The digital download thread

[frogbeastegg]

I thought it might be useful for the arena to have a thread about the assortment of online services which allow you to buy and download games, since they are becoming ever more prominent. Think combination user's guide and recommendation thread.

I'll set the ball rolling with my own limited experience.

GamersGate aka Paradox's online games buying service
My handful of purchases have all gone smoothly, with it typically taking under 5 minutes for me to locate a game, pay for it, and start it downloading. The GamersGate downloader is easy to install and use, and I've found speeds to be very good on my 4MB connection. I have not had any problems with interrupted downloads, service failure, or bad files.

GamersGate is a downloader only. You do not need to run it to access your games, or to update them. You use it to download, then you never use it again.

The selection of games is quite good but has quite a bit of crossover with Stardock's service. Certain titles are exclusive to this service, mainly the expansions to the various Paradox grand strategy titles.

As GamersGate is a European service it charges in euros. Depending on your own local currency this may result in some good deals ... or not.

Impulse/Stardock Central
Impulse is the new replacement for the old Stardock Central service. Most of my experience is with SC, and I only installed Impulse several days ago as I heard it had some teething troubles. I have not had any issues with the program and it does has some nice features - provided you are prepared for them. For example, it will automatically install your game once the download is finished. I didn't know that until I got a pop up prompt asking me whether I wanted a desktop shortcut for Space Rangers II! You can configure installation paths via the options menu.

Stardock Central/Impulse are used to download games, and to patch those published by Stardock. You can use Impulse to launch games if you wish, or you can do it the old fashioned way. Impulse has a lot of extra features, most of which I haven't tried out yet. The dock is a lot better than I expected; it transforms into a thin grey line above the middle of my task bar until I click directly on it. It's possible to add launch icons for anything you want, whether it's from Impulse or not, so presently I've got all of my games dropped into it so I can clean some icons off my desktop. The autopatching feature is handy; games will automatically update if Impulse is running. Presently this only works with Stardock's own titles but in the future it is supposed to work with most games. An archive feature is also present, so you can store older versions of games in case you don't like the patched versions. I found the Impulse interface to be a tad puzzling. I couldn't find the main options menu for ages. It's the round Impulse logo on the top left side, and it doesn't highlight or otherwise give you a hint that clicking on it might do something.

Download speeds can vary, though I must say that on those occasions I have had a slow download speed it has picked up to the normal full speed within a short time. As with GamersGate, I have not had any problems with failed downloads etc.

The description of Impulse's range can currently be copied/pasted from GamersGate's section: there's a quite a bit of crossover and some unique games, mainly those made or published by Stardock.

This service charges in dollars. As the pound/dollar exchange rate is currently better than the pound/euro one Impulse is slightly cheaper than GamersGate for me at the moment.



Anyone able to do write ups for Steam and Direct2Drive?

[TinCow]

I have downloaded from both Steam and the Blizzard Store.

Steam
I personally hate the Steam interface. The program takes a long time to load up and connect. However, once its up and running the system works pretty smoothly. There are a very large number of games for sale through Steam, and the prices are acceptable. The biggest positive for Steam IMO is the download speed. I'm not entirely sure what kind of a download system it uses, but it goes at absolutely blazing speeds and it doesn't seem to hog many resources. Installing games via Steam is actually far easier than doing it with the physical discs. In addition, Steam remembers what you have bought and allows you to install it on multiple computers as long as you've got the same account. This is very useful and convenient.

Blizzard
I have only downloaded Diablo II and the expansion pack from them. The interface is very fast, since it's all done via a web browser. You buy your game, they send you your CD keys, and then you are provided with a link to the downloader utility. Each game has its own downloader utility. You run that thing, and then it starts to download the programs for you. The speed is decent, though not as fast as Steam. All around, an acceptable service, though the selection is limited to Blizzard software AFAIK.

[Xiahou]

I have downloaded from both Steam and the Blizzard Store.

Steam
I personally hate the Steam interface. The program takes a long time to load up and connect. However, once its up and running the system works pretty smoothly. There are a very large number of games for sale through Steam, and the prices are acceptable. The biggest positive for Steam IMO is the download speed. I'm not entirely sure what kind of a download system it uses, but it goes at absolutely blazing speeds and it doesn't seem to hog many resources. Installing games via Steam is actually far easier than doing it with the physical discs. In addition, Steam remembers what you have bought and allows you to install it on multiple computers as long as you've got the same account. This is very useful and convenient.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, it is impossible to launch a Steam game outside of Steam itself. Personally, I don't care for Steam and would never buy anything via Steam that is available elsewhere.

I've used both GamersGate and SDC (Stardock Central) to download games. GamersGate was completely painless to use. For SDC, I had some problems with it redirecting to a different totalgaming.net link than the game I had clicked on. It resulted in me buying an extra copy of a game I already had. On the bright side, a call to their very pleasant customer support line saw the issue quickly resolved.

[Martok]

An archive feature is also present, so you can store older versions of games in case you don't like the patched versions.

Interesting. I was not aware Impulse had that feature. (I've been following it off & on over at the GalCiv 2 forums.) I know Brad Wardell said he wanted to give customers as much choice and freedom as possible, but I didn't realize to what extent he meant that.

[frogbeastegg]

Interesting. I was not aware Impulse had that feature.

It's turned off by default. Click on the circular stardock logo to open the main menu, then preferences. On the general settings page there is a tick box called "archive applications before updating". There's a second option below that which sets whether the program keeps all versions or only the second most recent.

[CrossLOPER]

Steam is tyrannical, but reliable. That's all I can say in a nutshell.

[OverKnight]

I used Direct2Drive to purchase Medieval 2 when it came out. I was satisfied at that point. However, due to the size and complexity of the 1.2 patch, the D2D patch was delayed even though the patch for the hard copy version of the game had been available for months. D2D failed to give a concrete estimate of when a new patch would be available.

Due to my participation in PBMs I ended up having to buy a hard copy of the same game. D2D finally got current with patches 3 to 4 months after the rest of the market.

Just be aware that when you buy a download version of a game, it can vary from the hard copy version. Your most likely dependent on the download provider for patches and might suffer from mod incompatibility.

However, this did not prevent me from using the same service to purchase Jade Empire. I figured a port of an older game would not encounter the same problems as above. I would just caution people to do a bit of research on each game before deciding to use a downloaded version.

[CrossLOPER]

Just be aware that when you buy a download version of a game, it can vary from the hard copy version. Your most likely dependent on the download provider for patches and might suffer from mod incompatibility.

Fulfillment may suffer when you can't use mods on games like Oblivion as well, I take it.

[Papewaio]

Steam is tyrannical, but reliable. That's all I can say in a nutshell.

So it's like Singapore of the Digital Download world?

[Husar]

Steam has some good and some bad sides IMO, one of the good things are the messenger-like friends features, you can add friends, compare your stats, chat with them, chat with them while playing, use voice chat with them, join their game if they are playing etc. A clear downside is that it discriminates and Valve are a bunch of lazy America-centric people or something like that because some people will have to pay more if the publisher of a game wants that (CoD4 costs 50$ for people in the US, 70$ for europeans) while others cost the same everywhere, like Valve's own games. A lot of people would prefer if those other publishers would ask the same price everywhere because you essentially use the same service everywhere. And then, even though I bought a Valve game and am 22 years old, I got a cut version of the orange box, that means dead bodies in Half Life 2 disappear rather quick and in TF there is no blood and people disintegrate into rubber ducks and tools. Apparently they want to heed the laws of my country but are too lazy to do some age verification so I just get the cut versions because they check where my IP/credit card comes from.
The funny thing is, had I gotten an american license key from a box purchased in a shop and entered that...

Well, and then there is that thing about some games being released exclusively in America for god knows why and even more annoying is that they still send me those news like "Hey you can get all rockstar games for really cheap since today!" and then I go look for them and cannot find them anywhere simply because I am german and rockstar doesn't seem to want to release them here.

Now that is not primarily a fault of the shop because they let the publishers decide where to release what for which price but it's still somewhat frustrating for me anyway because I feel so close to the fun but then they dump me again because my IP is from Germany.

apart from that I found the service pretty flawless and like it has been said, you can install the games on mulitple PCs, for the future they even want to add the possibility tostore savegames online so you can play the same saves from multiple PCs.