ARRRRRRRG. DVDs, people!

[rant]

I just bought Call of Duty 2. 6 CDs

World of Warcraft: 4 CDs
Quake 4: 4 CDs
Everquest 2: God only knows how many CDs
Doom 3: Several, I forget
Baldur's Gate 2: 6, by the time everything was said and done.

We've been past the "one CD" or even "two CDs" mark for games for years now. Computers have been shipping almost standard with DVD drives on anything more than Walmart 300 dollar Wonder machines for years now. Furthermore, you can buy a DVD drive now for less than the price of a new computer game, and not black-market specials in from Hong Kong. And *everyone* knows *someone* who could install it, right, or pay the computer people at Best Buy to do it.

So WHY are CDs still the primary format for releasing software? I don't think that Walmart Wonderbox is going to be running Quake 4 or Call of Duty 2 anytime soon anyhow.

Oh, sure, sometime's its an option. Quake 4, for example. If you wanted to pay 20% more for the "Collectors Edition" which happened to ship on DVD. A few games get it right... Sims 2 was easily availibile on DVD at no extra charge, for example... and DVD copies *flew* off the shelves around here, while CD copies lingered. But many games don't even have the option availible even if you are willing to pay more. Why?

Gamers aren't a 'mainstream' market for the most part. The mainstream market might play some games, but thats what they have consoles for. We're not, as a rule, that far behind the technology curve. I can't imagine companies loosing signifigant sales if they put out 50% or 75% of their games on DVD format. Sure, leave some of the games as CDs, at least optionally... The sims is a good example of that, a ton of people play that I guess who aren't 'gamers' in the traditional sense. But why, why, WHY do you make us gamers suffer? We're the target market!

[/rant]

I find this pretty strange. When I got my copy of Half-Life 2, it was on DVD-Rom (I will admit, it was the Collector's Edition), but you have a point. Gamers are going to be the edge and the price for a DVD-R drive is laughably low, now. I think I got my for $60 bucks, and I know that they sell for cheaper now.

On a side note, I've noticed I have tons of blank CD-Rs, but I had go out and buy DVD-Rs right now when I was burning some stuff for a friend. I think this is because I rather have a lot of empty, wasted space on a DVD-R than run out of space on a CD-R. Strange.

Yeah, HL2 was... 4 CDs, I think, if you didn't get the collectors edition.

I noticed with the recent release of X3 Reunion that the European release was on DVD whilst the North American one was on 6 CDs.

Anyone know why?

That's crazy archaic. I would think anyone with a goodly enough computer to play some of those games would also have a DVD drive by definition. DVD drives have been around, o, how many years? (And to think I remember when DVD-R drives cost a small fortune!)

My DVD writer, which does + and - and RAM and all sorts of other niceties, only cost like, 60 bucks CANADIAN. And a reader-only is even cheaper!

And, think of the storage medium efficiency... which would be cheaper on the manufacturer too... yeah, I don't get it.

Having games on CDs is usually requested by the distributor and is done for the same reason they request that games run on old geforce mx cards - they don't want returns from customers. It doesn't matter if a game performs badly on old hardware, it's important that it runs at all.

There's an additional consideration: obsolescence lowers vendor pricing.

It's similar to the reason why television manufacturers still make CRT's - they have a huge investment in the manufacturing technology. Billions of dollars usually. Someone is sitting on a lot of CD-duplication machines that are fading into oblivion. When a new technology arrives, as it ramps up, penetrates the market, gains volume, lowers pricing and takes marketshare, the older tech gets phased out. During that phasing out suppliers lower their bids to compete; usually using those old machines as long as possible while they upgrade to new ones. It won't be long before the scales tip entirely away from the format (at which point we might see a flood of CD-duping machines on eBay and niche music studios cranking out more indy music).

Actually, I suspect that CRT televisions are still popular because the price point on affordable larger screen plasma and LCD televisions is still a bit high for the masses. The money spent on a 15" LCD screen can get you a basic 32" CRT television.

Back to the original topic. EA had the right idea when they released the Sims 2 on DVD. Like Torley said, the average machine capable of playing the game most likely came with at least a DVD drive. Finding a plain CD-ROM drive these days is next to impossible, unless you buy it used.

Actually, NewEgg.com has 30 of them alone, starting at $14.50 for a Sony.

{emphasis added}

That's actually the point I'm making. Thank you for re-inforcing it.

old school did it too

7th guest 4cd's
Tex murphy (under a killing moon) 5cd's
almost every lucas arts/seria game in the 1990's 3-10 cd's

atleast its not

Earthseige 13 floppys + 15 floppys for the voice pack
Kings/Space quest 10 floppys + upto 20 floppys for voice packs
Windows 95 (what was that 13-20?) floppys (not including drivers)

But i agree, when the cd rom hit full force floppys died, now that DVD roms are the majority its time to atleast offer the program in DVD format (like they started to back when dvd was new)

oh and comp-usa has plain ol sony DVD roms for 19$ so WHY would you pay 15 and shipping for a CD rom?

Time Zone for Apple II used 6 double-sided 5 (HEY! I can't use the alt symbols any more! When I press Alt-1 it goes back to the main forum page!)

OK. Start over.

Time Zone for Apple II used 6 double-sided 5 1/4" disks.

aye and the hobbit for the ][e had almost as many floppys as there was pages in the book lol

I did say NEXT to impossible.

Anyway, if you check out store shelves at places like Best Buy, they are hard to find. Online vendors are probably just unloading old stock and refurbished stuff, hence the low prices.

I dont understand why more games dont offer the option to bypass the CD or DVD altogether and just allow customers to download their product.

I have a couple of arcade type games I bought and downloaded online. I bought Half life 2 from Steam. They downloaded it to me after I paid them. I never had any trouble with it. And oh yeah, I downloaded this thing called Second Life nearly three years ago.

But yeah, the single DVD install of Sims 2 went pretty flawlessly. If I cant buy online and there is a DVD option, thats the way to go.

My Lord of the Rings special edition set has 4 DVD's each making it 12 for the three part series

Sure, movies are another issue. Although the new formats are promising.