[Udvarnoky]

Funny then, how even Curse of Monkey Island was available boxed on shelves in just about any supermarket in Sweden. Even the re-release of LucasArts Entertainment Pack (Sam & Max, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and The Dig in one boxed set) was readily available in any game store here, while in the US it wasn't even released in the first place. Yes, this may be the exception to the rule but since Sweden was always a big market for LucasArts adventures and point-and-click adventure games in general, retail just might still be viable over here, while online-only distribution is still not widely accepted, because many gamers here are also collectors who are very passionate about their shiny discs.

It's true, the market for adventure games has proven more viable internationally than in the U.S. It should be noted though that the LucasArts distributor is different overseas than it is in the US, which would explain why certain packages are only available, or more widely available, in non-US countries. Of course, the reason LucasArts doesn't make its adventures more available over here could very well be because they don't think it will sell. But that's not the point. The market for adventure games in stores is only part of the problem. The other part is actually distributing an selling it. Telltale is funded by private investors, and does not have a publisher. They might not have the manufacturing capacity to create and distribute boxed versions of their games all across the world, regardless of whether or not Sweden has potentially a little bit better chance of buying the game because "online-only distribution is still not widely accepted." By the way, how is it any less accepted over there than it is here? And how would you know that? The cost of distributing the game could very well exceed the cost of making the game itself. Telltale would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by taking such a gamble.

And many gamers here are collectors and just as passionate about shiny discs as you are.

If Telltale goes defunct, who would host it? I don't trust other people to keep the stuff I've bought available to me at any given time, since I might want a new copy of the content long after the provider has gone defunct. I know I can keep a piece of plastic reasonably safe for an extended period of time. I don't know how stable the publisher/developer may be so the download version may vanish at any time, or be DRM-laden so as to disallow making backups offline. I simply don't like the uncertainty of entrusting the safekeeping of immaterial goods to a content provider without having a physical copy of the data myself as a backup (and an additional physical or image backup of the original physical disc for daily usage, so the actual original can be put away in a safe place and backed up again in case the previous backup is damaged).

You can back up your Telltale game on a CD if you want to. Yes! You can! And you can put the disc on your shelf and feel all safe protective about it all you want! There's no uncertainty here. Telltale's said that if they close down (not that it'll ever happen, of course ) they will release an activation-free version! Then there's no problem. Oh, but what if their content provider shuts down? Don't you think it'll be fan-circulated enough by that point that you'll be able to get it easily? I mean, seriously, games get illegally circulated all the time. You could download all kinds of pirated games with ease, and you're worried about not being able to get an officially released game? And once you have this activation-free copy (I can't believe we have to think about this), you can burn it to a CD and not worry about "entrusting the safekeeping of immaterial goods to a content provider without having a physical copy of the data myself as a backup." Because once you have that, then the situation is is absolutely no different from owning a copy of any other Cd-released game. And don't say, "What if it doesn't run on my computer in 25 years?" because it's no less vulnerable to that than World of Warcraft.

I really didn't want to go here, because it discusses piracy and is common sense, but aren't you forgetting that when you download a game from Telltale you download the whole game? All the files are there. When you purchase the game you simply "unlock" the content that you already had. Don't you think that if Telltale goes defunct and their content provider for the activation-free version of the game goes down years later (and you somehow managed to miss it), and for some reason no soul on the internet as a copy of it and it's not readily available on the internet, or for some reason Telltale lied about releasing the unlocked version (not that I suggest that's what you're implying), do you really think that some hacker can't crack it? Again, I don't even want to mention that, but I'm guessing this is what you want to hear.

I'd just like to comment this by pointing out that many of us who started gaming in the early years of the industry and who have seen many games be lost that we would have liked to preserve, have become even more passionate about preserving and porting games to extend their lifetime far beyond their shelf life and indeed even beyond the lifetime of their original OS:es and architectures. I for example try to contribute to projects like ScummVM by talking to developers around the world about releasing sources to the team. I have found many developers to be as passionate about their old games as we fans are.

Having a physical copy that can be controlled and kept safe, in addition to backups for actual use, is the best way (IMHO) to ensure that when preserving and portage is needed and viable, a good copy will actually be readily available.

As an example of why I don't trust content providers to keep my games available to me, I'll point out that while the ScummVM team were able to get the source code to BASS from Revolution, the source to Lure of the Temptress had by that point already been unrecoverably lost. Otherwise it could have been ported as well. I attribute the lossage to carelessness on the part of Revolution, not being able to recognize the value of maintaining the code until it was already lost.

Except Revolution never promised its fans that it would keep the source code for Lure of the Temptress intact for ten years. I'm not saying it isn't tragic, but what are you going to say about the bajillion games that don't have a prayer of having a SCUMMVM-like program to run it on newer systems? The comparison of the inability of a fan emulator to run a certain game because it couldn't get the source code from the company really has nothing to do with what you're saying, anyway. Not a thing you've said explains how Telltale's games are susceptible to being lost, at least not moreso than any other game.