4 ms·
What exactly are they selling if there's no game inside?
by arcanemachiner 3y ago
What exactly are they selling if there's no game inside?
- goosedragons 3y agoA lot of collector's editions aren't including the game anymore. It's just knickknacks. Statue, stickers, steel book to put the disc if you bought that version. That kind of thing. The standard physical editions still include a disc or cartridge and occasionally just a code.
- Tsiklon 3y agoGenerally the disk in the box has to have something on it that runs (It may not even be the game). This is due to the lead time involved in pressing and validating the gold master that becomes the game disk. This allows the developers to continue working on their launch day ‘patch’. With the development cycle and Sony and Microsoft’s distribution setup as it is now, physical copies effectively act as a token to play the game only. Using Cyberpunk 2077 as an example a recent patch to the game mandated a nearly full redownload of the whole game on PS5 and Xbox Series - ~60+GB. On PC it was ~5G.
- Arrath 3y agoA little bootstrap installer and license key that lets you download the whole-ass game, generally.