Game on Demand

History

Software rental appeared during the late 1980s as an alternative to software purchase. People would simply rent software when they needed it instead of purchasing the software outright.

Game rental is based on the same idea: players rent the game for a short duration of time, instead of heading out to buy a personal copy. This was and is particularly popular for console games.

Game on Demand (GoD for short) is a new innovative update to the aging game rental industry.

Description

Unlike the console game rental system, where the customer either receives a game in the mail or would need to walk into a brick or mortar store, GoD allows users to take advantage of a broadband connection, and today's advanced file encryption and compression technology. Games are digitally distributed customers typically get to keep the copy of game that he or she rented (i.e., zero return policy).

Comparison of Purchase vs. Rental

Piracy issues

Piracy was a major issue for the early model of PC game rental. Digital media duplication was far too easy: Customers could copy the game CD or diskette to their computer, then either exchange for another title or return for refund.

GoD uses digital rights management technology when delivering a game. The program files are encrypted with a key available from the rental store. Duplicating the file is meaningless as long as the key is unavailable.

A customer usually needs an active account with the rental store to run the game. A part of the fee from the subscription goes towards paying royalties to the the publishers and developers of the games.

Customers pay a fraction of the retail price to enjoy a game, while the creator gets profit from their labor.

No wait delivery

With the wide availability of broadband internet connections, games can now be delivered quickly, either as a full download or by way of real-time streaming. There are arguments for and against each type of delivery.

Full download transfers the complete game to the playing machine. This lengthens the delivery time, particularly for massive games, but offers uninterrupted game play once downloaded.

Streaming lets customers play the game while download progresses, this drastically reduces perceived delivery time since only a portion of the data is needed to launch the game. The downside is game interruption: when the game is trying to access a required file that is not yet available, it may lag or pause as it downloads those files.

Predictive streaming can help, but few effective implementations are available.