LGP Gets Into Game Downloading, Rentals

[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

[bugmenot]

Sacred Gold
a month $5
a week $2.5
http://www.tuxgames.com/details.cgi?&gameref=148

[RealNC]

Are we talking about DRM here?

[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.

[Melcar]

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

[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...

[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....

[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.

[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.

[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]

Basically you could use that way for markting too. like steam does with free play weekends and special offers to buy. But when you only can rent it and unrestricted variant is so extremely expensive, then i don't think that it will be succesful. When you remember the day where the games have been cheaper i guess much more was sold. You have got always 2 ways, sell few for a high price, or sell much more for a better price.

[miles]

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.
How cheap are you, really? You can rent Jets'N Guns for a week for 1$25, which is enough to finish the game (and replay it till you're sick of it).

If you want to replay it many times aver the years, of course you'd want to buy it - no point complaining about rental prices here. Or did you want 1$25 to be a rental for 10 years?

As for buying it for 5-10$, it 4 to 8 times more expensive than the one week rental - how is that cheaper if you just want to finish a game and be done with (then you can re-rent it in 5 years if you feel nostalgic)? The gas you'd burn running to the store(s) is probably more money than the rental already.

[Kano]

Fine you rent it one week and you do nothing else than playing it the whole week, then the price would be ok. But when you have got only a few h to play with it in that week then it is not that good. There are titles which can be finished completely within 1 or 2 days, then you don't need to buy em. But if you like the game and want to play it lets say every month a few h then renting is more expensive.

[miles]

Fine you rent it one week and you do nothing else than playing it the whole week, then the price would be ok. But when you have got only a few h to play with it in that week then it is not that good.
If you can't finish Jets'N Gun playing a few hours here and there in a weak, you've got more to worry than the price of the game.

There are titles which can be finished completely within 1 or 2 days, then you don't need to buy em.
So even the fact that it's interesting for at least a few games doesn't matter, as long as you'd rather be fussing?

More thorough games can be finished in a month or so, playing a few hours here and there - you don't need to buy them if you just want to have fun, see the story, finish the game, and be done with it. If you want to spend 200 hours on a game over years, and find more than 10 bucks too expensive, again you've got issues that are bigger than the price of a game.

But if you like the game and want to play it lets say every month a few h then renting is more expensive.
Breaking news: that's what buying is for.

Fact is, it's just not for you, and not for the vocal people that would find paying 1$ for anything a rip off. Those aren't really anybody's target in the first place, and they aren't really people you'd be happy to have even as paying customers, because they aren't fun to be begin with.

[djack]

What would be nice would be the ability to convert a one week rental into a full download purchase by paying the difference.

That way almost everyone wins. LGP gets a far better chance of seeing a return on their porting efforts and consumers get the chance to have a cheap test period that effectively becomes a free demo if they purchase the game.
I'm in a similar position to Kano in that I can only really spend a few hours a week on a particular game. While I don't mind paying less than a movie ticket to assure myself that the game will work and that I enjoy it, I don't like the idea of being penalised for being cautious.

[Kano]

@miles

I have got nothing agains buying, but when you look at the price differnece of the same game which is a budget title for Win for years and the price you should pay for the Linux variant then something is definitely wrong. I looks like that Linux games never get old and sell for full price. That price will only pay very few people, even if they like the game. Maybe they buy the Win version after testing.

[djack]

I have got nothing agains buying, but when you look at the price differnece of the same game which is a budget title for Win for years and the price you should pay for the Linux variant then something is definitely wrong. I looks like that Linux games never get old and sell for full price. That price will only pay very few people, even if they like the game. Maybe they buy the Win version after testing.

The facts and reasons of the price differential has been covered many times...

The original companies are not allowing their current games to be ported and launched alongside the Windows versions.
LGP (or whoever) need to be able to pay their programmers a reasonable wage.
The economy of scale is simply not there for the games to be cheaper. If they dropped the prices from £30 to £15, they would not sell three times the number of units - the market simply isn't there yet.
Without the early-adopters (that's us, Linux games now, btw) willing to put their money where their mouth is, the market figures will not grow and things will not change.

[Kano]

I am sure a fair model would work. Maybe 10 € for all Linux games/month - there are , and a pay 10 instead of 12 month discount when you pay for a year in advance. With installing games as easy as in steam. And please get rid of £ as only currency. Seam definitely has advantages - you do not need to make backup of your games, you can do of course, but you are not forced as you can download the games at anytime you reinstall your system. Internet connection speed is always getting better so dl does not take that long anymore. And when LGP can get 100 €/year instead of getting nothing (if you only use Win for gaming) thats sounds a good deal for both sides - as long as you get new games relatively often, not that many want to play the same games over and over again.

[wiscados]

Are we talking about DRM here?
Yup!
These games are defective by design.

[Odin]

I am definitely willing to pay for linux games, BUT I am not willing to pay the full price if a game is already several years old.

The rental service is a nice idea and the prices for renting a game are ok.

@miles
Playing a game is not about finishing it, but having fun with it over as long periode of time - maybe that's what Kano wanted to say in addition to his other points.

[deanjo]

I really wouldn't recommend doing any transaction with them until they fix their site.

http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/account.php?error=We+are+lazy+slackers+and+our+pag e+is+vulnerable+to+XSS&login=


Posted again so I don't see "WTF, thanks for telling us a little late" replies.

[L33F3R]

I really wouldn't recommend doing any transaction with them until they fix their site.


lol honestly this is so sad i just have to chuckle. Suck an abysmal failure on the part of LGP :p

They have had an eternity to fix this.

[miles]

@miles
Playing a game is not about finishing it, but having fun with it over as long periode of time - maybe that's what Kano wanted to say in addition to his other points.

Then fussing about renting prices (seriously, 1$?) doesn't enter in the equation, since people that want to have fun with it over long periods of time would buy the game. And if they're spending countless hours with a game, it's being really cheap to complain about selling prices. I can understand complaining about a 30£ game if you're only going to play it for 5 hours, but if you spend tens or hundreds of hours on it, the price difference between a bargain bin Windows game and a 30£ port doesn't enter much in the equation. I'm also happier with a bargain bin price, but having cheaper prices on a different platform doesn't change the fact one can also value the game as offering them 50-200 hours of gameplay.

And anyone that complains because he won't spend 30£ on a game he only plans to play for 5 hours is right - but the rental now offers him an alternative to not playing the game at all. Cheaper than the bargain bin, but apparently for some 1$ is far more expensive than just getting the game for free.

[miles]

@miles

I have got nothing agains buying, but when you look at the price differnece of the same game which is a budget title for Win for years and the price you should pay for the Linux variant then something is definitely wrong. I looks like that Linux games never get old and sell for full price. That price will only pay very few people, even if they like the game. Maybe they buy the Win version after testing.
You've been beating that horse for years. It sound word for word the same as the kind of thing you already said, is there any value copy/pasting your posts?

People that buy Windows games definitely isn't LGP market, even when such people consider themselves as Linux users. If you've got both an XBox 360 and PS3, and the PS3 port of a game is selling for 70$ when the XBox360 game has been out for one or two years and can be found for less than 20$ on a bargain bin, while the PC game has been out for much longer and can be found for less than 10$, nobody's going to contest there's a huge price difference. It doesn't prevent some companies offering PS3 ports, and obviously there's a market for them - just not the ones that own both consoles, or like to game on a PC.

Same with Live Arcade/Wiiware/Playstation Store selling classical games for 10$ when for that price you'd get 5 of them second hand everywhere, or free. Same for PSP ports of a PS2 game that's only 5$ second hand next door (the shop next door to me has a few thousand second hand PSX/PS2 games). Or an XBox 360 port of a Dreamcast game that could be found brand new for a few bucks on Ebay. Guess what, a PS2 port without any improvements sells for 40$ on the PSP, and nobody finds that a steal - if you don't want it, don't get it. There's a market, it's just not you, get over it - if you're happy with Windows, where's the problem?

[Odin]

I want to play games for a long time and I want to pay for them as little money as possible.
If LGP would offer more games for a lower price, I would buy them from their store/resellers instead of playing the games under Windows or on my X360. They are losing potential customers by setting high prices.

[Kano]

@miles

I only change my mind in rare cases, but it is more easy to write it again than searching for reference posts.

[L33F3R]

I want to play games for a long time and I want to pay for them as little money as possible.
If LGP would offer more games for a lower price, I would buy them from their store/resellers instead of playing the games under Windows or on my X360. They are losing potential customers by setting high prices.

sadly the prices are ridiculous :(

getting 1 customers paying 50 bucks for a game gets you 50 bucks and 1 reference. setting the same game at 20 bucks would get you 3 sales ($60) and 3 references. Lets be honest, you cant sell Gorky 17 at the same price as ARMA 2... Linux users believe it or not are people :p.

ders no law that says price is relative to output but ders a reason our tangible goods are made in china :rolleyes:.

[Chewi]

I'm not sure about the rentals idea. Can't hurt, I suppose. The downloading option is great though, I bought Sacred Gold from Tux Games recently and was playing it for a week before the thing actually arrived.

[Raven3x7]

Renting is not something i would do, the downloading option is fine with me though. In fact i'll get some games next week probably

[Aradreth]

I really wouldn't recommend doing any transaction with them until they fix their site.

http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/account.php?error=We+are+lazy+slackers+and+our+pag e+is+vulnerable+to+XSS&login=


Posted again so I don't see "WTF, thanks for telling us a little late" replies.
The service isn't available on LGPs site only through distributors like tuxgames so this point is probably irrelevant. (Although they really should fix the site)