Why do hard game copies don't come with a full downloaded game?

[Someaveragechap]

I got a new PC and I was planning to buy DOOM which is basically a 50GB game, that's really bad news for us consumers with slow internet connection, luckily I had the idea of getting a hard copy, but I found out that you still need to download the whole fucking game, or at least a major part of it. I fail to realize what the hell is the point of getting a hard copy other than not owning a credit card or debit card. Can someone explain to me why do companies practice this? Can someone also name a few company or games that give the full game in hard copies for PC, thanks.

[Himommies]

Sometimes it's because DVD's cant hold 60b plus games and they don't want to do multi volume disks like final fantasy.There is a certain joy in opening a in box sealed copy of a game too

[Himommies]

You can also trade and sell hard copies

[Ryujin2003]

When you install and are online, it'll still download updates. Otherwise, don't connect to the interwebs.

 

Also, another reason is install speed. I can install the base game of The Division faster from DVD than I can from Ubisoft Servers. It makes my wait much shorter to have it split with DVD and online.

[Ryoku]

1 hour ago, Someaveragechap said:

I got a new PC and I was planning to buy DOOM which is basically a 50GB game, that's really bad news for us consumers with slow internet connection, luckily I had the idea of getting a hard copy, but I found out that you still need to download the whole fucking game, or at least a major part of it. I fail to realize what the hell is the point of getting a hard copy other than not owning a credit card or debit card. Can someone explain to me why do companies practice this? Can someone also name a few company or games that give the full game in hard copies for PC, thanks.

Doom wasn't 50gb when it came out, it's just each multiplayer update was like 9gb (or something like that not sure on the intial size but each update was massive).  I uninstalled doom cuz i had zero interesting in multiplayer and the updates for it were getting redonkulous.

[Totallycasual]

I must admit this has infuriated me in the past, i was on terrible internet at the time and decided to buy a retail copy of a game from a store, get home and there wasn't even a disc inside, just a paper slip with a code to begin my download lol  

 

I don't mind if its a small patch like 1 gig or so but its total crap when you pay a premium price only to be forced into a multiple day download/wait  

[lieder1987]

For todays games they would need to be on AT LEAST one blu ray disk and even that would be tough. I bought Dishonored 2 boxed copy (it was cheaper than the steam only version) that came with a game code and a disk. The disk can only hold 5gbs of data, and then other 40 I had to download. It is just a stepping stone not a solution.

[LogicalDrm]

Most of the times its updates. I have multi-DVD game in BF4. Which has about doubled its size because of all the DLC content which can't be bought on disc.

[Squirrel724]

A typical DVD holds 4.7-9.4GB depending on if it is single or dual layer. Your average PC game is now around 40-50GB. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

It still doesn't answer why companies offer a hard copy of a game, but only offer part of it. With DOOM, you still needed Steam to play it, and since the hard copy only came with one disk, that saved you about 10GB of the 50GB you had to download. DOOM could've easily shipped with 5 DVDs, which that many disks wasn't unheard of. I mean hell, by mid 2000s, lots of games were coming out on 4+ CDs still.

 

But I guess now that Denuvo got removed, even if you had a full hard copy, you'd still have to download that 20GB DRM removal patch.

[demonix00]

On 17/06/2017 at 11:36 PM, Himommies said:

You can also trade and sell hard copies

You can't with those that have codes that you have to redeem on steam or any other platform as the original installation media becomes completely useless once the key has been redeemed.

[typographie]

12 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

It still doesn't answer why companies offer a hard copy of a game, but only offer part of it.

I suspect it's done for PR/marketing reasons. There's still a vanishing segment of buyers who expect to be able to buy a box, so they print out a DVD and put it in a box because it's cheap (maybe?) and it staves off potential bad press. I can't come up with any better reason that explains the behavior, anyway.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, typographie said:

I suspect it's done for PR/marketing reasons. There's still a vanishing segment of buyers who expect to be able to buy a box, so they print out a DVD and put it in a box because it's cheap and it staves off potential bad press. I can't come up with any better reason that explains the behavior, anyway.

Publishers need to realize not everyone lives in a city with decent internet.

 

Actually scratch off the first part.

[typographie]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Publishers need to realize not everyone lives in a city with decent internet.

Statistics on internet connectivity are not exactly secret. I'm sure publishers know better than we do how many customers they lose by requiring the online features they do. It would be negligent of them not to. If distributing their games on Blu-Ray or flash media was preferable or even effective at solving that problem, they would be doing it already.

 

I think it's just more profitable to lock everyone to the internet. They want you logging into a service, checking in with their DRM, patching their game on a minute-by-minute basis, seeing their online store and/or microtransactions, and watching their newest advertisements. The alternative of offering an offline version of the game on expensive physical media for the handful of people who even care anymore is probably totally contrary to what most publishers are trying to do today.

[Blebekblebek]

While I agree on that premise, but at this point, if you still don't have decent internet I think you have your priority backwards.

I was downloading FF XIII with 2mbps connection back in 2013, and it took almost a week to complete 46GB download.

For me 2mbps is decent, so... if anyone still complain if they can get better speed than that in this "current" year, probably they will complain about everything.

[Mira Yurizaki]

22 minutes ago, typographie said:

I think it's just more profitable to lock everyone to the internet. They want you logging into a service, checking in with their DRM, patching their game on a minute-by-minute basis, seeing their online store and/or microtransactions, and watching their newest advertisements. The alternative of offering an offline version of the game on expensive physical media for the handful of people who even care anymore is probably totally contrary to what most publishers are trying to do today.

Well, lots of physical copies you can purchase if they contain the actual game require some online distribution platform anyway. All you're doing is bypassing the need to download the game. It's a lot easier to choke down a few hundred megabyte download to get a distribution platform and maybe a few gigs of a day-one patch than it is 50+ GB of data.

 

That's really all I want.

[lieder1987]

Console gaming is no different though. You buy your "disk" game and then you put it in and there is day one patches that you have to download just to even play the game. Hell there are even updates to the system that sometimes must be done or you can't play any games.

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 hours ago, lieder1987 said:

Console gaming is no different though. You buy your "disk" game and then you put it in and there is day one patches that you have to download just to even play the game. Hell there are even updates to the system that sometimes must be done or you can't play any games.

At least on the PS4 or Nintendo, you're not forced to update the games (unless it patches a game breaking bug, then you're kind of forced to) or the system OS to play them. And if the game actually requires a system update, it'll usually include it on the disc.

 

Again the point is downloading a few gigabytes is a lot easier to swallow than now what is approaching 100GB in some titles.