to buy a budget box version of Theme Park?), plus of course the ubiquitous World of Warcraft.[quote]
Yes, WoW seems to be the one exception to the 'no PC games' line. In all the stores there is a line of GTC's, WoW boxes and the expansion packs. Some rather dusty.
It depends. Porting managed code can be tricky when you throw something proprietry in to the mix like .Net. The only place you find a fully functional .Net system is Windows (and then you run in to issues as described above). Whilst Mono is trying, it's really not a 1:1 compatible widget yet (possibly never). Of course I could level the same sort of complaint at ObjC and Cocoa for OS X. Oddly enough a Java app should be the easiest to port to well any of the big three OS's, assuming you go through the VM for everything.
I'm not waving a Linux flag either. I point you to the 6% market share (and rising), EA games appearing via Transgaming's Cider... the Mac. The newest viable gaming platform. It can't do .net or present IE DLL's either.
Considering your GCC comment for a momment. You realise that Oracle, DB2, Geneva and a whole host of super-heavy weight applications and Operating Systems are compiled with GCC right? And that it supports every arch from 68000 through to x86 yes? To be honest, if it's good enough to be used by them then it's good enough for small fry... like Electronic Arts.
And nice try, but I'm not about to start a Vi, EMACS, nano flame war Seriously though there are plenty of graphical IDE's out there for developers to use, some open source some not.
TBH, I perfer having a box rather than downloading a game online, call me old fashioned I like something to hold on to, that is probably when I was so opposed in getting entrenchment in the first place. Most of my steam games I got from boxed dvd's , and I don't really mind paying a little extra for a good hard box, means that I can re-install without internet
I dont remember EB games very well, but were they big on PC gaming? I know Gamestop isnt. I saw they had the original Medieval: Total war on their shelf. Why do they hate PC gaming?
At least Fry's is the opposite. They have large PC game sections that are a lot bigger than console sections.
Gamestop makes most of its money from used game sales. PC games are not conductive to that. As a PC game purchaser, I fail to see the problem with Gamestop only carrying a shelf or two of PC games. There are plenty of better ways to purchase PC games.
If developpers (as in programmers & coders & designers) can cut their titles manufacturing cost sooooooo much by going the digital ways for distribution instead of sharing (handing over, maybe) HUGE chunks of some profits to WallyMarty & who else in order to give gamers, faster, better more innovative products -- i'd say, to hell with nostalgia - get a good printer - slam a PDF into it and keep flipping precious pages.
And don't start me on the precepts or modern ways of 'Transfering the cost to consumers' objections that are even today in the third Millenium somehow rational, reasonable or otherwise - cuz, it doesn't compute fast enough to justify, this;
Quality is a result.
To which i can only answer; CoBol & Asm mnemonics.
99.5% of the infrastructure is ALL there, 75% of coders worldwide only swear by those two, and third level generation alternatives serve as any given OS backbones locomotive. That push rather than shove or innovate.
Side note, EB still exists, they're just a subsidiary of GS now. So the stores are basically identical.
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