The Rant: The Death of Solid Media...

I don’t claim to be a Nostradamus or the Sybil by any means. However I can definitely feel when the winds start to change, and change is coming my friends. While this movement to downloadable content (DLC) has been a great addition for some games and patches, it is also slowly turning into a bastard child. The cause is probably how successful the DLC movement has been. There is little reason to go down to the local GameStop, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart anymore to buy some games. Just download it! But therein lies the hitch, now these solid forms of media just sit on their shelves collecting dust and not making any money for the traditional brick and mortars.

The answer? “Lets not give them the complete game in the first shot.” Or “Exclusively available at Target!” and my favorite, “Buy the Super Legendary Edition to receive 4 exciting new maps; which “eventually” will be available for download.” What the hell is this bullshit? I’m all for the making things better down the road, as in fixing the fact that my little Halo dude can walk through some wall if I crouch and jump at the same time all the while tea-bagging someone’s dead body, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Leaving games partially done; or worse parts left out so they can pad their margins to make up for resale games is just as Peter Griffin would say, “Really grinding my gears.” It not only detracts from the game play but the quality of the game; it takes something that is supposed to be polished and turns it into Windows Vista… “just wait for the update.”

Developers say that they are losing out to second hand gaming markets and piracy. Well let’s start here. First, don’t make a game that I can beat within the span of 4 hours and also lacks the desire/content to replay it or have some sort of multiplayer function. Second, don’t design games with the same levels and monotonous routine that goes on for the entirety of the game. (I’m looking at you “Too Human”) And Finally, don’t under any circumstances make a game where the controls are so cumbersome or the story so laughable that I want to try to use my Wii Nunchuck as corporal mortification, like that monk in the “Da Vinci Code”, for spending the gas money to pick up your half-ass compilation of pixilated crap.

I don’t think we will see the death of traditional game distribution very soon as we have yet to see the death of the music industry’s traditional media. However in the future if we finally get a decent sized hard drive included in gaming systems and don’t have to drop another bill or two to make it an eighth of a decent sized drive; or bandwidth starts becoming exponentially more available so you don’t have to wait overnight, all the while not playing anything, while you wait for the download to finish. Once those days get here, you might be taking over a hard drive to your friends place instead of that convenient little disc. Let just hope the file is not linked to a DRM on your particular box…

Final thought… if you thought losing a game because you lost a disc was bad, trying being without anything for a few days while you have to drop some bills on a new hard drive. At least in the area of DLC all your purchases should be saved as paid, so in that respect I guess it ain’t all that bad…

-Pat