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I suspect that it's mostly an issue of money. Releasing a game, even for free download, costs money in the form of staff, servers, bandwidth, etc.
by mrduncan 17y ago
I suspect that it's mostly an issue of money. Releasing a game, even for free download, costs money in the form of staff, servers, bandwidth, etc.
- presidentender 17y agoIf there's DRM involved, the conversion from disc to bare .exe would have a minimal cost involved, I suppose. But releasing your game as a torrent would erase the cost of servers and bandwidth. EDIT: MechCommander was released as a torrent. Microsoft (you know, that Microsoft) owns the IP.
- klipt 17y agoBut releasing your game as a torrent would erase the cost of servers and bandwidth. A game via torrent? It's probably already been "released" for them...
- daveungerer 17y agoThey only get the promotional benefits if they create an official release.
- rogermugs 17y agoor if some idiot out there finally figures out how to monetize torrent... even an included movie ad or something... or a modified game that shows a boot screen with an advert would be completely acceptable to me.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Batsu 17y agoNot to mention with the advent of digital distributors such as Steam, making an ancient game available for $2 still draws in a couple buyers every now and then without any marketing or much effort. In fact, Commander Keen, a game that was released by iD Software 20 years ago, is available on steam right now for $5. Naturally, there should be some drop off point in sales where the PR becomes more worthwhile than the couple bucks.