Risen Risen is downloadable now??? :/

Uriziel

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I know it is preorder, but I had not seen the game being downloadable before. I wouldn't have preordered at gamespot if I'd known I could download it :/ :\ And I wonder if Australians can download it.
 
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Hmm, is this legit? And who's the seller? Deep-Silver? I ask only because I was going to pre-order Risen from Deep-silver' online store, until I saw that you have to pay extra to be able to re-download the game for up to a year…

Edit: Personally speaking, I think for a good RPG (yes I do think the game will be good) you are better off buying the physical version, since they usually have nice manuals that you can read in "inconvenient" locations. ;)
 
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Edit: Personally speaking, I think for a good RPG (yes I do think the game will be good) you are better off buying the physical version, since they usually have nice manuals that you can read in "inconvenient" locations. ;)


Exactly, there's no way I would ever consider downloading a game like Risen. That box is going to have prime real estate on my bookshelf.
 
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Speaking of manuals, anyone here have some info on how many pages it has? ;)

Moriendor: So does that mean that the shop has that "1 year download insurance fee" thing?
 
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Moriendor: So does that mean that the shop has that "1 year download insurance fee" thing?

An excellent question :) . I don't know... I just checked the terms & conditions and they do in fact mention a subscription but there is no mention of a price or fee. Here (bolding by me)...
In the case of an order of software that can be downloaded, you can access your product by clicking on the download link present either directly on the page of accepted payment, or subsequently on the confirmation e-mail. You will then automatically have a period of 14 days during which you can download your product at your convenience. At the end of those 14 days, the download is no longer available; you must then contact customer service at to be notified of the procedure to follow. You can choose to subscribe to the download extension for one year, which entitles you to download a new copy of your software products at any time and as many times as necessary.

Just for the record: all that crap makes me think that they are batshit insane. Pardon my French but what kind of retarded shit is that? If you buy a digital download then the least you should be able to do is download the game any time from anywhere and as often as you like.
 
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I don't think it is unreasonable to put time restrictions on the download. No one can be expected to keep a download available forever. But I also don't see why you would want to download it again. Download, burn, the end.
 
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Sounds like they've re-branded a white label solution. I would be careful until you know which DL service is really behind this.

Plus, why would anybody prefer a full price borrowed game via DL if he could buy a license at retail for the same price?
 
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Thanks for the info Moriendor. I will wait to get it from gogamer or gamersgate then.

Uriziel:
While I think it is unreasonable, I can see how it could be viewed as being reasonable.
But I certainly don't think it is wise to purchase digital downloads from services that requires "insurance" to be paid. Esp. when you have other alternatives.


The main selling point of digital download is convenience. But as a result, we have to deal with the negatives:

- Digital downloads usually cost extra upon release (most of the time digital downloads are full priced while retail may get discounts upon release).
- Digital downloads tend to have extra layer of "crap" that wraps around the games for "protection" which usually means more headaches when it comes to installing, patching, and modding the game.
In this regard, not all digital download vendors are the same, I wholehearted recommend Gamersgate, Impulse and GoG. In fact, I'd buy games that I already have physical copies for from any of these 3 vendors. I left Steam out, because the online requirement, and the hassle that you have to go through every time to go into offline mode. (edit: that is not to say that I don't have a large list of games that I bought via steam… I just prefer the other services.)
Also, I heard that D2D is much more improved when it comes to DRMs and after my experience of getting MoW from them I think I will add them my list of "digital download services to buy from."

- Digital downloads don't need to worry about the cost of producing physical copies of the game and esp. manuals. And there would be no need to worry about (maybe) needing to pay for self space. Sure there is the server storage cost and bandwidth cost. But unless the digital service is going out of service for good, the bandwidth cost won't be that much to keep games available to the customer. As you've mentioned most of us won't be re-downloading the game constantly.
And the storage space on the server would already have been allocated for the game, so there wouldn't be that much more cost for maintaining the game.

just my 2 cent.

Edit 2: Risen is on Gamergate, but not buyable right now, but I've sent them a email about whether or not we'll be able to pre-order it.

Edit 3: And now, the one thing Steam is very good at: Availability of games and deals. Risen is now available to be pre-ordered on Steam for $45. But I will wait for Gamersgate's preorder to come active or Risen show up on Impulse.
 
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I also saw Risen downloadable on gamersplanet.

I have no need for manuals and comics and all that crap. And I'm fairly certain I'll have the game before it hits stores. If I had known it would be downloadable, I wouldn't have preordered a hard copy.

I have not used any of the download services. Do they let you download an ISO to burn, or is it an online installer?
 
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It's also on Steam.
 
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I have not used any of the download services. Do they let you download an ISO to burn, or is it an online installer?

As far as I know, Impulse, Gamersgate and GoG all definitely let you archive your game easily and you can install your archived game on any other PC unless the publisher of the game decide to force a special DRM on it that requires activation/deactivation.
D2D is the same for the most part.

One thing nice about Impulse is that they are starting to offering games with their "GOO" "protection" which actually let you resell the game! But right now, there is a problem from GFWL which could nullify the resell feature of GOO, since if you decide to log on to your GFWL account with the game, it will ask you for the game's serial number and thus tying the game to your GFWL account, which make the game "un-resellable." (Actually, you could resell the game, but doing so will definitely make your buyer very unhappy, should he decide to try to log on to GFWL).

Here is a quick run down of the currently well known DD services, in order of my preference (someone who doesn't care to stay online all the time just to be able to play purchased games, who rather enjoy his game w/o being "connected" to some online community, that is outside of the game, all the time):

1. Tie between Impulse and GoG. GoG should be everyone's #1 stop for classic older games, period.
Impulse:
Pro:
- No DRM, (unless the publisher forces one to be used, *cough* Anno 1404 *cough*) besides needind to download the impulse client to download the game for the first time. And as a result, there should be very little problems when it comes to modding and patching games purchased from them.
- Great customer service. Very responsive CSRs and for Stardock published games, they even offer refunds.
- Good selection newly released, higher profile games.
- Easy backup and and installation of games/software on different PCs w/o the need for impulse client (with the client it would make the process more mindless. Backups are just zip archives, which I usually extract before I burn them onto a CD so that I don't have to worry about whether or not the target PC will have a program that can extract zip archives.)
- Very good download speed (YMMV)

Cons:
- Game selection isn't as extensive as Steam.
- Sometimes new games don't show up until days after they are available on steam.
- Not as "connected to the community" as Steam. (But to me the level of "connected-ness" is just right -- you are not required to be connected, but if you decide to connect to the community, there is one waiting for ya)
- Don't have as many crazy deals as Steam.

2. Gamersgate:
Pros:
- Like Impulse, very little use of restrictive DRM unless forced by publisher. (Again, Anno 1404...) There is no "over-all" client that you need to get to download the game, you download an .exe file for every game you purchase, and running it will download the game.
After the download is finished and the game is installed, the executable will ask you if you want to "delete the temporary files" choose NO, since the temporary files are your backup of the game. Burn them on a CD if you like.
- Better (than Impulse) selection of new high profile games. Esp. games from Europe. (I find that Impulse and Gamergate complement each other very well in term of the selection of games.)
- They just started to offer pre-order "pre-loading" of games. Which means you would be able to download your game before it is released, but you won't be able to play it until the release date.

Cons:
- Less newcomer friendly. (Such as automatic patching)
- No "steam-like" online services (chatting, calender, groups etc.)
- Need "Gamersgate specific" patches for most games.
- Again, compared to Steam, Gamersgate offers less deals, and less/slower availability (on avg) of new games.

3. D2D
I haven't used them much until now. They used to use their own DRM protection on every games they sell, but lately it seems that they have abandoned that practice.

Steam (the "grand-daddy" of DD services):

Pros:
- Most extensive "community services." Highly recommended for people who want to be "connected" at all times even when they are playing strictly single player games.
- Most extensive collection of games. They usually have all the new high profile games on the release date.
- Usually have very good deals.
- Most newcomer friendly.

Cons:
- You have to run the Steam client whenever you want to play your game. Which means you will need an internet connection. However, you can configure Steam to operate in offline mode. But it will let you know that it is not happy in that mode...
- Need "steam specific" patches for games. Also, there are more reports of steam purchased games being unfriendly to modding.
- Annoying popup notices for group events in your calender. You disable them (as far as I know) w/o leaving the group... These pop ups could alt-tab you out of some games.

So to summarize:
If you like to enjoy your games at your own pace, w/o distraction from others:
Then:
Use GoG, Impulse or Gamersgate
If you check your facebook, myspace, etc. accounts all the time, and twits (sp?) regularly
Then:
You will love Steam.
 
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I don't disagree with the general direction of your comments but there can be other factors to consider. For example, Steam's size means my ISP is an official mirror - super fast and not included in my download cap. It also auto-patches. I've had issues (not many, admittedly) where GamersGate offered multiple patches and it wasn't clear what was what (the initial release of King's Bounty, for example). Steam does it automatically - I don't even need to know there *is* a patch. Don't know anything about annoying pop-ups - I've never seen them.

Also, D2D only sells to NA an awful lot of the time.
 
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Steam can be good, but with certain games (Stalker comes to mind) patches were months behind the boxed version. I've stopped buying third party games from Steam due to that.
 
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auto patching in steam isnt all good tho, since you really cant choose which patch too use, sometimes the newest patch isnt always the best..
etw specificly comes to mind here.
also, i find the actual steam application rather slow, even on a high end rig.
 
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Would anyone jump on me if I pointed out that 'digital download' is redundant? All downloads are 'digital'. I think the prevalence of the term stems from a confusion of 'digital distribution' and 'download'.

I (Australian) preordered Risen from game.co.uk. I have bought games from them before and have always been happy with them. The delivery charge is very reasonable (5 pounds for 4 - 6 day delivery via Royal Mail), and the total cost to me is only 30 pounds, which converts to about $55 AU.
 
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Slightly off topic but it seems the Russians are first to offer Risen for download at a simply unbeatable price.
 
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