05-02-2005, 01:44 AM
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#5
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Jack Burton 
Join Date: November 10, 2001
Location: Bathurst & Orange, in constant flux
Age: 38
Posts: 5,452
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hivetyrant:
Yeah, there is no way they will drop the price.
And lennon, I doubt you will be liking it so much when you monthly bandwidth is destroyed after buying a game
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That is the fault of the ISP, not the game designer. The fact is simply that the internet is a wonderful way to distribute games. Cheap, effective, fast. The distributors can basically guarantee that every copy that is downloaded is atleast tried, and - if they license with the internet in mind - possibly tried by multiple people; which they can't do with CDs - they can burn 100000 CDs, but they have no way of guaranteeing that all of those will be bought, or on the flip side that that is enough. As a consumer, I can't go down to Games Wizard and guarantee they'll have the game I want. The internet fixes that - the distributors put up a few servers (and, if they're smart, BitTorrent it), I can simply go to their website, pay their fee, and I've got the game. Every time. Guaranteed (since they should be able to tell if I didn't get the full file, and my account should thus stay open until I do).
The only part where it falls down is with the ISP. If they time limit me, I might not be able to get the game for a month. If they bandwidth limit me, I might not be able to get the game for a month (or, I might not be able to get anything else for a month). But that isn't something anyone but the ISPs can directly control, and it's not something ignoring it will fix. What the ISPs who do this need is a good kick in the pants. Something to start a mass exodus of the average consumer away from them, into the realms of those ISPs who aren't so evil.
With luck, Valve's move will be the start of that something.
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