Good morning/afternoon/evening, it's Tuesday night and I'm here wearing out my Mac after a long day at work, so whether or not this will be long depends on my energy. I also wish to close this topic because I have a REALLY good one for this weekend that EVERYONE will want to participate in. Anyway to start:

I've posed a question in my last post in which I asked my fellow Gamespot bloggers regarding the growing trend of utilizing digital distribution services rather than continuing to travel to brick-and-mortar stores for their games. I also asked my fellow gamers to list what digital distribution services they use (if any) and if not to list a reason why. Now I admit that I posted it pretty late on a Friday night (you know, when everyone besides me is usually having lives) so I didn't expect many responses. I have gotten some very well-thought-out answers so without further ado I would like to give shortened versions and address them in length.

YukoAsho: "I'm not sure if DD's the way to go, really. People outside of the gaming elite have mostly experienced DD via mobile phones and especially the iPhone. I can't imagine those people being willing to pay more than a few bucks for a game...for DD to outright replace (rather than compliment) physical distribution, prices have to go down. Way down".

That's true, and before I reply to the above Yuko also gave a good example of Apple and other content providers setting the standard regarding pricing for downloadable media onto phones and other hardware which you can view on my previous post. Now to emphasize: content providers such as Verizon and especially Apple have truly spoiled not only casual media consumers but the hardcore as well with low-cost apps. Case in point: it's certainly easy for a gamer interested in the latest Crystal Defenders release to pay $8.00 USD for a full package directly to a phone or even a device like the iPod touch than for others to pay $8.00 USD for each piece on Nintendo's WiiWare service. Or to take it further: to today's consumer, $4.99-$9.99 USD for a game such a Puzzle Quest Galactrix or Asphalt 5 will be a more reasonable price than if a shrunken version of a modern hardcore game such as Halo, Call of Duty or a Final Fantasy game was offered for a $29.99 USD price tag. With current prices staying the way they are I can see a negative trend occurring - mainly that hardcore game developers may scale back on their visions as well as funds for future titles in order to compete against the casual developers for attention with low-priced but stripped-down software. Is this really what hardcore gamers want, or maybe we're getting too old to care?

Let's turn next to 6h05tly who emphasized on the age-old hobby of collecting physical media:

"...I much prefer in my gaming experience to own a physical copy either as a reminder of my gaming passion or as a new entry for my gaming collection...As for other media such as music and movies, I'm more comfortable buying the discs/DVDs/etc. since my philosophy in this matter is that you are at ease when you finally found the one thing that made you whole, rather than the fear of losing your DLC via storage/memory corruption. This in fact has worried me since I do have downloadable games from my Wii and Xbox 360...all that hard work of storing your media and later it vanishes, just like that."

Well thank you for reminding me about my first loss of legally purchased Napster music back in early 2004 ($160.00 USD of LEGAL music that I'll never see again...) . In any case, I have to agree that there are some games that come with beautiful cases and/or instruction booklets that not only look great on the shelf but also instill the "pride-of-ownership" mentality (some examples include the Final Fantasy remakes for the DS, the upcoming Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and several others). Of course the issue of space comes to mind eventually as collections expand, but for hardcore gamers it never seems to be a problem.I'll add that it's true that actually owning a physical copy gives you a greater license of utilization than being "granted" a license to own groups of intangible, fragile and some times irreplaceable code (Steam games, Xbox Live, PSN, WiiWare). It's hard to be able to re-download your purchased software should there be any hardware malfunctions; even your WiiWare/Virtual Console purchases aren't guaranteed to be returned to you should your Wii suffer a permanent malfunction. With Xbox Live and PSN there are better plans in place should your hardware "brick" but I'm not exactly sure. If someone knows more than please send a PM.

I will admit though that while I do enjoy having my DSi filled with fun downloaded quick games for my commute, there's certainly benefits to having a large collection of games to flip through and admire now and then - not unlike admiring a stamp collection, because of the memories and owner's pride. However, what can we do if there's little else to physically collect? Will it be time to start a new hobby?

Last but not least we have Templetriowho briefly discloses his best experiences with the most established distribution client we have:

"My best experiences with digital download invole the use of Steam. I was with Steam since the bad 'ol days when it first launched, it was actually the reason I stopped playing Counterstrike back in 20012002 (yes, that bad). Steam eventually made something of itself and it is very user friendly now, I am very happy with how the service works these days. Steam keeps all my games up to date, although it's not fun when you first install a game and it takes hours and hours of updating before you can play, but after that it is pretty smooth sailing."

I have to say that so far Steam proven to be one of the most reasonable of all of the distribution services available. As Templetrio stated in his comment in my previous post, Steam has grown from a buggy, infuriating, headache-inducing online store/distribution service (Half-Life 2, anyone?) into a model that console manufacturers should attempt to emulate. The weekend deals, packaged software (for example, every game in the Orange Box plus the original Half Life 2 for only $29.99 USD...looks like my Mac will get a break this weekend while my Vista PC can shake off some dust) definitely make Steam the leader in content distribution, but there are some issues with most games requiring an open internet connection in order for the service to update before a user can play a game offline. In my case, it was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but the game refused to let me play the game with my wireless antenna turned off until I found the option buried in the Steam client to enable offline mode. From reading entries in Wikipedia and other sites, Steam usually doesn't offer this luxury, especially if the game that the user wnats to play is built mainly to be played online and be updated regularly.

To conclude: PC gamers and Xbox 360 owners seems to have little to fear if the vast majority of developers decide to take the digital-only plunge as they have backup strategies in place for when gamers lose their media. Retail stores will attempted to slow this trend, and some of them have (read Gamasutra's Joe Ludwig's article entitled Gamestop vs. Digital Distribution) for one of the many roadblocks developers and distributors have to contend with in attempting to realize their future goals. Whether we're ready or not to relinquish our physical media for the sake of convenience or lesser distribution costs depends on sound pricing structures, quality of the distribution service (as stated above, even Steam has it's flaws) and most of all, the overall quality and variety of the games. For the moment at least, it seems like gamers are a whole must "go along for the ride" and take a wait-and-see approach as to which services fail and which will be the true standard for the next generation of consoles. Will Sony and Microsoft duplicate Valve's Steam model or will they still rely on proprietary services with their own flaws?

That's it for the topic of digital distribution. Now if you excuse me, I want to watch "A Day in the Life of A Turret" again and get my older computer ready for the Orange Box. Thanks for your participation and see you this weekend.

James