Winds of Digital Distribution
by Matias Peltonen | Thursday 27th May 2010
Remember those times when you had to go to a video game store and see that the game you wanted to buy wasn't there because it was sold out?
Yeah, I remember it too. But you know you don't have to do that anymore, right? You always have Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, Playstation
Store or what ever makes you feel good to make things much easier.
Digital distribution is on the rise and this has initiated numerous conversations on whether it really is a good thing or not. Collectors of course want their games in physical format but for most gamers, the digital way of life is a simple and faster way of obtaining titles immediately upon release.
It sounds like digital distribution is a dream come true right? Well it's not quite that simple. First of all, everyone should remember that digital platforms like Steam require a pretty fast internet connection. So if you are still using that 56k modem, you may be able to play these games in your next life, maybe. I recommend getting at least an 8Mbps ADSL connection so that if the need arises to download bigger games, you don't have to wait for a week to get a hold of them.
This talk of bigger games takes us to the next problem, the size of games today. Some people have a huge pile of games on their Steam-account, and if you are one of them, you are going to need a lot of space, and I do mean a LOT. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 is 6.37GB and it's not even one of the biggest games around. I'd have to suggest getting a 1TB hard drive, you can never have too much space!
After these problems are taken care of, you are ready for the miracles of digital distribution! Finally you can forget about checking all the stores in your town one by one, you can just buy the games you want and enjoy them immediately after they are released.
Digital distribution is on the rise and this has initiated numerous conversations on whether it really is a good thing or not. Collectors of course want their games in physical format but for most gamers, the digital way of life is a simple and faster way of obtaining titles immediately upon release.
It sounds like digital distribution is a dream come true right? Well it's not quite that simple. First of all, everyone should remember that digital platforms like Steam require a pretty fast internet connection. So if you are still using that 56k modem, you may be able to play these games in your next life, maybe. I recommend getting at least an 8Mbps ADSL connection so that if the need arises to download bigger games, you don't have to wait for a week to get a hold of them.
This talk of bigger games takes us to the next problem, the size of games today. Some people have a huge pile of games on their Steam-account, and if you are one of them, you are going to need a lot of space, and I do mean a LOT. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 is 6.37GB and it's not even one of the biggest games around. I'd have to suggest getting a 1TB hard drive, you can never have too much space!
After these problems are taken care of, you are ready for the miracles of digital distribution! Finally you can forget about checking all the stores in your town one by one, you can just buy the games you want and enjoy them immediately after they are released.