Rentable Digital Video-Games

[Active Hoper]

Lately, I've been engaging with my local libraries more often, with one of the ways that I've been doing that being the simple borrowing of video-games from them. A title that I recently borrowed is Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, which impressively allows the player to nearly seamlessly switch between its old and new visual styles - a feature that's been pleasantly advanced from Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Yet, it lacks that balance between preservation and modernization in other areas, as seen with its absence of optional settings for auto-savings, creating an unnecessarily forced punishing atmosphere and an uneven experience.

I likely wouldn't have played and subsequently shared my thoughts on that game were it not for the ability to freely experience pieces of art these libraries provide me with. Libraries have their limits, though. They only provide physical titles, excluding a vast amount of digital-only video-games from being experienced with as much ease. That's where places like Steam can step in.

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for, say, $4.99, with games at that price or cheaper than it by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it, or a rough adaptation of rental models from other industries' digital storefronts, can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Lately, I've been engaging with my local libraries more often, with one of the ways that I've been doing that being the simple borrowing of video-games from them. A title that I recently borrowed is Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, which impressively allows the player to nearly seamlessly switch between its old and new visual styles - a feature that has been pleasantly advanced from Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Yet, it lacks that balance between preservation and modernization in other areas, as seen with its absence of optional settings for auto-savings, creating an unnecessarily forced punishing atmosphere and an uneven experience.

I likely would not have played and subsequently shared my thoughts on that game were it not for the ability to freely experience pieces of art these libraries provide me with. Libraries have their limits, though. They only provide physical titles, excluding a vast amount of digital-only video-games from being experienced with as much ease. That's where places like Steam can step in.

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for $4.99, with games cheaper than that by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

game developers set the prices, and there is already a system in place they can use if they want to "rent" the game out, its called a subscription.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Lately, I've been engaging with my local libraries more often, with one of the ways that I've been doing that being the simple borrowing of video-games from them. A title that I recently borrowed is Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, which impressively allows the player to nearly seamlessly switch between its old and new visual styles - a feature that has been pleasantly advanced from Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Yet, it lacks that balance between preservation and modernization in other areas, as seen with its absence of optional settings for auto-savings, creating an unnecessarily forced punishing atmosphere and an uneven experience.

I likely would not have played and subsequently shared my thoughts on that game were it not for the ability to freely experience pieces of art these libraries provide me with. Libraries have their limits, though. They only provide physical titles, excluding a vast amount of digital-only video-games from being experienced with as much ease. That's where places like Steam can step in.

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for $4.99, with games cheaper than that by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

game developers set the prices, and there is already a system in place they can use if they want to "rent" the game out, its called a subscription.

Subscriptions constantly rise in price and have collections of games they offer that frequently change.

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

game developers set the prices, and there is already a system in place they can use if they want to "rent" the game out, its called a subscription.

Subscriptions constantly rise in price and do not have access to any and all titles that someone would want to play.

subscription, rental, same thing just a different word. again, its up to that games developer to decide how they sell their game, not steam.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Subscriptions constantly rise in price and do not have access to any and all titles that someone would want to play.

subscription, rental, same thing just a different word. again, its up to that games developer to decide how they sell their game, not steam.

They are not at all the same thing. Subscriptions are much more variable than rentals are, the latter of which allow users to pick what titles they want to play and when.

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

subscription, rental, same thing just a different word. again, its up to that games developer to decide how they sell their game, not steam.

They are not at all the same thing. Subscriptions are much more variable than rentals are, the latter of which allows users to pick what titles they want to play and when.

do you have any idea how steam works? game developers decide how much their game will sell for, when it goes on sale, what regions it is sold in, the price it is for each region, if it is part of a bundle, what kind of bundle, etc.

valve cannot "rent" you GTA V. rockstar would have to set up the "rental" pricing on steam.

you dont pick what you can "rent". you pick from what is available.

again, rent or subscribe are the same thing. you pay x to have something for y amount of time. you can change the wording around all you want, it does not change the fact that they are the same thing and the system already exists in steam. it is up to the game developers to use it, and as you can see, many do not use it because they would prefer you BUY the game.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

They are not at all the same thing. Subscriptions are much more variable than rentals are, the latter of which allows users to pick what titles they want to play and when.

do you have any idea how steam works? game developers decide how much their game will sell for, when it goes on sale, what regions it is sold in, the price it is for each region, if it is part of a bundle, what kind of bundle, etc.

valve cannot "rent" you GTA V. rockstar would have to set up the "rental" pricing on steam.

you dont pick what you can "rent". you pick from what is available.

again, rent or subscribe are the same thing. you pay x to have something for y amount of time. you can change the wording around all you want, it does not change the fact that they are the same thing and the system already exists in steam. it is up to the game developers to use it, and as you can see, many do not use it because they would prefer you BUY the game.

Rentals are a standard when it comes to how digital movies and television shows are sold. Whether rentals on Steam would look like my idea or roughly akin to the models established by other places, there is no reason that such a standard cannot be transferred to the medium of video-games, as well.

[MonkehMaster]

no thanks, we are already basically renting.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

no thanks, we are already basically renting.

Care to kindly elaborate?

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

no thanks, we are already basically renting.

Care to kindly elaborate?

You "buying" a game on Steam (or any other digital service) is not you buying the game. You are getting a license to play the game. A license which, at any point can be revoked for any reason.

You do not own the game. So you are pretty much buying a rental/subscription to the game.


Just look at all the recent games that people "bought" that shut down servers and now those people can not play those games. They still have them installed, and except for the lack of the match making servers there is nothing stopping people from playing those games... and some of those games were actually single player games.



BUT here is the thing... even when you bought "physical" games you were never actually buying the game. You bought a license to play the game, which could be revoked at any time, just that before always on internet or even dial up became common, they didn't have the ability to take the game from you. Now a days, they do.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

no thanks, we are already basically renting.

Care to kindly elaborate?

We aren't buying the software, we are only purchasing a license that allows restricted use of the software the license is tied to. Been that way pretty much since the inception of a software market.

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for $4.99, with games at that price or cheaper than it by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

Yeah, sure. Why spend $70 on a game when you need only spend $5. That will certainly help the developers pay their bills. 14 Days? Hell, at least 90% of the thousand games in my library can be 100% completed within that amount of time. Even the other 10% can have a vast amount of the game experienced in that time. You seriously think that is a business model that is even the slightest bit sustainable for this industry?

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Care to kindly elaborate?

You "buying" a game on Steam (or any other digital service) is not you buying the game. You are getting a license to play the game. A license which, at any point can be revoked for any reason.

You do not own the game. So you are pretty much buying a rental/subscription to the game.

The same things could be said about digital movies and television shows, and yet, storefronts for them offer the option to rent titles.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Care to kindly elaborate?

We aren't buying the software, we are only purchasing a license that allows restricted use of the software the license is tied to. Been that way pretty much since the inception of a software market.

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Places like Steam can provide to users an option to rent video-games for up to fourteen days for $4.99, with games at that price or cheaper than it by default remaining unable to be rented. It's a simple idea, but it can have the great impacts of increasing the number of people who play video-games and the conversations that are had about them.

Yeah, sure. Why spend $70 on a game when you need only spend $5. That will certainly help the developers pay their bills. 14 Days? Hell, at least 90% of the thousand games in my library can be 100% completed within that amount of time. Even the other 10% can have a vast amount of the game experienced in that time. You seriously think that is a business model that is even the slightest bit sustainable for this industry?

My idea may not be sustainable, but the fact still remains that a lasting model for renting digital movies and television shows, mediums which are comparable to digital video-games, has been on storefronts, a model that, as an alternative to my idea, could be adapted in some way.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

You "buying" a game on Steam (or any other digital service) is not you buying the game. You are getting a license to play the game. A license which, at any point can be revoked for any reason.

You do not own the game. So you are pretty much buying a rental/subscription to the game.

The same things could be said about digital movies and television shows, and yet, storefronts for them offer the option to rent titles.

And movies and TV shows are distinctly different than video games.

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

We aren't buying the software, we are only purchasing a license that allows restricted use of the software the license is tied to. Been that way pretty much since the inception of a software market.



Yeah, sure. Why spend $70 on a game when you need only spend $5. That will certainly help the developers pay their bills. 14 Days? Hell, at least 90% of the thousand games in my library can be 100% completed within that amount of time. Even the other 10% can have a vast amount of the game experienced in that time. You seriously think that is a business model that is even the slightest bit sustainable for this industry?

My idea may not be sustainable, but the fact still remains that a lasting model for renting digital movies and television shows, mediums which are comparable to digital video-games, has been on storefronts, a model that, as an alternative to my idea, could be adapted in some way.

No, they are not comparable. They are different forms of business in the entertainment industry, so what may work for one certainly doesn't mean it will work for all.

[Active Hoper]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

The same things could be said about digital movies and television shows, and yet, storefronts for them offer the option to rent titles.

And movies and TV shows are distinctly different than video games.

Not in ways that matter to this conversation.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Active Hoper:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

And movies and TV shows are distinctly different than video games.

Not in ways that matter to this conversation.

You may not want it to, because it doesn't suit your narrative, but it most certainly does, Sonny Jim