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Buying Game Through Digital Download

F

FreedomFighter

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
61
0
Hey Guys,

I apologize if i am flogging a dead horse here but i want opinions and advice who have done digital downloads of games before because I have never purchased a game in this manner.

1. If I start downloading the game and for whatever reason the internet cuts out have I lost my money? can I resume? Or do I start again?

2. If down the track my Hard Drive goes haywire and I have not backed it up for whatever reason have I lost the game or can i simply download it again.

3. Is is generally better nowadays to buy games over digital download? I have always in the past purchased the disk as it feels a "safer" purchase.

Finally any other pros and cons I should consider before buying this game would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help,

FreedomFighter
 
1. No worries, like any internet download, it will just resume next time your connection is up.

2. With STEAM this is not a problem. You can download it again. I can't speak for other services.

3. I still prefer buying the disc. I'll only buy digital if it's a huge discount over retail. Even if I lived in a rural area, I would still by the boxed version off Amazon as an example.

Which game? :)
 
First of all thanks for your help,

Well i was looking at buying C&C RA3 for mac however I live in Australia and it is not available to purchase by disk yet and it is for that reason that I was looking at Digital Download. Because I am quite annoyed at the delay in games coming out in Australia, especially mac Games :(

Thanks,

FreedomFighter
 
i bought ra3 from gametreeonline.com with no problems was able to pause and continue download at a later time they sent me the email with the download link and cd key right away downloaded only took a couple of hours.
 
Thanks for the info I think I will try the digital download this time and see how it goes but if i may ask how big is the download, I cannot see it on there website. It says that the game requires 10 GB on HD but i assume it is compressed?

thanks

FreedomFighter
 
It depends on which service you use. The best by far is Steam, there is no lock on how many times you can download it and it automatically keeps games up to date.

If a game isn't out in your region or is cheaper in another you can get someone else in that region to gift you the game. Send them the money through Paypal or whatever and bam! Cheap games. A lot of my friends in Euro countries used to get their games for cheap through americans.
 
raggedjimmi said:
It depends on which service you use. The best by far is Steam, there is no lock on how many times you can download it and it automatically keeps games up to date.

If a game isn't out in your region or is cheaper in another you can get someone else in that region to gift you the game. Send them the money through Paypal or whatever and bam! Cheap games. A lot of my friends in Euro countries used to get their games for cheap through americans.
Click to expand...

word, I did this for someone for the steam L4D sale a while back.
 
hey guys..... one more question then I will stop bothering you. lol
are digital downloads region protected like normal movies and games? ie. do i need to buy from an Australian store to play this game or can I purchase from gametreeonline??

thanks

FreedomFighter
 
Sorry for the questions but I was wondering wether it matters which country your are in? I live in Australia, is there any reason RA3 from gametree online will not work for me?

Thanks
 
As others have posted, Steam is probably the best digital download store overall and its great for finding titles that are rare/out of print and they have weekly sales. Also try Good Old Games :)

As far as buying or downloading out of region: Steam does an IP check vs your online store, payment address and account region. It is not too hard to get around if a game is not available in your region or you find it at a better price in the U.S store for instance but, it will likely require a call into Steam support. For instance, Steam allows PayPal as a form of payment and PayPal allows users to create accounts for different regions but, your IP will still be from your current region and will probably not match up to the online store. In order to purchase content from those region's Steam stores you'll need a payment method for that region - so a U.S. PayPal account or a U.S. credit card or whatever to buy from the U.S. store. There is nothing illegal or wrong with this and the actual content is the same (with a few exceptions such as language) no matter the region.

After you've got a payment method for the region you want to buy from, Start the purchase content process with your U.S. Paypal account through thre U.S. store (per the example) and the Order Completion process will check your IP. At this point it will probably fail and ask you to contact Steam Support with an error code. When you call into Steam they will simply ask you for the error code or you can just offer up that you are trying to purchase it while out of town for whatever your reason may be. Regardless, when purchasing while out of region they'll want the reason and it *shouldn't be something stupid :) As far as I am aware it is only "passed" on a case by case basis too - I don't believe they can or will permanently flag your account to always allow this so I wouldn't advise trying the above method 20 different times. Anyway at this point they should approve it over the phone and complete the purchase for you right then and thats pretty much it.

Hope this was helpfull and good luck :)
 
Bye Bye Baby said:
Depends on the site but most aren't trying to rip you off
Click to expand...

Like most things on the net, you have to do your homework; I bought a download version of a game called Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines for $9.99 from Direct2Drive.com (was on sale) when the cheapest I could find a retail version was $30 (for a 4 year old game?). It works very well for me.
 
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