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Why can't I just RENT games digitally?

G

grimshawish

Banned
I mean its pretty clear from Steam sales that devs will go low for those extra sales after they meet the initial demand who'll pay full price. Surely it'd be more profitable to offer rental plans? If theres good multiplayer they might buy for or if they don't have the cash; re-rent later.

First Release: Full Version (Digital/Retail)
Second Release: Rental

Will we see this; this gen?
I've talked in places about why I don't like Cloud Gaming (its a bad solution) and kind of promoted the idea of a Cloud Storage solution; well surely you could rent a game and download the bits you play...as you play. Why complain about 'Only Online' if you've rented the game after all?

It means the used/rent money goes to the digital service; publisher and developer.
For many customers it'd be a good way to play games at low cost; whilst paying full price for the games they want more of. Then there is the discussion of if demos reduce sales; this is a payment at least for access and low enough you'd put up with 'okay' games.

Am generally someone who believes in expanding the business model digitally and am frustrated at the generally 'simple' ways this is implemented as oppose to wider options for everybody.
 
Just a guess, but I'd say there isn't an off the shelf DRM solution for digital game rentals. If Gamefly aren't doing it I have to wonder why not.
 
You may have heard of Onlive? They had 3day,5day,week? long rentals for $10 and down I think.

They were ahead of their time on digital rents, spectating, (obv cloud gaming), but the business model was flawed, so they crashed and burned.
 
AAK said:
Like Playstation Plus?
Click to expand...

A similar idea but the best kind would be like Gamefly but digitally, where you can download whatever you want and play it as long as you want and when you're done you have to "turn in" the game to get another (or if you have the 2 game plan then 2 games at a time).
 
Developers do not want renting of games AT ALL. They obviously tolerate physical disc renting because they have to, but allowing digital renting would be tacit approval, and it would completely cannabalize game sales for all but the longest single-player games.
 
Derrick01 said:
A similar idea but the best kind would be like Gamefly but digitally, where you can download whatever you want and play it as long as you want and when you're done you have to "turn in" the game to get another (or if you have the 2 game plan then 2 games at a time).
Click to expand...

I'm surprised Redbox hasn't jumped on something like this as you can already rent video games from their physical locations outside of supermarkets now. A digital format would just be an evolution at this point.
 
can't you do this with pc games on gamefly? or am i thinking of something else? i know you can with onlive (regardless of cloud status).
 
RoadDogg said:
Amazon movie rental's don't start until you start the movie.
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Still, it's not like Netflix where you can start immediately. Instant gratification can't be found here and I don't care if you're patient, it still sucks to wait so long to get to play something when you find yourself with some free time. Sure, sure, you can download overnight. But you don't always do that, and sometimes you want it now.

Actually, what if developers coded their games in such a way where it downloads by chapters, kind of like a demo only plays the first chapter? Have assets downloaded by necessity for that chapter and predownload the next one. That might make it more consumable for the now generation. Especially if they're going to offer all next-gen games digitally which will likely be 15~30GB in size (depending on the game, of course).
 
Sounds good, but the pubs would probably use it as an excuse to raise prices overall for new games. Remember the prices of video tapes back in the early 1980's, when you could only legally rent them? Yeah, then came VCRs, and the rest is history.

The big pubs would just jack up prices as a result. Don't give them any ideas.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and PSN+. But I don't expect that to last forever.
 
PSYGN said:
Actually, what if developers coded their games in such a way where it downloads by chapters, kind of like a demo only plays the first chapter? Have assets downloaded by necessity for that chapter and predownload the next one. That might make it more consumable for the now generation.
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This would be amazing.
 
PSYGN said:
Actually, what if developers coded their games in such a way where it downloads by chapters, kind of like a demo only plays the first chapter? Have assets downloaded by necessity for that chapter and predownload the next one. That might make it more consumable for the now generation. Especially if they're going to offer all next-gen games digitally which will likely be 15~30GB in size (depending on the game, of course).
Click to expand...

Uh.... like what MGS4 did with its chapters? Because that was fucking awful, and that didn't even depend on some potentially unreliable download service.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Uh.... like what MGS4 did with its chapters? Because that was fucking awful.
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I don't own a PS3 so I don't know how they did it. What I'm talking about is downloading the core of the game with only the assets needed for that chapter or segment of the game, and have it download the rest while you're playing through the first. I don't see an issue if done correctly, then again, I'm not a dev and don't know how difficult that would be to work around. Of course you also have the issue of multiplayer campaigns taking a hit because of the background download process eating up the bandwidth. It's not a simple solution, but a sort of buffer to experience the game ASAP for the larger sized games.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Uh.... like what MGS4 did with its chapters? Because that was fucking awful, and that didn't even depend on some potentially unreliable download service.
Click to expand...
MGS4 made you sit and watch the game install. So no, not like MGS4 at all. Key word is "predownload".
 
The big hurdle for digital rental is to be able to have the right model as a distributor. I don't know how publishers are paid with the PSN offer for example, a fixed share based on a % of the subscription fee? It's really something difficult to find, balance and discuss with publishers. Another model would be to have royalties share based on the playtime statistics and fee...

Whatever, here the first hurdle is to be able to lock the content from publishers. Onlive paid a lot of money to secure content for their subscription offer...

A lot of publishers still consider that digital rental Day 1 could harm their regular buisness model (digital sale), which is not true.
 
PS+ is exciting but I don't really see the point in not just making it on a game by game basis that is available all the time instead of a rota like PS+.
 
grimshawish said:
PS+ is exciting but I don't really see the point in not just making it on a game by game basis that is available all the time instead of a rota like PS+.
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I suspect it's because they don't have a real business model. I think they just do it like a promotional stuff, for a limited time and pay a fixed cost to the publisher. They aren't building a "rental catalog". If it was the case the model would be different (adding more games without removing them after a certain time while calculating the publisher share on fixed base is not sustainable in the mid/long term).
 
PSYGN said:
Actually, what if developers coded their games in such a way where it downloads by chapters, kind of like a demo only plays the first chapter? Have assets downloaded by necessity for that chapter and predownload the next one. That might make it more consumable for the now generation. Especially if they're going to offer all next-gen games digitally which will likely be 15~30GB in size (depending on the game, of course).
Click to expand...

Didn't Microsoft do this with Fable 2 at one point?
 
grimshawish said:
I mean its pretty clear from Steam sales that devs will go low for those extra sales after they meet the initial demand who'll pay full price.
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Not exactly.

To the big publishers these reduced PC game prices are about generating superior press materials, i.e. screenshots and videos, through developing somewhat unoptimised but still better looking PC versions, and increasing the number of units sold, e.g. THQ giving away or selling at ridiculously low prices thousands if not millions of copies of their games in the weeks leading up to the bankruptcy auction in order to drive up perceived brand value.

Unless you're a low to no budget indie dev/publisher (or your product went through an extremely successful crowd funding scheme e.g. Chris Roberts's new game, Star Citizen), there's no way you're surviving off PC sales.

With all of the above taken into account, publishers still need to make money somewhere. And that somewhere is found in the form of console releases. Which is also why very few games nowadays have PC as lead platform, and even most of those who claim to be pushing your PC to its limit are really just stroking your ego with their unoptimised code.

By the way, I can go on-line right now and buy a fully legal Steam key for DmC for €15 ( or less). And that game came out on 25 January, which is less than three weeks ago.
 
I would be cool with this. I don't play every game I would like to anyway but being able to rent some and the money actually going to the publishers is a great idea.
 
1) It exists in some form
2) It does not exist in the form you want because they want you to buy the game; even if you bought it used, you would be more likely to buy the DLC than if you were renting it
3) Because it's a strain on their servers for a lower cost than a full priced title.
 
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