Okay, I Was Wrong: Digital Distribution is Actually Pretty Awesome
I have, in the past, derided digital distribution as yet another reason to send smug PC gamers to the gas chamber. After all, for a packrat/collector like me, the prospect of not physically seeing my favorite games on my shelf is ridiculous. That, and for some reason, I accurately predicted that games wouldn’t be cheaper as digital downloads anyway (current-gen games are bordering on highway robbery nowadays). Yet unexpectedly, I find myself knee-deep in Steam games, looking into getting some classic games via GOG.com, and am mired in a sea of Virtual Console and PSN downloads. Being wrong has never felt so good.
I’ve been enjoying Valve’s Steam service for a while now; being at the forefront of the PC-side digital distribution folks has been quite a stark advantage compared to, say, what EA or Ubisoft could muster. As a result, pricing’s been relatively competitive. As of this writing, I am looking into getting Assassn’s Creed for ten dollars, a game that I absolutely detest, just because it’s so darn cheap.
Then there’s Good Ol’ Games, or GOG.com. While I’ve already said my peace about the Virtual Console in past issues of GAME!, GOG.com—while still a download service aiming for the same end—deserves mention in this piece as I personally missed a ton of mid-‘90s PC games (or played inferior console ports). It’s also neat that you can play something like Fallout 2, a game that literally crashes every two seconds on modern computers, on whatever fancy hardware you’ve got right now.
We also have these amazing games on WiiWare, PSN and XBLA that wouldn’t have made it as retail titles. Games like Bionic Commando: Rearmed, the Art Style games and Castle Crashers wouldn’t have even gotten past the planning stage if this new advent of digital distribution had never happened. Burnout Paradise has astonishingly become one of my most-played games of 2008—and I loathe racing games, autophilia, and any sort of phallic overcompensation that the genre precedes. It’s just so darn convenient to never switch out discs and use it as a go-to game when I’m stuck elsewhere.
So in conclusion: fine, I was totally wrong. As an avenue for classic or niche games, or, as Burnout has shown, mainstream titles even, digital distribution turned out to be pretty awesome. I still hold that a good number of smug PC gamers should be gassed, however!
[...] Street Fighter IV will also be available on Steam, which, if you’re already part of the superior PC gaming master race, you already should have access [...]