CD or DVD

[brabee]

hell-angel said:
Nah, don't worry about it, we all make mistakes like that sometimes. I was just teasing.

It's ok, at least it improved my english a little bit
But back to the topic: DVD and everybody's happy

[avatar_58]

TerminX said:
I'd prefer to see it DVD only. Everyone without a DVD-ROM can get with the times and buy one like the rest of us did 5 years ago.

The truth is that most pre-made PCs that people buy from Dell, MDG, Alienware or whereever all come with DVD drives now, and if someone is custom building they would almost be guarunteed to pick DVD over a regular CDR drive.

I mean the only way you could not have a DVD drive is if your PC is outdated enough not to be able to run new games. So I seriously doubt those people are concerned with playing Serious Sam 2 or Prey

[FireFly]

avatar_58 said:
I mean the only way you could not have a DVD drive is if your PC is outdated enough not to be able to run new games. So I seriously doubt those people are concerned with playing Serious Sam 2 or Prey

Or you've upgraded your PC piecemeal but never bought a DVD drive.

[Van Hamies]

Floppy

[hell-angel]

Van Hamies said:
Floppy

Old, not funny and overused. Still, some of the best games I played I got on floppy's. (games like test drive and wackyweels. )

[Kalki]

hell-angel said:

hehe, good test then.

Nah, don't worry about it, we all make mistakes like that sometimes. I was just teasing.

You czechtease you!

[Malgon]

DVD for me (if I already haven't mentioned before )

D3 takes like 20 minutes to install because it has 3 CD's whereas Far CRY has 1 DVD and takes 3 minutes for a 3 Gig installation! Big difference if you ask me.

But honestly I don't see how people could still be using CD ROM's anymore. I upgraded to DVD maybe 3 years ago, and they were $80 Australian back then even. Hell you can get DVD Writers for that price over here!

But then again I buy CE's of games, and they pretty much always come on DVD.

500th post!

[hell-angel]

Today you can get internal DVD players for 23 Euros (I just checked one site so it can most likely be cheaper) that is about 27 Dollars I guess.

No excuse to not upgrad I say.

[Malgon]

My point exactly.

[Cerberus_e]

avatar_58 said:
I mean the only way you could not have a DVD drive is if your PC is outdated enough not to be able to run new games. So I seriously doubt those people are concerned with playing Serious Sam 2 or Prey

How do you explain all those Americans returning their game then because they don't have a DVD drive?

[Damien_Azreal]

The number of serious gamers in America with DVD players in much, MUCH, higher than the number of gamers without.

It's just a few returned copies is still a loss of profit, and publishers do'nt want a loss of profit.

Most of the people here in the states that will return a game becuase they didn't realize they needed a DVD drive, are not hardcore gamers.
They are common, average PC owners. Who happen to see something interesting on the shelf and think it looks like fun.
So they pick it up without even looking at requirments or anything. I watch it happen all the time. A kid tried to return a copy of Quake 4 here because it wouldn't run on his bradn new Hewlert Packard he just bought form Wal-Mart. He was throwing a fit and screamed at the clerk when they said that he couldn't return it because he had opened it.
He said something like "How am I supposed to know it wouldn't work on my computer?!"
I said "Look at the back of the box towards the bottom... where it says system requirements."

[Duke!]

And please 3 drealms give us a box out cardboard.
Like Fear or Doom 3 or Hl 2.
I hate this ugly DVD boxes.

[Damien_Azreal]

As long as it comes in a case or CD jewel... and not those shitastic paper sleeves. They can put it in whatever kindof box they want.

[Cerberus_e]

Damien_Azreal said:
I said "Look at the back of the box towards the bottom... where it says system requirements."

You're quite the hero that saves the day... how did he react?

[Antosa]

Duke! said:
And please 3 drealms give us a box out cardboard.
Like Fear or Doom 3 or Hl 2.
I hate this ugly DVD boxes.

Personally I prefer the dvd box, why also having covered some various, they have equal dimensions and therefore me it seems of having one true collection.
and then the DVD boxes occupy them little space.

Americans are not the smartest when it comes to their computers. Yes I said it. I've fixed enough people's computers to know this to be the truth.

I have to lock my own parents and sister out of my computers to keep them from breaking or getting infected. It works.

-Maniac

[Commando Nukem]

Maniac536 said:
PEOPLE are not the smartest when it comes to their computers. Yes I said it. I've fixed enough people's computers to know this to be the truth.

I have to lock my own parents and sister out of my computers to keep them from breaking or getting infected. It works.

-Maniac

Ahhh, Much better. . Yes, there are a lot of dumbasses in the world. But a lot of people just simply arent thinking. Its really not a "stupid" type thing. Its just "Oh, hey oops, it didnt occur to check it at the time, as I had about 500 things going on at once."

[Gibaholic]

If the dvd version has crappy stuff for it then I'd just get the cd version but if it has like a mousepad or poster then I'd get the dvd.

[Damien_Azreal]

Cerberus_e said:

You're quite the hero that saves the day... how did he react?

He gave me a dirty look, then turned the box over and looked.
Read it... and looked up at me and mumbled something to himself. Then left, with his copy of Quake 4.

[tony]

According to the Steam hardware survey, 91.92% of machines have a DVD-ROM drive.

Should they even care that a potential ~8% of gamers cant use the game? No. Especially if you look at the rest of the hardware stats. There is a far greater percentage of machines listed that wont even meet the min requirements. (yeah, the steam survey is only a small segment of the potential gamer population at a little under 320k entires, but it shouldnt be too far off.)

With hardware prices as low as they are now, I fail to see any reason why a CD release is even concidered.

Some people dont buy a DVD drive because they dont have a compelling reason to. Some games dont come out on DVD because not everyone has a DVD drive. IMHO, its time for game companies to start releasing in DVD ONLY. This will give people a reason to bite the bullet and fork out the measily $30 or so for a DVD drive. Hell, Newegg has a 16x Sony drive for $21 right now. Dont want to spend around $30 more on a system that was probably several hundred? You picked the wrong hobby. I wouldnt be surprized if a chunk of people that refuse to 'waste' the money on a DVD drive have more than the cost of a drive in fans that light up and cables that glow in the dark.

The cost to make the media isnt much more expensive, either. In comparatively small quantities (50,000). DVDs are $0.60 each, and CDs are $0.31 each. Thats just one place I googled. (http://www.hellmanproduction.com/) Based on those prices, games that use more than two CDs is costing MORE that a DVD release would cost. (There is most likely a lot more to it, the price difference is most likely non-linear. However, I refuse to believe pressing 6+ discs is cheaper than one DVD.) I would be very interested to see someone from the industry make a comment about this: what exactly is the price difference between 1 DVD and 6 CDs?

I want a GOOD excuse for making a CD release for games that need more than a couple CDs.

/rant.

[hell-angel]

Cerberus_e said:

How do you explain all those Americans returning their game then because they don't have a DVD drive?

They are stupid??

[Kalki]

tony said:
IMHO, its time for game companies to start releasing in DVD ONLY.

I think they're each waiting for the other guy to start the trend. Nobody wants to risk affecting their release just for this.

Well said Tony.

-Maniac

[hell-angel]

Kalki said:

I think they're each waiting for the other guy to start the trend. Nobody wants to risk affecting their release just for this.

That is true, and I hope that the other guy would hurry up with it.

[trackit]

hell-angel said:

That is true, and I hope that the other guy would hurry up with it.

3DR and HH could be the other guy

[Kristian Joensen]

Kalki said:

I think they're each waiting for the other guy to start the trend. Nobody wants to risk affecting their release just for this.

This is why a bunch of developers should enter into a legaly binding agreement between themselves and their publishers to be "the other guy" this would have to include 3DR(and Take Two), Valve(and EA), Epic(and Midway/Microsoft), Id(And Activision), etc.

[hell-angel]

Kristian Joensen said:

This is why a bunch of developers should enter into a legaly binding agreement between themselves and their publishers to be "the other guy" this would have to include 3DR(and Take Two), Valve(and EA), Epic(and Midway/Microsoft), Id(And Activision), etc.

Like that would ever happen.

[Cerberus_e]

hell-angel said:

They are stupid??

I didn't mean that, I mean, Avatar claims a PC without DVD is too old to run the game. But it seems people with CD drives and no DVD drive buy it anyway, so their system has to be good enough. Except if they're also mistaken in that aspect

[Tim Gerritsen]

Here's your reason.

Developer: Hey Big-Market Retailer, our data says there is really no reason to ship on CDs. The vast majority of people own a DVD player by now. We'd prefer to just ship on DVD.

Big Market Retailer: We get too many returns due to DVD editions. We won't carry your game if you don't provide a CD Rom version.

Developer: Are you serious? Anyone with a rig that can run our game will have a DVD player. We know that. What you're asking us to do is just dumb.

Big Market Retailer: Dumb or not, that's the data WE see. WE sell 50% of the retail games in the market. Either do a CD version or WE don't carry your game and you don't get it in front of a lot of buyers. Get it?

Developer: One CD Rom edition coming right up.

And there you have it. We could say, "We'll show them!" defy them and feel all proud of ourselves and defiant as we see our game not go to quite a few customers who might not have otherwise bought our game, or we can just do what they ask, which isn't all that hard for us to do and does make sure we can sell to even those few people who refuse to have a DVD player in their machine. One small developer with one game isn't going to change the retailing industry. We make games, not tilt at windmills.

[8IronBob]

Well, if worse comes to worse, you can always put Prey's installation on one of these bad boys, just make it read-only, and you'll be in business: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009RG...5Fencoding=UTF8

Well, then again, that would significantly raise the price of the game to make up for the price of that SD Card, but most PCs these days do have card readers, so there you go.

[hell-angel]

Cerberus_e said:

I didn't mean that, I mean, Avatar claims a PC without DVD is too old to run the game. But it seems people with CD drives and no DVD drive buy it anyway, so their system has to be good enough. Except if they're also mistaken in that aspect

Like I said...

8IronBob said:
Well, if worse comes to worse, you can always put Prey's installation on one of these bad boys, just make it read-only, and you'll be in business: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009RG...5Fencoding=UTF8

Well, then again, that would significantly raise the price of the game to make up for the price of that SD Card, but most PCs these days do have card readers, so there you go.

I don't and I have a high end PC.

[Wheeljack]

With DVD-drives costing less than a game I don't see a problem in switching to DVD only.
Let's get done with CDs so we can finally start the battle
DVD vs. HD-DVD vs. BluRay.

[hell-angel]

Wheeljack said:
With DVD-drives costing less than a game I don't see a problem in switching to DVD only.
Let's get done with CDs so we can finally start the battle
DVD vs. HD-DVD vs. BluRay.

BluRay ftw. (imo that is. )

[crunchy superman]

Originally Posted by Tim Gerritsen

Big Market Retailer: We get too many returns due to DVD editions. We won't carry your game if you don't provide a CD Rom version.

And yet it's these same big market retailers that won't allow returns of opened packages in the first place, so I've never really thought that their argument holds water.

[hell-angel]

Originally Posted by crunchy superman

And yet it's these same big market retailers that won't allow returns of opened packages in the first place, so I've never really thought that their argument holds water.

Now that you mentioned it. That is indeed the case.

[8IronBob]

I'd say that it'll be on DVD, but then again, it'll probably have a special edition down the road on an HD-DVD or BluRay (depending on the technology that's REALLY going to be used on most PCs).

[hell-angel]

Originally Posted by 8IronBob

I'd say that it'll be on DVD, but then again, it'll probably have a special edition down the road on an HD-DVD or BluRay (depending on the technology that's REALLY going to be used on most PCs).

I doubt that, since it will probably take at least 2 years for those thechnologies to become anywhere near main stream for PC users.

[baff]

Originally Posted by The Doctor

I don't think there are computers without a DVD-ROM player that are above the minimum sys reqs (for this game) these days.

I have 4 without.
and 2 more with.

DVD games have been problematic for me as many anti-piracies prevent the use of network drives.

[Little Conqueror]

I have a PC at my old house with the following specs:

2.4ghz
1GB RAM
ATI RADEON 9600
240GB HD
No DVD drive

Granted, my computer that I use now has much better specs (ah, 4GB RAM) but a smaller hard drive. However, this does not change the fact that I was playing games like Doom 3 and World of Warcraft on my DVD-less computer and getting mighty fine pull out of them.

I'm all for DVD versions. But so long as it's easy for developers to keep putting games out on CD, I see no reason for them to stop.

[Damien_Azreal]

Hell, my PC has both a DVD and a CD-rw. It's just that people don't pay attention when they pick up the game, they may have a fat enough PC. And the CD and DVD editions are sitting next to each other, and the customer simply grbas the wrong one without looking carefully enough.

Here in the US game boxes don't have the whit square in the upper corner that says PC-CD or PC-DVD. It either says that really small on the bottom corner, or on the back with the system requirements.
But some publishers are starting to make it easier to see.