To be honest, if broadband wouldn’t be here, I think we’d have a lot less piracy.
Dial-up is still fine for surfing the Internet. It’s when you start to download a file that it’s slow.
Yes, I agree with you about “if broadband wouldn’t be here, I think we’d have a lot less piracy”.
But, you know, when you use Dial-up connections, you have to waste money because of high costs by using telephone network.
And if you want to play some online games as Ragnarok, etc., you surely need broadband.
Yes… If dial-up was like broadband in that you were charged based on bandwidth instead of per minute, it wouldn’t be so hard on the wallet.
Phantasy Star Online proved that online gaming over dial-up can be lag-free (most of the time).
Interestingly enough in countries with high Broadband penetration there is usually a corresponding collapse in the physical media pirate industry ( I.E the for profit pirate industry ).
In turn, in such places, systems like Steam/Stardock/Virtual-Mate become more common; it becomes more convenient to acquire via direct-downloading.
Generally I’ve found from talking with people, and personal experience that the following is true.
Boxed product still does well in the following scenarios:
Low high-speed BB penetration.
Convenient Local availability.
Installer is so damned huge that getting the media from the shop is more sensible ( like the 10GB Might and Magic: Dark Messiah ).
Collectors Editions.
You can’t get it via direct-download.
Where downloadable products do better:
High-Speed BB links.
Supplier is overseas. *
The downloadable content is a sensible size. *
Not too worried about extras. *
- I fall into this area.
Out of interest, if it’s ok to ask, whats a rough country by country download and boxed product sales distribution, Peter? ( percentages, not actual sales numbers [ That’d be a trade secret ] )
I’m interested if the overseas buyer [ non-US ] trend holds true in this case.
sorry, but even sales percentages by country is no public domain for you guys 
Edited by Mystvan
[ 06-18-2007, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
And MMORPGs, and online downloadable content from media-heavy webpages. They are working now on 3D graphics for requirements for most savy webpages within the next couple years. If you don’t have something 3D it’ll not look good for your business.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 is suppose to be shipping with basic 3D modeling software with this in mind.
But i don’t see downloadable content for games and stuff winning if:
[list][]They can’t be saved somehow for future use[/][]Are easily transferable from one media system to another[/][]Are a huge portion of the demographics still without high-speed internet access[/][]Requiring too much copy protection verification with reguard to connecting to the internet[/][/list]For the last point, you can make a game without copyright protections and sell it and people will buy it, if you try to build a community around it. Sure, there will always be pirates out there, but in this era with high-speed connections i think a different model is likely to win out in the end rather than being over protectionist.
I could do some comparisons here, but they aren’t really bishoujo or even anime related.
What do i see in the future? Once they figure out how to make sure people don’t accidently erase their copy of a game they just bought, Flash Drive games.
Think about it. They are now becoming quite cheap for relatively good size. They are portable, and no worries about scratches or taking it out of the case, etc. Sure there are still problems, but much less so than moving discs.
Maybe a combination of NOR and NANO Flash memory for such games. No need to install. No need to worry about taking up excess disc space. Using them essentially anywhere that meets the system specs.
[ 05-22-2007, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
As I said, online gaming through dial-up can be perfectly fine.
Downloadable content is a problem, yes. Media-heavy web pages are bad.
This is so against the spirit of the web and a bad idea.
Not some of the newer games, especially FPS. My roommate is always complaining about lag when i do more than surf the net and we have 1.5Mbit connection.
And they will only become more and more common.
Well the web was originally just for transfering text articles so it’s evolved. 3D objects isn’t so far fetched when you look back at the evolution of the net.
EDIT:
As an addition to the previous post of mine:
I also think more companies may actually start to not use copy protection and treat their customers with dignity. Several companies already don’t put any copy protections on their stuff. Yes, their games do get pirated, but they’d get pirated anyway as someone would eventually hack the game,usually fairly quickly so the net result is about the same, but the company doesn’t spend money on copy protections that probably only stop miniscule amount of piracy attempts, if any, and just frustrate players.
[waring: major speculation here so please don’t quote me as this really being the case (except the 2 companies listed is known fact)]
Two companies i know do this are Stardocks and Paradox Interactive. Basically, from what i can tell of their policy from forum posts of those from the company who do and press statements is they treat everyone as a customer and while they shut down attempts on their site for linking to pirated material, they still see anyone who might illegally download the game might one day purchase that game or future games and even if it’s only a handful, it’s a handful more so they try to make it easy for existancing and new customers by not making them jump through hoops just to play their games. And for piracy efforts, they generally ignore them if they aren’t linked to their website. They know their out there, they know people download from them, they instead focus on getting people to actually want to purchase the game rather than pirate it by building up the community.
So what would happen if tomorrow EA just removed all copy protection RQ from their games since they are one of the biggest gaming companies? Not much IMO. Maybe a few extra copies might be downloaded, but they’d save more on not having to work in copy protection into their games, less headache and complaints from legitimate customers, etc.
However, i can’t say what PP is going to do.
[ 05-22-2007, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
Don’t bother arguing with Benoit, he’s against just about any form of progress, based on his replies, anyway.
Hell, the way he talks, we might as well go back to Windows 3.1!
[ 05-22-2007, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: Shade453 ]
That’s because you’re sharing your connection. A dedicated connection is much better.
It is far-fetched, as the web is still composed of documents like 20 years ago, not flashy programs.
People just love to stereotype some of my views to cover everything. I see it happen all the time. To put it simply: there is good progress, and there is bad progress.
No way. That OS didn’t make sense at all. The only reason people bought it was because they were getting desperate for a GUI.
So please, don’t make ridiculous assumptions based on what I say, I’ve seen it enough already.
Humans.
Edited by Mystvan
[ 06-18-2007, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
I was being sarcastic here, Benoit. I just think the way you correct people every time is rude.
I apologize for making it sound like an insult, but frankly, I’m tired of you turning things into flamewars. This actually comes close to another OS war, only replacing OSs with Connection speeds. so please settle down.
Again, apologies for sounding rude.
The point is, dial-up would not suffice if even with 1.5Mbit (albeit shared) connection can’t.
And those flash games and videos are youtube are all documents?
In the last couple of years even there’s been a drastic move toward flash or java-based websites, not just apps, virtually the entire website designs. These are much more bandwidth heavy.
I agree with you, except for Firefox. I don’t like it, but it’s good software, and generally people who use it do have a clue. I don’t know enough about McAfee, though.
I’m not trying to, and I don’t think Jinnai is either. Can’t we just discuss things?
No. They’re media files embedded into documents.
Yes, and it’s wrong. It goes against the spirit of the web, is bad for accessibility, and in the case of Flash, is proprietary. Requiring a third-party plug-in to view content is madness. Java is also quite slow and responsible for many cases of high memory usage and browser crashes.
[ 05-23-2007, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: Benoit ]
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[ 06-18-2007, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
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[ 06-18-2007, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
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[ 06-18-2007, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
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[ 06-18-2007, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Myst-Vearn (Mystvan) ]
As for price drops…
I’m not sure if PP is the only one doing it. I picked up Piece of Wonder + another older Hirameki game, Dragonia, at Anime Central for $25 at their stand…i realize it was a convention and it was likely a direct sell (no need to jack up price for retailers), but $25 for 2 games is still quite low.