LGP Gets Into Game Downloading, Rentals

[djack]

While I would often prefer a free demo, the fact is that a lot of demos are either too short to get a feel for anything or go the way of many movie trailers - show all the interesting stuff in the trailer/demo leaving the rest of the movie/game as just filler. In some cases, both occur at the same time.

[Kano]

Well the price is still too high just for testing. Most titles are budget, so maybe the way to sell more is maybe the double price of current budget market price. Lets say a title costs 5$ for 1month then you could easyly buy it for 5-10$ usually already. If you really like the renting idea, then consider something like a game flatrate with all games for one reasonable price.

[miles]

That's great new.

LGP already offers demo when they can. However, there are some games, like X3, where the demo doesn't exist, even on Windows, and I don't know how anyone could expect LGP to devote many ressources to producing one when the Windows developer has deemed it too difficult to make.

Now, with less than 3$ (Jets'N Guns is at 1$something) you can try the full game for one week, which allows testing if it works well and if it's a good game. Of course, long time patrons will always prefer the box, but even for them it's a good thing to have.

Rentals is also a good way to discourage people from illegally getting the games - for 4$ a month (2$something for J'NG) you can play the whole game, which is enough for games you just want to play and beat it.

Actually, for less than 60$ you could be playing all the games you want in a whole year (just change the game when you've finished it), including those you'd never have bought because you fell they don't deserve the high price. It sounds like riping LGP off, hopefully they'll recoup on the amount of people that would rent games they wouldn't have played else if they had to buy them.

Hopefully one of the vendors let you pay with Paypal.

[Wyatt]

Thirded on demos. It seems like the gaming world just sort of forgot how to do that, and it's been hurting their ability to sell games to me ever since.

As far as this renting thing goes, eh, whatever. Not something I'll ever do. I'm loving the news of digital distro, though!

PS: This is exactly the sort of thing I feel should be front-and-centre of the main page. (Re: my other thread). This is really much more important than testing the SSD mode of Btrfs....

[Kano]

Renting a game only works for rare cases. On Linux most users dislike DRM and if they are skilled they find a way to use it without. Usually you have got all needed debugging tools already...

[Melcar]

What they really need are demos. Oh, and reminding me about that copy protection sent shivers down my spine.

[superppl]

Rentals are stupid, I'd much rather have a demo.
Admittedly, I tend to only play a game for a couple weeks when I buy it, but I do come back to it after a few months.

[RealNC]

Are we talking about DRM here?

[bugmenot]

Sacred Gold
a month $5
a week $2.5

http://www.tuxgames.com/details.cgi?&gameref=148

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LGP Gets Into Game Downloading, Rentals

Last year Linux Game Publishing launched their own game copy protection system to combat pirating of the games they port to Linux and now they have announced another fundamental change. At last, Linux Game Publishing will be making their games available by electronic download and they are also launching a game rental service. LGP's download service is not being offered directly to gamers but instead to their resellers, which they will then likely make available to the customers...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzMwMg