Gaming > SA Broadband.

[saffakanera]

Im starting to get nervous, it seems that games are becoming larger and larger, and whenever even a patch strikes, South Africans cringe and scramble with their portable hdd's to get them via sneakernet.

In a years time from now, with our clearly lackluster growth in the broadband sector, will some games just be too expensive to enjoy?

Consider this, at the moment, if you purchase a title for R300 that requires a 2 gig download, at R120, that drives the price of the game up to R420...

Is it not time for the stores who sell games to start supplying content patches alongside the games?

Could we sue the suppliers? What is the gamers legal stance on this matter. Surely in a years time it cant be expected of the average South African gamer to download 5 gig patches or game content per purchase?


It seems that the major gaming markets countries all have fairly modern broadband services and policies, so it will be the obvious step to start bringing more content online to help fight piracy etc, will we be left out of this evolution of content distribution?

 

[stefan9]

Im starting to get nervous, it seems that games are becoming larger and larger, and whenever even a patch strikes, South Africans cringe and scramble with their portable hdd's to get them via sneakernet.

In a years time from now, with our clearly lackluster growth in the broadband sector, will some games just be too expensive to enjoy?

Consider this, at the moment, if you purchase a title for R300 that requires a 2 gig download, at R120, that drives the price of the game up to R420...

Is it not time for the stores who sell games to start supplying content patches alongside the games?

Could we sue the suppliers? What is the gamers legal stance on this matter. Surely in a years time it cant be expected of the average South African gamer to download 5 gig patches or game content per purchase?


It seems that the major gaming markets countries all have fairly modern broadband services and policies, so it will be the obvious step to start bringing more content online to help fight piracy etc, will we be left out of this evolution of content distribution?

You can't sue the suppliers. They are providing the product as intended by the publsher. Its not their fault that we have pathetic broadband.

 

[lord_spaceman]

I don't mind downloading large patches as long as the following 2 steps are followed:

1) The patch is hosted on a local server (so capped users can access) - DoGaming is doing a pretty good job at the moment.

2) The patch is released the same time as/very close to the international release - a 24 hour wait is fine. This is critical to gamers who play games like World of Warcraft

 

[FarligOpptreden]

That's why I stick to my console. Most of the games are bug-free enough to be playable right through to the end, with some minor exceptions, of course. PC games many times just feel rushed and the developers know their target audience probably has a fastish internet connection and will download the supplied patches. Most console-game patches only add extra content to the game and sometimes fix minor glitches or improve upon the game. Very rarely are console games dependent on patches to actually WORK.

 

[general_koffi]

Local bandwidth is dirt-cheap, and the vast majority of game patches are hosted locally.