[Lister192065]

With different delivery systems that exist nowadays, how do you prefer to get your games?

Do you prefer digital copies? Do you prefer hard copies? Why do you prefer 1 delivery system over another?

I would add a poll but i can't see how to add one, to my mind the immediate ones i think of are:

Digital Download (Steam, Direct2Drive)
Game shops (Game, GameStation, EB etc)
Online (Amazon, Play, Zaavi, eBuyer)
Illegally (warez etc)

Whilst i understand this next part may be against the TOS i still want to ask this, Have you ever/Do you ever download a "trial" of a game (Be it an actual trial or an illegal copy) and then go and buy the game or do you just go out and buy and game.

Myself i use Steam for the most part, there is the odd occasion where i will go out and buy a game. The last game i bought was "The Orange Box Collectors Tin", I would count CoD4 but i got given that through work so it doesn't count.

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Whilst i understand this next part may be against the TOS i still want to ask this, Have you ever/Do you ever download a "trial" of a game (Be it an actual trial or an illegal copy) and then go and buy the game or do you just go out and buy and game.

this isn't against the TOU if you download a legitimate trial from the company that makes the game. if you download a cracked version, that's another story

[dsenette]

Whilst i understand this next part may be against the TOS i still want to ask this, Have you ever/Do you ever download a "trial" of a game (Be it an actual trial or an illegal copy) and then go and buy the game or do you just go out and buy and game.

this isn't against the TOU if you download a legitimate trial from the company that makes the game. if you download a cracked version, that's another story

[Lister192065]

Whilst i understand this next part may be against the TOS i still want to ask this, Have you ever/Do you ever download a "trial" of a game (Be it an actual trial or an illegal copy) and then go and buy the game or do you just go out and buy and game.

this isn't against the TOU if you download a legitimate trial from the company that makes the game. if you download a cracked version, that's another story

I was reffering to the latter but didn't want to fully explain what i meant incase that broke the TOS.

[ADNoland]

I used to be hardcore CDs and DVDs only, no digital crap, only physical! Then STEAM came along and showed me the light, they make life so easy to download and they do AMAZING deals constantly. I've nabbed up so many games from their deals! Now, granted, STEAM is the ONLY company I'll buy digital copies from. No EA Downloader, D2D, or Impulse. It's kinda sad there are some games I can't get, Demigod being an example, but I don't want to run a bunch of different programs for me games and STEAM keeps a nice neat library of my digital collection.

They CAN drop the ball at times, IE the BFBC2 release there was no preload, which really sucks, you wait all day for a game to release and then you have to fight with thousands of other users to download and for bandwidth, which results in very slow downloads and frustration. But if you get a sweet weekend deal normally everything flies and you have your game very quickly.

I still will get a hardcopy of a game but it's more rare and I'll actually cancel a preload if I find out it's on STEAM (Bad Company 2 is an example of this) The only time I'll get a physical copy nowadays is if there's a really awsome preorder bonus or collectors item in it. Something like uhm..... say TES4 Oblivion Collectors edition (didn't have a prerelease on STEAM, just using as an example), that I'd want to order from GameStop/online retailer(GoGamer.com is a great one, just throwing that out there for) instead of STEAM.

Also, as a side note, I'd love to point out the excellence of Amazon customer service in a recent transaction of mine. I was having problems with my CD keys being in use when I went to register for the Veteran status in Battlefield. I rebought a BF collection series and found those CD Keys in use as well, I reported the problem to Amazon and they overnighted me a replacement copy (my purchase was only $10) and paid for the return shipping on the previous item. Awesome on Amazons part I think, but I still had issues with the CD keys and had to spend 2 1/2 hours trying to get on the phone with somebody at EA, just to still not have my issue resolved.... but in the end, to wrap the story up, I got everything taken care of