BT Games will be forced to adapt in order to survive the end of physical game discs

My_King said:
@porchrat

It is all fine guys.

In a few years when you complain about job losses, complain about online stores having a monopoly and expensive pricing, remember to go to the "Does anyone remember" thread and comment "Writing was on the wall guys", "Glad it is gone as it was bad for you".
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Drama kweens

The only certainties in life are death, taxes, and change. Embrace all three
 
It must be console gamers pining for the old disc days.

Last 18 years were **** for discs on PC thanks to DRM. I remember being 11 years old and unable to get Far Cry 2 to work. The DRM and installation was bugged. Took it back to Incredible Connection and the guy there couldn’t even get it to work. He actually cracked it for me.

Years later I bought Metro 2033 and I just couldn’t get Steam to work on my internet and thus could not play the game. Mate recommended I buy it from the Boksburg fleemarket again for R50 and i could finally play the thing I owned already.

I wanted to play Prostreet again after years. DRM issues. Same with Mirrors Edge.
I gave up on that, haven’t had one in my rig for like a decade and found them elsewhere.

So no, I don’t miss those times.
 
Used to buy my pc games from bt games a very long time ago. Too many shipping delays finally pissed me off to switch to steam completely. Not being able to play on launch day while your friends on forums were able too was too frustrating.
That was some 20 years or so ago.
 
Werner1975 said:
Reminded me of going to Look & Listen and Musica in the good old days. There was just an experience going to an actual store, browsing around and going to a paypoint.
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Which kind of begs the question…if you are just shopping for the stuff online anyway…you may as well just buy it digitally and skip all the courier hassles and dramas.
 
My_King said:
Not maybe, Karens should learn to mind their own god damn business.

If they don't like something, don't do it or buy it. Should stop preaching to other people what they can and can't do.
If they want a power trip, they can go play HOA.
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Comparing sugar to cigarettes is a major error. Cigarettes damage cells via direct toxicity and mutation, meaning their ideal physiological dose is zero. Refined sugar is a carbohydrate; the human body has highly evolved pathways (glycolysis, glycogenesis) explicitly designed to process it into cellular energy (ATP). To call a fundamental energy source "objectively unhealthy" shows a total lack of basic biochemistry knowledge.

Ignorance of Industry and History
The prediction that "industries will collapse" because people will just stop eating sugar is economically and behaviorally incorrect:
  • Humans have a hardwired evolutionary preference for sweetness because it signaled safe, calorie-dense energy in nature.
  • Sugar is a highly functional ingredient used for preservation, texture, and fermentation, not just sweetening.
  • The global food industry isn't collapsing; it is simply diversifying into different formulations because people want options, not because sugar is going extinct.

Arrogant Dogmatism vs. Real Life
The line, "Maybe people should rather just get with the times and adapt?" is incredibly elitist and detached from reality. It Completely ignores:
  • The 90-year-old man who just wants a pleasant cup of tea.
  • The elite marathon runner who needs fast-acting glycemic carbs to avoid hitting the wall.
  • The billions of people for whom food is a source of cultural connection, joy, and comfort, not a clinical optimization maths problem.
Even the World Health Organisation does not ban sugar out right but recommends it only make up to 10% of the energy intake.

www.who.int

Healthy diet

WHO fact sheet on healthy diet with key facts and information on essential dietary elements, practical advice, salt, sodium and potassium, sugars, health diet promotion, WHO response.
www.who.int www.who.int

Unlike cigarettes for which there is no minimum safe dose.

The issue with sugar or any energy intake is balance. Once you do something out of moderation, it's becomes bad for you 'objectively'. Too much exercise and too much sedentary life are both bad. Too little energy intake is also bad. Your body will break down your muscles.

Also talk to obese people you see, you will likely find that few stuff their faces with sweets or Coke, but most probably have high starch diets with relatively little exercise going back decades. Should the maize, wheat and rice industries also go extinct?
 
gregmcc said:
Sad but sign of the times. I do like the game box sets with physical media.

When last did you even listen to a music CD or watch a DVD.
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I would bet that if you took an average adult from the 90s who had a busy life and little free time and an average adult from now, you'd find that both watched DVDs and listened to CDs likely as much. The issue is that now music is also more conveniently available. So you may listen in your car to Spotify although in the past people would play tapes, CDs or mostly listen to the radio.

Still the idea that you don't own your digital music, unless it's DRM free or you rip the DRM and save it locally, is alien to most people. Most people don't recognize this. The industry uses terms like BUY, PURCHASE and OWN when talking about buying music and movies or games online. On the Apple store you can RENT movies and you can BUY them. People expect to always own these movies, that they can watch them at any time and they have that assurance that they have perpetual access.

Once the realisation hits that's not really the case and big corpos start to cut millions off, the sentiment may change. That's why they tend to avoid that and do so as last resort and do so gradually. So at the end of the day, sign of the times is really what the industry can get away with vs what people really want.
 
TBH, had no idea BT Games still existed. Thought they'd gone the way of Musica and DVD Rental stores.

Our local "Games" store has changed a lot; they no longer just sell new and pre-owned games. They now also sell other types of games, like board games and card games, game-related apparel (MTG, etc.), handhelds, and console repair services.

Last time I was there, the owner mentioned possibly branching into comic books/manga too.
 
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ISP cash cow said:
also can't see that Clearwater mall lasting long as well. It is always empty
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Which malls are ever full these days? It's pretty much the same thing everywhere - Checkers/PnP, Woolies, the usual clothing stores, Dischem, Clicks and a collection of restaurants. Everything else is in rotation.

BT should have transitioned online long ago, maybe a local CDKeys alternative or something, supporting local rewards programs. Could have done their hardware sales from the same platform. The only reason I use Takealot is to spend my eBucks there, would have definitely supported them if they went that route...
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Which malls are ever full these days? It's pretty much the same thing everywhere - Checkers/PnP, Woolies, the usual clothing stores, Dischem, Clicks and a collection of restaurants. Everything else is in rotation.

BT should have transitioned online long ago, maybe a local CDKeys alternative or something, supporting local rewards programs. Could have done their hardware sales from the same platform. The only reason I use Takealot is to spend my eBucks there, would have definitely supported them if they went that route...
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Saturday morning at the Pav in Durban used to be chock when I was small. Now...not really.
 
Herr_Koos said:
Physical vs digital media is not really the problem here. Steam was basically the end of physical disks for the PC. I haven't bought a game on disc in over 20 years. My PC doesn't even have a DVD drive anymore. Heck, I've even re-bought games I already have on disk just because a Steam copy is more convenient.
The real issue is ownership. It's just wrong that a company that can simply revoke access to something you paid for whenever they feel like it. That kind of behaviour is what we as customers should be resisting.
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I mean, MMOs exist and there is no guarantee those servers will be on forever.

Then you have the subscription-based games where you are spending money on content that you will never get to own, because the minute your subscription lapses you lose access to whatever content you have paid for. There is also no guarantee that the content you purchase pay to access will stay the same, with disclaimers that their attributes can be altered or otherwise be rendered obsolete.
 
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