Got a nice idea on games purchasing..

[NoSnake221]

A friend of mine recently had a dream which involves a nice idea on CD games purchasing:

"What if we had retail stores with this computer that has a database of a LOT of games? Come in the store, ya get a booklet of games available with their respective prices, platforms available and etc, ya pic one or more, a CD is placed in a reader, software gets all set up, game gets printed in the CD with a case cover and manual, all assembled and handed to you upon being paid?"

So, what do you think? Could that work?

 

[FAST6191]

It it an idea that has been floated for many years, indeed I recall people contemplating a variation on the theme as far back as when MP3s were still on the rise and downloading one of those still represented a significant time investment, along with hard drive space to store the things.

I would like to see such a thing, along with the option to resell said copies later, but today I would only expect game devs to do it for low bandwidth markets, and as all the main game markets these days have high bandwidth and 3g is going in faster than mains electricity in many third world countries...

 

[Deleted member 388531]

Wouldn't work because nobody buys physical PC games anymore.

 

[NoSnake221]

Wouldn't work because nobody buys physical PC games anymore.

Well, I still prefer physical games over digital ones. I'm sure there are still people who think the same..

 

[Deleted member 388531]

You'd be surprised sadly unless your living in a place where internet is super slow or nonexistent digital is preferred still.
But I mean really who the fuck would be willing to get a 3-4 disc game just so they could say they got it physical

 

[Reynardine]

Isn't that kind of like what Nintendo tried with the Famicom Disk Writer in Japan?

But back then piracy was the downfall of that idea.

 

[NoSnake221]

You'd be surprised sadly unless your living in a place where internet is super slow or nonexistent digital is preferred still.
But I mean really who the fuck would be willing to get a 3-4 disc game just so they could say they got it physical

Oh. Well. I'm actually living in a place where the Internet is pretty slow and sometimes nonexistent I guess
Plus, I prefer physicals since hey, you have it in a disc, and if you take enough care of it (Store it in a safe place, never get it scratched, etc.) You are gonna have that game with you even if the Apocalypse hits the earth

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Isn't that kind of like what Nintendo tried with the Famicom Disk Writer in Japan?

But back then piracy was the downfall of that idea.

Well, yeah! Actually now that you mention it, yes. It is basically a modern Famicom Disk Writer. But, was there already game cartridge piracy back then?

 

[Reynardine]

Oh. Well. I'm actually living in a place where the Internet is pretty slow and sometimes nonexistent I guess
Plus, I prefer physicals since hey, you have it in a disc, and if you take enough care of it (Store it in a safe place, never get it scratched, etc.) You are gonna have that game with you even if the Apocalypse hits the earth

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Well, yeah! Actually now that you mention it, yes. It is basically a modern Famicom Disk Writer. But, was there already game cartridge piracy back then?

Hmm, I'm no expert on this, but as far as I know the Disk System failed because it was very easy to pirate the games.

Sorry for being a bit lazy and not explaining it myself, but I just found an article that talks about that issue:
https://kotaku.com/nintendos-early-drm-was-simple-and-didnt-work-30784483

There were even plans to release the disk system in the West back then, I've seen old magazine articles that mentioned it, but it fell through because of that.

Edit:
I just finished reading, the article doesn't really mention how it was done. I'll see if I can find out more. Now I'm curious myself.

 

[NoSnake221]

Hmm I'm no expert on this, but as far as I know the Disk System failed because it was very easy to pirate the games.

Sorry for being lazy and not explaining myself, but I just found an article that talks about that issue:
https://kotaku.com/nintendos-early-drm-was-simple-and-didnt-work-30784483

There were even plans to release the disk system in the West back then, I've seen old magazine articles that mentioned it, but it fell through because of that.

Hmm.. I see. It's such a sad thing. It would have been great to have that back then. And thank you for the article! Very informative.

 

[tech3475]

There could potentially be ways to reduce the piracy issue e.g. per disc encryption tied to some kind of database with the disc's 'BCA' as a part of it.

But overall I don't think the idea would sell due to various issues, the only real benefit I could see is that it's still disc based DRM.

For example, you'd need the time to burn the disc (could take hours for a BD), room for the equipment, cost, value of a 'burned' disc/printed manual, man hours, maintenance, etc.

Even retailer may not like it.

I suspect the console manufacturers want physical media to die anyway, one reason why I suspect the Xbone SAD edition exists is to test the market.

Do note however, I do generally prefer to buy physical on console where possible because of disc based DRM.

Hmm, I'm no expert on this, but as far as I know the Disk System failed because it was very easy to pirate the games.

Sorry for being a bit lazy and not explaining myself, but I just found an article that talks about that issue:
https://kotaku.com/nintendos-early-drm-was-simple-and-didnt-work-30784483

There were even plans to release the disk system in the West back then, I've seen old magazine articles that mentioned it, but it fell through because of that.

Edit:
I just finished reading, the article doesn't really mention how it was done. I'll see if I can find out more. Now I'm curious myself.

I recall reading somewhere that devices existed which could connect two Famicoms together to copy the data.

I decided to look it up and found this:
https://www.famicomdisksystem.com/disk-copy/

 

[Reynardine]

I recall reading somewhere that devices existed which could connect two Famicoms together to copy the data.

I decided to look it up and found this:
https://www.famicomdisksystem.com/disk-copy/

Thank you very much! That website provides all the info one could wish for.

That was an interesting read for me.

 

[NoSnake221]

I recall reading somewhere that devices existed which could connect two Famicoms together to copy the data.

I decided to look it up and found this:
https://www.famicomdisksystem.com/disk-copy/

Thank you for sharing the webpage! Same as @Upaluppa, that was a very interesting read for me.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Oh. Well. I'm actually living in a place where the Internet is pretty slow and sometimes nonexistent I guess
Plus, I prefer physicals since hey, you have it in a disc, and if you take enough care of it (Store it in a safe place, never get it scratched, etc.) You are gonna have that game with you even if the Apocalypse hits the earth

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Well, yeah! Actually now that you mention it, yes. It is basically a modern Famicom Disk Writer. But, was there already game cartridge piracy back then?

Sadly discs are doomed to fail eventually as they succumb to disc rot. Cartridges i think should last just about forever though, barring hardware failure, which can be repaired.

 

[TimPV3]

FYE does this with music CDs

 

[NoSnake221]

Sadly discs are doomed to fail eventually as they succumb to disc rot.

Disk rot? Never heard of it. What is that?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Disk rot? Never heard of it. What is that?

Disk rot? Never heard of it. What is that?

Discs eventually start breaking down from contact with air, you can tell when it happens because the edges look weird.

 

[NoSnake221]

FYE does this with music CDs

Good to know. Never heard about that company before though

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Discs eventually start breaking down from contact with air, you can tell when it happens because the edges look weird.

Oh. I see. Looks like nothing gets away from the pass of time huh?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Good to know. Never heard about that company before though

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Oh. I see. Looks like nothing gets away from the pass of time huh?

Maybe those Bluray M-Discs. They're supposed to last 1000 years. But no one presses discs out of that material, since it costs way more.

 

[FAST6191]

Disk rot? Never heard of it. What is that?

Rot gets added to many things with electrical failures but in this case the dyes used by burnable discs are just that. The laser makes a nice pattern in them but over the years moisture, heating and cooling and general chemical degradation by matter of time (pick up any chemistry textbook and read the section on yields and how to increase them -- obviously this is a situation where yield or byproduct is bad but still the same things going on) means the pits made by said laser will grow, shrink to nothing, and similarly others might appear, none of which is good for the 1s and 0s. Obviously a disc will come with some things to negate this a bit but eventually it will be too much. Similarly if you ever look at a burned CD under a microscope it is almost a miracle they work at all.

Compared to a disc made in a pressed which is far more robust (being physical pits cut into a fairly stable layer of metal) then yeah.

That said I don't see why such a setup couldn't come with a download code as well to help negate this issue, and the possibility to recreate the disc (possibly for a fee).

At this point I would almost look into what low volume pressing is up to these days -- in discussions in the past I have seen volumes in the high hundreds for sensible money so that could be a thing here. We have seen some book sellers do a print on demand thing, and I have seen a few DVDs in the past too be this (we once got some DVDs for my grandma of some old films she wanted to see again, cost was about in line with a normal DVD at the time).

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Rot gets added to many things with electrical failures but in this case the dyes used by burnable discs are just that. The laser makes a nice pattern in them but over the years moisture, heating and cooling and general chemical degradation by matter of time (pick up any chemistry textbook and read the section on yields and how to increase them -- obviously this is a situation where yield or byproduct is bad but still the same things going on) means the pits made by said laser will grow, shrink to nothing, and similarly others might appear, none of which is good for the 1s and 0s. Obviously a disc will come with some things to negate this a bit but eventually it will be too much. Similarly if you ever look at a burned CD under a microscope it is almost a miracle they work at all.

Compared to a disc made in a pressed which is far more robust (being physical pits cut into a fairly stable layer of metal) then yeah.

That said I don't see why such a setup couldn't come with a download code as well to help negate this issue, and the possibility to recreate the disc (possibly for a fee).

At this point I would almost look into what low volume pressing is up to these days -- in discussions in the past I have seen volumes in the high hundreds for sensible money so that could be a thing here. We have seen some book sellers do a print on demand thing, and I have seen a few DVDs in the past too be this (we once got some DVDs for my grandma of some old films she wanted to see again, cost was about in line with a normal DVD at the time).

You think the downloadable version would still work after 20 or however many years it takes for the disc to break down to such a point that it no longer works? Games get removed from download services all the time, that's if the service even stays up.