PC games - what's on the disc?

[bibblebub]

It's been a couple of years since I last bought a game for a PC and I was wondering what you get on a game disk these days if you buy it in a shop .

For example, if I was to buy Skyrim is the game fully contained on the disks or does the game disk only let you legitimately download it from the official website? I'm guessing the former since the several gigabytes required for Skyrim would be a lot to download but I would appreciate confirmation of that.

Does this vary from one game to another?

[Davethedog]

If the game is self contained it will be on the disk. If however you play on line then certain elements will be on a server as they have to be. This is also the case with console games. Self contained but multiplayer is on server.

[Aquariel]

The disc will have the full game on it - quite a lot of servers would crash if every game had to be downloaded in full! The only thing you will have to download is new content such as patches and map packs, which won't be available at release time. The only exception to discs is Steam, which is download only, although you can get some games cheaper than the disc version if your bandwidth can handle it.

[bibblebub]

Thanks to you both for the replies.

I must admit that I hadn't considered the load on the servers if it were all downloads, so you have allayed my concern about the amount of downloading required.

Having said that Trackmania 2, a game that I would like to buy, is download only (of 1.5GB), not in the shops nor on steam .

[daffy654]

The PC disk for Skyrim makes you install the Steam application and download from there.

[bibblebub]

blimey, 6GB seems a lot to download - even if you don't have a fixed monthly bandwidth then wouldn't fair use policies come into play?

I have recently exported/imported steam games from my xp laptop to my new windows 7 desktop expecting to just be able to play them straight away only to find that it insists on updating the lot of them, including Team Fortress 2 which weighs in at hefty 10GB (so I'm not letting that one download).

[daffy654]

I suppose it could be quite problematic for those who have a download limit, I hadn't really thought about it before because we have Virgin 100mb package which is unlimited.

[bibblebub]

but unlimited packages still have a fair use policy, or so i thought

[daffy654]

The 100mb has a very loose fair usage policy. I download a heck of a lot of stuff (gaming, films and music... all legal btw) and they haven't penalised me in any way yet. When I was on the up to 20mb package they used to choke my speed to 10mb regularly because of how much downloading I do.

[bibblebub]

sounds like they are more relaxed about it these days

I used to have virgin cable a few years ago and after downloading one dvd (not legal but don't tell anyone) they reduced my speed by about 80% for several days. That was the last time I did that.

[Old_Geezer]

Aquariel's and daffy654's answers seem to be at odds with each other's.

To clarify, are we saying that if someone buys a game at the store, comes home with it, has no intention of going multiplayer, may not even have an Internet connection, then the game won't install/play ?

I just wondered if it was worth me trying to find out more about the game and whether I'd like it, but that would be a deal breaker for me from the start.

[Old_Geezer]

Ah OK. Despite contrary opinions on other web sites (one doesn't seem to know who to believe sometimes as details backing up opinion/claim are rarely forthcoming) I'm assuming the game is 'crippled' by requiring interaction with this "Steam" imposition. Pity, but I guess I'll have to give this one a miss then as I'm not encouraging that. Well: I keep meaning to pick up the guitar again and try to learn at least 1 chord, maybe I'll do that instead. Probably do me good to get away from the PC occassionally anyway.

[bibblebub]

Steam can be a right begger, Old_Geezer.

I've got some Steam games on my old laptop and I thought I'd just be able to export them from that machine and import them onto my new PC. However, once the files had been moved across, Steam then decided to update them all, requiring roughly 10GB of download for those that I've allowed; there's one that requires a 10GB update all by itself so I've stopped that from happening.

[daffy654]

http://www.thenexusfo...-skyrim-from-the-dvd/

This may be a help to those worried about download limits.

[Old_Geezer]

Thanks. It's not the limits so much, it's the damned cheek of getting customers to arse about when they have already bought the product. IMO it is none of their business. But in my limited experience of the gaming industry it seems they are all trying it on now, at least for PCs whose owners seem an easy target. Annoys me greatly, I've bought games, found out when I have unwrapped and tried to install, went ballistic, and passed them on to someone else, in the past.

[bibblebub]

that's a very useful link daffy654

(being a natural pessimist I wouldn't be at all surprised if once it's been installed from the disc then Steam will still decide to update it in full anyway)

[daffy654]

In my opinion it should be entirely separate from Steam. I can't figure out how it is beneficial to PC users in any way.

[Old_Geezer]

It does seem to polarise opinions.