« G4 Disses Every MMO To Come Out After WoW | Home | How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps »
Why I Don’t Buy Digital Downloads
By Cameron Sorden | November 28, 2007
There’s an interesting article over at MMOCrunch today. You can go read the article if you want the full story, but to make things short and easy, here’s what happened: Guy gets into IGN beta and agrees to NDA. Guy violates NDA. IGN removes beta access. That would be fine if this were the end of it. But there’s more (from MMOCrunch):
“This is a warning that any more such actions on your part to violate the User Agreement of IGN or any of our partners, or the law under which we are bound to sell games on the internet will result in the immediate termination of your account and void all access to it without refund.ā€¯
So, should this person reveal any more information theyā€™ll automatically take away any games he has purchased through IGNā€™s own Direct2Drive service (of which he has 20).
This is just one of the many reasons why I’m still not comfortable with buying download-only games, even in this day and age of high bandwidth and immediate satisfaction. Ignoring downloading issues, poor support options, accounts expiring, and lost or forgotten passwords, there’s still the issue of what happens when the company decides to cancel your account and deny you access. Is a digital download even covered under the uniform commercial code?
Sure, the guy was violating his beta NDA (a big no no), but that’s got nothing to do with his overall IGN account. Who even knows if the story is true, honestly? He might just be blowing smoke because he’s angry about getting banned. The actual e-mail from IGN doesn’t say anything about his digital downloads. Still, this is the kind of thing that worries me as a consumer.
MMORPGs are a horse of a different color (seeing as you can’t play them without a connection anyway), but as far as my single-player games are concerned, I like the security of knowing that my game discs will be every bit as capable of installing the game and letting me enjoy it ten years down the line as they were the day I bought it. You never know when a company might unexpectedly fold, and I don’t like the idea of having all the games I bought sink with it.
Until they can find a way to make digital downloads as reliable as a game disc or better (game discs can scratch or wear, after all), I’ll be sticking with good old CDs and DVDs. There’s even an added bonus to being stuck in my ways– I get to have an impressive wall o’ game boxes next to my PC. What does that do for me? Instant geek credit, of course.
Topics: technical advice, whining |
November 28th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I love the concept of digital downloads. I own every campaign for Guild Wars and the new expansion. I only have the box for Prophecies. But then, ArenaNet has their own online store to get GW stuff so that’s a different ball game.
Half-Life 2 (actually everything contained in the Orange Box) I bought from Steam. I love it, wish more games were on Steam quite frankly.
Then we have Direct2Drive. IGN… ugh… I did get Planetside from them last year because well, it’s not like boxes are in stores or anything. I also got World in Conflict from them a couple weeks ago but only because WIC isn’t available from any other digital service. I’m not really keen on the way D2D packages their stuff and WIC just screams to be on Steam. /frown
I have so much geek credit from boxes it’s way past the point of ridiculousness now. I have boxes boxed away in the closet. I have boxes on my desk shelves. I have boxes in storage in my mother’s basement across the country. I don’t need boxes anymore I just want to play the damn games without cluttering my house.
Even Xbox Live players have the opportunity to play Tomb Raider: Anniversary as a downloadable game (if they already own TR:Legend) vs. buying a new dvd (and provided they have the hdd space). Box sales will never go away but digital distribution will become hugely popular, and soon. Just a matter of getting the fine print right. I’m happy with Steam’s system so far (the experience itself, no idea what their EULA, ToS, etc. are) and the community/chat integration is an added plus.