Official Telltale BitTorrent downloads?

[xbskid]

Could Telltale benefit from BitTorrent? It has a few benefits over direct downloads, like automatic error correction (Anyone ever end up with a corrupt installer and have to re-download 300+MB?), and the possibility to receive files faster that what the server(s) alone can achieve (Assuming the torrent is well-seeded).

As far as downsides go, the number of downloads can double (One .torrent per release), although, since most if not all current BT clients allow you to select which files you want before downloading, it's possible to include both Windows and OS X installers in the same download. Another downside could be that you require a separate program to actually handle the torrents.

Thoughts? Concerns?

[Friar]

I don't think so. The downloads are usually quick enougth. I just downloaded the City that dares not sleep, and it took less than 5 minutes. (I can't say how much less, as i haven't looked at it between starting it, and noticing it had finished)

[doodinthemood]

I always thought BitTorrent just made piracy really easy and did little else.
I don't have any problem with the current download system. There are a couple of people on here who have things like 40 minute download times though. What would that cut to in bittorrent?

[guitarsareboring]

Wouldn't that make it too easy for people who haven't paid to access the files?

[Zonino]

Originally Posted by doodinthemood

I always thought BitTorrent just made piracy really easy and did little else.
I don't have any problem with the current download system. There are a couple of people on here who have things like 40 minute download times though. What would that cut to in bittorrent?

Little bit of a misunderstanding here.

BitTorrent is just a peer-2-peer file sharing program. Basically you ask it to find a program, it searches for other people either downloading or "seeding" the program, and proceeds to download from them. The more people who have the program, the more information you can download and thus the faster it downloads. Piracy is just the... human side effect of technology and progress.

I'm not sure if it would cut download times for games though. Since it needs people to have the program to increase download speeds, you'd probably only see a marginal difference if you were downloading the moment the game came out. And if you were downloading it much later and it took 40+ mins, well the problem there is more likely to be your own ISP.

[Jake]

People with fast connections often download our games at a rate faster than two megabytes/second. We host our files on the same server network that delivers content to Steam and Xbox Live Arcade customers.

Maybe for a subset of users, BitTorrent or another distributed download method would yield faster results, but we're not lacking for officially provided bandwidth.

[GinnyN]

Originally Posted by doodinthemood

I always thought BitTorrent just made piracy really easy and did little else.

You have no idea how many legal things I downloaded from Bittorrent.

I guess the best idea for us, people with crappy connection in developing and soon to be developed countries to install a Download manager of sorts.

[Hassat Hunter]

40 minutes here would mean 40 minutes with BitTorrent.

It's not the server that is the bottleneck, but our own darn crappy connections .
*is sad*

[Elvenmonk]

Or use Steam. They have that feature too.

[OzzieMonkey]

Just for reference, I use BitComet to download Telltale's games, and I've tested, it is much quicker.

[Elvenmonk]

Not for me. I get like 600 KB max, usually 120KB, from torrents. From TellTale I get like 1.2 MB+.

[Steve2000]

Maybe in a few years this will change, but right now the small subset of Telltale customers who would be savvy enough to know what/how to deal with a torrent file probably doesn't really have any issues downloading the games as it is. A relatively small company like Telltale wants to make downloading and playing their games as easy and accessible as possible.

Imagine some not-very savvy computer user comes to buy Sam and Max from Telltale. It is this person's first ever digital game purchase - and as soon as they purchase and click download their computer tells them they need to go download a bitTorrent client? They are like, "huh??" That could alienate some of the very people we want to be buying games!

[Hero1]

The downloads have always been pretty fast for me.. not sure it is neccessary

[Falanca]

The speed is alright. xbskid especially mentions about having to download the same thing over again if he runs to an error in between. So I'd suggest some download managers such as Flashget or BitComet.

[xbskid]

Originally Posted by Falanca

The speed is alright. xbskid especially mentions about having to download the same thing over again if he runs to an error in between. So I'd suggest some download managers such as Flashget or BitComet.

What I don't understand is how those download managers know when received data is corrupt. If you're receiving a direct download, there's no set of hashes to test each chunk of data, and while some sites offer hash files, that's only for the entire file; and if -that- doesn't match, then what's the program going to do? Redownload the whole thing? On the other hand, when I did receive corrupt downloads, I tried using a Win32 port of wget and no longer had that issue. So what's do those damn apps do?

[Elvenmonk]

flashget doesn't re-download it all the way. It's a weird program, but it works the way people describe it. I used to use it because an adult site I frequented capped downloads to like 50kb so I'd use FlashGet. I wound up getting more then 50 KB and when it did error out for no login after a while I could re-download it from same spot once I re loggedin