The physical release of Titanfall 2 on PC will contain no physical media

[WYP]

The physical release of Titanfall 2 on PC will contain no physical media, containing only a game code for EA's Origin storefront.



Read more on Titanfall 2's boxed copies lacking any physical media.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Isn't this cheaping out? I mean, how expensive will be for EA to mass produce DVDs to include in the physical release box?

There are people with slow internet (ADSL) who will want to play the game as soon as they get it -patches won't be bigger than 1GB, I suppose-

 

[Daiyus]

I've noticed more and more "code in a box" editions replacing discs. It makes me sad. I like a physical product. I grew up in the sticks which made any kind of update a week long affair. While I now live with good Internet I still lean towards physical copies of games with this year being first I've actually chosen to buy digital over physical. Why can't publishers and PC gamers move to blu ray already? DVDs are outdated and should have been phased out years ago, but physical media will always have a place.

 

[WYP]

I've noticed more and more "code in a box" editions replacing discs. It makes me sad. I like a physical product. I grew up in the sticks which made any kind of update a week long affair. While I now live with good Internet I still lean towards physical copies of games with this year being first I've actually chosen to buy digital over physical. Why can't publishers and PC gamers move to blu ray already? DVDs are outdated and should have been phased out years ago, but physical media will always have a place.

I can't remember what game it was, but I remember buying a game that had a disk, which contained a text file that had the code inside.

 

[Darkdayzzz]

See for me personally I'm quite the opposite...NOW. I used to absolutely love physical disks as it meant I could share it with my brother when I was done playing it. Nowdays though with gold sharing on xbox one and good internet I go for digital downloads as often as they are available since I can gold share games with my brother (essentially cutting the cost in half for both of us) and also digital games on my gaming pc can be shared to him since I'll give him my information, boom he downloads its without me needing to mail him a disk since we live in two VERY far away states in the us now.

Idk for me digital downloads are becoming much more common place and overall more advantageous in the long run. Disks are nice and I still have my entire collection of disk games from ps2/ps3/nintendo/sega genesis but some of those (only 2 out of idk probably 100) dont work since the have to many scratches on them. New games of todays consoles and pc I dont want to deal with "oh this game doesnt work cuz of this scratch" just my two cents.

I've noticed more and more "code in a box" editions replacing discs. It makes me sad. I like a physical product. I grew up in the sticks which made any kind of update a week long affair. While I now live with good Internet I still lean towards physical copies of games with this year being first I've actually chosen to buy digital over physical. Why can't publishers and PC gamers move to blu ray already? DVDs are outdated and should have been phased out years ago, but physical media will always have a place.

 

[semitope]

they should give people an ISO to burn if they want. MS does this no?

 

[jimma47]

It makes a lot of sense to distribute digitally now days - but there should be some savings to be had. The digital and physical retail editions are the same price most of the time so someone is subsidizing the packaging and shipping of retail versions.

Back in the day - retail versions had a whole heap of reference material, keyboard mapping, companion stories, posters or stuff that was fun. I do miss that.

These days you buy Wolfenstein: New Order (last one I bought from a store) and you get a disk with half the game on it. WTF? Load the DVD and it installs half and then you have to download 25GB to finish it. Makes no sense at all.

The irony is that my internet was so slow I specifically chose to buy a retail so I didn't have to spend two days downloading it from Steam..

Long story short - aside from the recent moves away from Optical drives for a lot of enthusiasts, games are too big for DVDs - do you remember when Wing Commander III came on about seven CD-Roms? or games with like 11 floppy discs? Bluray drives aren't really that popular.

A USB would be a great option, especially for regions with relatively slow internet speeds.

 

[Daiyus]

Bluray drives aren't really that popular.

This is the chicken egg problem. I have a BD drive because I believe in physical media, and it means my gaming HTPC can supply all of my families entertainment needs.

Many users don't want to buy BD drives because publishers don't use Blu Ray; publishers won't use them because the install base of BD drives is too low. That's the crux of the problem for games at least. Why people are resistant to moving to BD for movies is beyond me as a standalone player and films are comparable to DVD's now.

Yes I remember the days of multiple DVD/CD installs, I'd still prefer it to forcing people to download gigabytes of data over a rubbish internet connection they have no control over or option to improve. I went back to my parents for a few days a few months ago to help with some stuff and took my PC to show my dad some of my new games; just updating a few GB of game took so long I was back home again before it would have finished. They can't even watch iPlayer.

Sure digital does make a lot of sense when you're in the infrastructure to support it; heck I am starting to use digital distribution myself for games, but when you've been in a situation where there isn't the infrastructure to support it and you have no way to improve it except for moving house then you start to appreciate the reliability of a disc.

 

[SuB]

Makes total sense, a surprisingly high number of people don't have bluray drives in PCs, and the last version of the game was what.. 65GB? that's 7 double layer dvds or like 14 single layer DVDs right, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY cheaper and makes far more sense to just bung it on Amazon hosting (or whoever they use) and distribute it that way.

Digital distribution is definitely the answer here. I'm surprised they even bothered with a physical copy tbh.