Lack of P.C game shops.

Usukane

Gold Level Poster
I do remember at the time, all the fingers were being pointed at illegal downloading of media & being priced out of the market by online sites. But for sure the recession has put a pewp load of companies out of business. It certainly hasn't helped places like HMV as they usually rake the money in at Christmas time. Companies like ASDA had no issues as everyone still has to eat, but anything considered non-essential, trading hit the floor.

But nobody wants to talk politics on forums, so my on topic comment will be;

GAME, Electronics Boutique, HMV, Gamestation etc have little to no PC section. There's usually a small shelf of chart games, then a couple of shelves of pick'n'mix. Then you see the rest of the stock in bargain bins with dog-eared boxes.
 

onlynik

Enthusiast
I prefer to have a physical copy of a game, but in the case of Dead Island, it was £10 cheaper on Steam, so i went for that instead. Usually steam is more expensive, so i usually opt for Amazon.

You can't play Dead Island with Steam in Offline mode. Which is frankly pish.
 

Corfate

Author Level
You can't play Dead Island with Steam in Offline mode. Which is frankly pish.

Any games that are connected to steam you can't play offline, i don't think... I'm probably wrong.

It'll be a mix of the recession and of downloads. Im not on about illegal downloads, which will play a part, but iTunes and Amazon Mp3 etc, it's so much more convenient to download off the web than have to go out to a shop, which many people choose not to do and just use the internet these days.
 

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
Any games that are connected to steam you can't play offline, i don't think... I'm probably wrong.

It'll be a mix of the recession and of downloads. Im not on about illegal downloads, which will play a part, but iTunes and Amazon Mp3 etc, it's so much more convenient to download off the web than have to go out to a shop, which many people choose not to do and just use the internet these days.

Yes youre wrong lol :D
 

Fear

Prolific Poster
Yes youre wrong lol :D

Not in every case and also unless you have steam setup to allow you to boot it up in offline mode to play the games then you are yet again in trouble or so i found out when i could not play Fallout NV a couple of weeks ago.
 

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
Not in every case and also unless you have steam setup to allow you to boot it up in offline mode to play the games then you are yet again in trouble or so i found out when i could not play Fallout NV a couple of weeks ago.

No i know tht all dont play offline however he was wrong saying tht none can be played offline lol
 

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
This is 1 of the many reasons i hate steam

Generally (there are some exceptions) the games that have to be connected normally have to be connected anyway, what i mean is theres some games (not on steam) which require an internet connection at all times as part of their authentication.

As much as I disliek this, we are starting to live in a world where everything is connected to the internet and soon it really wont make a difference as everywhere you go your computer / phone / electronic device, will be connected to the net.
 

Fear

Prolific Poster
Generally (there are some exceptions) the games that have to be connected normally have to be connected anyway, what i mean is theres some games (not on steam) which require an internet connection at all times as part of their authentication.

As much as I disliek this, we are starting to live in a world where everything is connected to the internet and soon it really wont make a difference as everywhere you go your computer / phone / electronic device, will be connected to the net.

Very true some of it i don't mind like where your game saves are kept online but i hate it when that goes wrong as i have lost hours of gameplay when the online servers have gone down and you close the game but only find out this after your game is closed and it's then already too late, because of that i once lost 8 straight hours of AC2 :(
 

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
Very true some of it i don't mind like where your game saves are kept online but i hate it when that goes wrong as i have lost hours of gameplay when the online servers have gone down and you close the game but only find out this after your game is closed and it's then already too late, because of that i once lost 8 straight hours of AC2 :(

thats more than likley a bug though, cus if it cant access servers it should save locally and upload next time it connects to the cloud.
 

Fear

Prolific Poster
thats more than likley a bug though, cus if it cant access servers it should save locally and upload next time it connects to the cloud.

I should have made that more clear it was the ubisoft server that was down so nothing to do with steam, i only put the games on steam that force me to do it and AC series don't :D
 

Dayve

Well-known member
And as usual it's the paying customers who suffer. Do you think the people who download the games illegally have to worry about being connected to the internet to play them, or have to worry about a ridiculous 5-installs-only copywright protection on their game disks?

I think most companies have abandoned the 5-installs-only copyright protection now but if I were to buy a game disk and a few years later try to install it only to be told I'd had my 5 installs and couldn't play it anymore then I know what website I'd be heading to. It rhymes with shmirate shmay.
 

onlynik

Enthusiast
This is 1 of the many reasons i hate steam

Why it's not Steam (or Valve's) fault the programmers can't sort hteir game out.

When I'm away I don't always get a internet connection, so I play a lot of games throught Steam in offline mode. Wanted to play Dead Island the other day, but the comms kept dropping so I had to play other games.
 

onlynik

Enthusiast
And as usual it's the paying customers who suffer. Do you think the people who download the games illegally have to worry about being connected to the internet to play them, or have to worry about a ridiculous 5-installs-only copywright protection on their game disks?

I think most companies have abandoned the 5-installs-only copyright protection now but if I were to buy a game disk and a few years later try to install it only to be told I'd had my 5 installs and couldn't play it anymore then I know what website I'd be heading to. It rhymes with shmirate shmay.

Tottally agree, the only people that are affected by copy protection are the genuine paying customers.

WHen EA release Spore it was a 3 install maximun, and IIRC TDU2 has a 5 install maximum.
 

MeveM

Bright Spark
I dont think its as muchy to dow ith downloads though, because ps3 games and xbox games can also be downloaded. Its more to do with the shear number of people buying console games vs pc games.

The console industry is a lot bigger than the pc industry, thats really the only reason shops dont sell them. Downloading I dont see as mcuh of an issue, look at music, HMV hasnt got rid of cd isles because iTunes or others let you buy online.

Depends. Singleplayer yes, online games no. Britain is a console country, other countries in Europe aren't. Sweden is a PC dominated country where the console shelves are shoved in the back of the shops.
 

MeveM

Bright Spark
The digital copies annoy me, I've now lost my Blood Bowl game because it only had 3 installs, installed it on my PC, my laptop, and reinstalled it on my PC after I formated and installed windows 7 instead of vista. I now don't have it for my new PC. So I downloaded it and I don't feel bad for it what so ever, since I've already paid for their rubbish service.
 

DeadEyeDuk

Superhero Level Poster
I might be wrong here, but the "limited installs" thing isn't unique to digital copies? I thought even if you have a physical bit of software in your hands, it can still have limited installs?
 
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