Reports of the second disc in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 PC retail package actually containing data from Mass Effect 2 got me thinking about distributing games via retail versus digital download.
It seems certain owners of the Black Ops 2 PC retail package cannot install the game from disc. Once the installer prompts for disc 2, their PC reports that disc 2 is instead minted with the Mass Effect 2 installer.
It is more likely the real Mass Effect 2 installer a few years ago erroneously triggered Windows to mark its installation package file types as ME2-specific file types and these BO2 users are running into just that: a BO2 disc in actuality, but Windows thinks it's ME2 due to some error in the registry caused long ago.
In the event the discs actually are mixed up, someone, not at Treyarch or Activision or Electronic Arts, but at the manufacturing plant responsible for minting the discs has made a huge mistake. If this is the case, I feel real sorry for the users who received a copy of the game with this error. Retail stores won't take it back, because the package is already open (even though you have to open the package to read the license agreement which, if you disagree with it, you yet again cannot return the product to the store). Their only hope is a 6-8 week turnaround from the game publisher. I bet the consumer will have to pay shipping, too.
I generally buy retail so I have a physical copy of the game I can keep in case the digital distributor later goes out of business or pulls the game and I can never re-download a copy. But if the game must be activated online upon installation anyway, there's little point in buying retail unless you just don't have the bandwidth to download a 15GB game.
No comments:
Post a Comment