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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?

By | July 21, 2011, 8:05am PDT

Summary: It’s 2011. Why can’t I buy a game and be able to play that game on whatever platform - PC, PS3, Xbox 360 - I have access to?

It’s 2011, why can’t I buy a game and be able to play that on whatever gaming platform - PC, PS3, Xbox 360 - I have access to?

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. I can buy movies in a ‘triple pack’ that features Blu-ray, DVD and a digital copy, I can read my Kindle books on pretty much any platform at my disposal, I can take my Audible.com subscription with me wherever I go. But when it comes to gaming, why can’t I buy a game that allows me to play it on multiple platforms?

It has already stated happening. With Portal 2, Valve gave PS3 owners a free copy of the game for PC, via the Steam download service. Which was a pretty neat thing to do. PS3 gamers got a free PC version of the game, and Valve got the Steam onto a few more PCs. It’s a Win-Win situation. Sure, no one really got ‘two copies’ since you could only play one or the other but there’s nothing wrong with that. Gamers got the choice of which format they wanted to play - PC or PS3 (no Xbox option as Microsoft doesn’t allow Steam on that platform).

So why don’t we see more companies do this? Well, I’ll be straight with you. I know the answer to this already, and it’s because they have no incentive to do so. While most gamers have a PC and a console, they generally choose one or the other for gaming (as a rule, the console for gaming because it’s less of a hassle). Valve offered Steam (in case you’ve not been keeping up, Valve is the creator of Steam) because it was an easy way to introduce new gamers to Steam and all the stuff it has to offer. It made sense. It might make sense for a big distributor like Electronic Arts to try the same thing too; but on the whole, there are not an awful lot of reasons for publishers to do this.

Poll

Would you like a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?

Well, I can dream can’t I? What I’d like is the ability to buy a console/PC game bundle that allows me to choose what platform I play on. I’d be happy to pay more for this and I’d also be happy for there to be some sort of DRM (à la Steam) in place so that only one copy could be played at any one time. But the ability to be able to play on both a console and on the PC would be something that I’d find really handy.

What do you think?

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Topics

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Games, Personal Technology

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
grayknight 25th Jul
@Bates_ I would love to play Black Ops against PS3 and PC players when I'm on my xbox. Playing against other players across platforms would be awesome, and so would being able to buy a game that has all platforms included (make it a reduced cost bundle - 4 platforms for $120 / 2 platforms for $80). This could include mobile versions. Since each game developer already makes multiple versions of the game, the cost is not so much.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
Droid101 21st Jul
Portal 2 was like that. Buy the PS3 version, get the PC version free.

Other games are reluctant to try this model.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
S. DeGarnd 21st Jul
@Droid101
I would love steam on ps3, xbox360 and pc. Buy once play everywhere would bring any game supplier to epic heights!
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Apple's iOS platform has 'buy once play on many devices' feature
DeRSSS 21st Jul
@S. DeGarnd: Apple's Mac App Store is the same.
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Yeah BUT (There's always a big one)...
Wolfie2K3 22nd Jul
@DeRSSS
Isn' the iOS store limited to Apple iOS products - i.e. iPhone, iPad Touch or iPad? You can't play a game like that on say, a Windows PC, or a PS3... Those are all Apple products - pretty much the same platform. Not quite the same thing, now is it?
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
wcb42ad 22nd Jul
@DeRSSS

I can use Mac apps on PCs, Xbox, and PS3? No?? That's what I thought...

Troll somewhere else please. This talkback has nothing to do with Apple.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
matt@... 22nd Jul
@Wolfie2K3

There is a Mac App store for Macs and iOS devices. Apple hasn't really made a very clear distinction between them. Something lacking in Adrian's article is that there is STEAM for the Mac and you can get a number of Valve and other developer's title's for Mac. Valve gave Portal to Mac and PC users both, for free. I have and love STEAM on my PC and will occasionally launch it on my Mac. Admittedly I work on my Mac and play on my PC, but if I hit the road, I can play some games I enjoy on STEAM on my MacBook Pro. I can also compare STEAM's offerings to what the Mac desktop App store offers games for. STEAM and their "impulse buy" offers will beat the Mac desktop App store on price 6 out of 7 days of the week from what I have seen so far.

For example, I believe Civ 5 is $39 at the Mac desktop App store today which is comparable to what it goes for at STEAM unless they go crazy and offer it for $17 today...which they did. I'll probably pick it up. Another important note, Valve offers all of it's games cross-platform. Buy one, play it on both. NCSoft/Paragon allows that with City of Heroes, Blizzard does it for WoW and StarCraft II. So it's not that crazy for some games.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
BillDem 21st Jul
@Droid101 That would give me more incentive to buy games.
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pity it was 1 way.
shryko 22nd Jul
If you bought it on the PC, you didn't get the ability to download and play it on PS3...

Once there is the bi-directional bundling, I'd go for it. Until then, I'll stick to my PC only.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
wcb42ad 22nd Jul
@shryko

Why would that matter? If you owned a PC and a PS3 (or Xbox, or whatever...) it wouldn't matter which one you picked up first. You'd be getting both versions.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
Robert Hahn 21st Jul
I don't think this is the same thing at all as putting the same movie on Blu-Ray, DVD, etc. Once you've made the movie, the incremental cost of putting it out in another playback format is minimal. That's not true for games. There can be substantial costs associated with porting a game to different platforms.

If I'm a PS3 guy, I don't want to pay for development efforts targeted at PCs or Macs or Android or anything else. If the multi-platform version has a higher price, that's OK, but smearing the cost of multiple platforms over one product that's sold to all is not fair to those who won't use that facility.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
CobraA1 21st Jul
@Robert Hahn

"I don't think this is the same thing at all as putting the same movie on Blu-Ray, DVD, etc. Once you've made the movie, the incremental cost of putting it out in another playback format is minimal. That's not true for games. There can be substantial costs associated with porting a game to different platforms."

You are indeed correct. You can't just slap the same code onto all three platforms and expect it to work. A lot of work goes into porting games - it's not the same as slapping it onto a new piece of media.

Re-encoding video to a new format is easily automated. Once you have the conversion set up, you just let it run the whole length of the video.

There is no equivalent to that in video games. The code has to be changed, the optimizations have to be re-done for the new platform, the controls have to be adjusted, art assets may have to be redone if one platform is more powerful than the other, it has to be tested on the new hardware to ensure they don't encounter hardware bugs, and the list goes on. It's not easy porting to a new platform.

So yeah, you're right.

That being said - for games that are already on multiple platforms, I do think it's the right thing to do.
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There's a dirty little secret here though...
Wolfie2K3 22nd Jul
@Robert Hahn
They (the game writing companies) already DO spread the cost of development over all of the platforms they support. Each community (PC gamers, XBOX, WII and PS3 gamers) are all pretty much a fickle bunch. What might go over well on one platform might bomb on another. I'm sure they balance the price of a game they've released to reflect that. They almost have to do that - just to make sure the entire company doesn't go belly up. Game companies usually work on game projects as a whole - each group of programmers work together to make sure that the game's details - things like plot, or look and feel are uniform regardless of the platform.

There may be minor differences - for instance, the PS3 has a thing called Trophies while other platforms may call them something else - like Achievements or such. But over all, those still have to function the same way regardless of the platform. Quests have to be consistent across the board, though there may be subtle differences in the interface. What works well with a console with it's limited controller interface would not go well on say, a PC where you've got 104+ keys that can be programmed to do whatever functions are needed.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
gotamd@... 21st Jul
I would like it, and I'd pay a small additional fee to be able to do so.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
Bates_ 21st Jul
I'll only ever be a PC gamer despite how we get shafted, but I think if they started merging for servers together and cross-platforms could play together, then I would be happy. Quake 3 Arena was one of the first to do it with PC-Players and Dreamcast players playing together.

Final Fantasy XI too with PC, PS2, and X-Box 360 players all playing together. I would love to be able to play Black Ops with my PS3 friends.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
jbryon92 21st Jul
@Bates_
My family has a Wii and my 12 y/o son used to play Black Ops like it was going out of style. His uncle has a PS3 and Black Ops so my son saved up his money to buy a PS3 and Black Ops so he could play against his uncle. It sure would have been nice if the ability to play across platforms, online, would have been available. It would have saved my son nearly $300.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
grayknight 25th Jul
@Bates_ I would love to play Black Ops against PS3 and PC players when I'm on my xbox. Playing against other players across platforms would be awesome, and so would being able to buy a game that has all platforms included (make it a reduced cost bundle - 4 platforms for $120 / 2 platforms for $80). This could include mobile versions. Since each game developer already makes multiple versions of the game, the cost is not so much.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
samalie 21st Jul
@Adrian...Were you reading the news out of EA this morning? Shame it isn't included in the article...

EA is considering the same model with their sports games...buy once, play anywhere... http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/jul/19/ea-sports-new-business-model
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Money is the answer.
terry flores 21st Jul
There are a lot people out there who have been trained by the media cartels to pay multiple times for the same content. The game producers would lose revenue if they changed their model, so they are not going to change in any meaningful way. It will take a revolt from the customer base to force it.
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or competitive threat...
shryko 22nd Jul
@terry flores
If there are credible alternatives offering this model, and people are going to it... then the old model would lose sales, and it would be a defensive move. Reduce your profit, but maintain your sales.
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Windows 8 and Xbox 360
JMJMJMJM 21st Jul
I think Microsoft may do this with Windows 8 and the Xbox 360 next year
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might get me to consider buying a 360!
shryko 22nd Jul
@JMJMJMJM
If they did this, and had games that supported it, then I could see going for a 360. It would need to be managed in a very simple way, though... and I think that would be the challenge.

Steam manages what games you have downloaded (installed) on whichever machine you log in on... You buy once, and then install any number of times.

If only microsoft games had the win8/360 duality, then I wouldn't be interested. It'd take more publishers supporting it for me to ever consider it.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
CobraA1 21st Jul
"It?s 2011, why can?t I buy a game and be able to play that on whatever gaming platform - PC, PS3, Xbox 360 - I have access to?"

This is a good idea for games that already have ports to other platforms, and I'd like to see more cross-platform games to work that way.

BUT - if a game is not already cross-platform, then they have to go to all of the trouble of creating the ports to other platforms, which costs time and money.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
bump911 Updated - 21st Jul
The facility already exists - it's called Onlive. You can play on your PC, Laptop, or TV with just an internet connection. Nothing to download or install. Eventually, this will be the dominate method of game delivery. Unfortunately that means PS3 & Xbox would go away as they would no longer be needed. And of course not everyone has the required broadband to use the service. But one day, I think this will be the way all major games will be delivered (excluding phone games of course).
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
andrewms85 21st Jul
@bump911 im a big fan of Onlive, however bandwith caps ruin this service. I played a Metro for maybe 6 hours and already met my 30GB cap at school...
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
bump911 21st Jul
@andrewms85 - Yea caps suck. Course you could always switch to phone modem connection - no danger of exceeding your cap then! (:
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
bump911 21st Jul
@andrewms85 - Yea caps suck. Of course you could always switch to dial-up & never worry about that cap again. (:
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
CobraA1 21st Jul
@bump911 OnLive isn't really a good experience. Compressed video means visible artifacts, the system lags, it needs far more bandwidth than most people have, you can't play it offline, and the list of issues goes on.

It's a good idea in theory, but that's about it. It's not a good idea in practice.
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Xbox on Windows 8 and the 360
jatbains 21st Jul
This is coming next year. Serious competition for Steam!
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On the same line of thought, why not buy once play anywhere applications?
adornoe@... 21st Jul
That way, a copy (or license) of an application would allow a consumer to be able to switch platforms and/or OSes with very little or no problems. Also, the lock-in that comes from platform dependent software would disappear. Apps designed for Windows platforms could be run on Apple gear, including their mobile devices, and any Apple applications could be run on Windows-based devices. Neither Apple nor Microsoft would enjoy the lock-in that comes from OS-specific designs.
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RE: On the same line of thought, why not buy once play anywhere applicatio
msoeguy Updated - 21st Jul
@adornoe@...
"Neither Apple nor Microsoft would enjoy the lock-in that comes from OS-specific designs."
That's the exact reason that it would never happen. Game publishers, on the other hand, are (usually) not the manufactures of the OS/hardware on which their games are played.
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OnLive
ninjit 21st Jul
for a technology blogger, I'm a little stumped at how you haven't heard of (or at least mentioned) OnLive in this post.
It's pretty much NetFlix streaming but for games.

I think what your asking for is a step beyond that, and I believe it might be easily achieved if Valve was to buy OnLive and combine it with their Steam service.
Buy once, play on your mac, play on your pc, or play via streaming...
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Handy ..
thx-1138_@... 21st Jul
.. but i'm a PC gaming purist from years gone by. I can't stand console gaming. wink
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
Aerowind 22nd Jul
"While most gamers have a PC and a console, they generally choose one or the other for gaming (as a rule, the console for gaming because it?s less of a hassle)."

Not true at all. Most gamers that have a choice will pick the system most suited for it, especially since games are ported and may have super wonky things that happen in the process. This is even true between choosing between two console versions. Go to any forum for a multiplatform game and ask what the differences are and you'll get a giant list of things. Not evening mentioning the fact that most FPS fans would kill someone if they had to use a controller instead of a mouse.
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If most choose consoles by default for gaming...
Zorched 22nd Jul
...then I'm not "most". I have tried and tried again to play a lot of games on consoles and they just don't work well for me. Too many functions and not enough buttons, or such imprecise controls that I can never even take a shot before getting wiped. In consoles, where I'd maybe hope to get a torso shot, on PCs I can put a bullet in an ear. So, consoles are relegated to casual, racing and some RPGs for me.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
bc3tech 22nd Jul
What I'd appreciate more is stuff like the Xbox Live Arcade games that are Ported to WindowsPhone being playable and "linked" between the two. Saved games propagate across, buy on one and it's available on the other, etc. I mean, how cool would it be if you could buy Angry Birds on iOs, and play and save your progress across Roku, WP, Android, etc?!
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
clisair@... 22nd Jul
If it is Steam then it might as well be SecuRom, neither go on my PC so if it is steam it doesn't exist
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
Con Donovan 22nd Jul
I was only thinking this yesterday ... I've legitimately paid for every game I've ever played ... PC, Amiga, Colecovision, MegaDrive & 32x & CD, Saturn and Dreamcast.

Occasionally it's fun but media breakdown over 20 years means many are no longer playable ... so I've tried and managed to download a few of my old PC DOS-based favourites off the net for free, but I begrudge being expected to pay for some of them again, unless they have been enhanced ...
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Angry Birds!
alan_r_cam 22nd Jul
Available on iPad, iPhone. Available as a Chrome web page.
Intel Appup store has it, and it's even on PS3...

But they are all seperate purchases.
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RE: Why can't we have a 'buy once, play anywhere' gaming model?
NZJester Updated - 24th Jul
What I would like is the ability to install and play games while offline when I want. Most of the new games require a NET connection for installing and activating them before you can play. The last game I purchased I decided to install on Sunday afternoon when I had some free time. I started to install it at 3:20pm and it was not ready to play till just after 5:30pm as the steam interface would not let me play it till after it had downloaded all the updates for the game. I was over my cap for the month so my ISP had slowed my connection down and this was part of the reason for the slow install, but I was given no choice to just play the game offline without installing the updates in the install options. I was wanting to play the game between 4:00pm and 6:00pm before I had to get ready and go out. By the time it installed I had no real time to play it any more and just spent the extra time shutting down the computer and trimming my beard. If I had known it was going to take that long I would have just played another game. This was the first game that had ever taken longer than 30mins to install.
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The Turbo Graphix is the only console I recall having a similar model
DS-Solutions 25th Jul
Or at least it was the only unit that had the same media for it's console and it did for it's handheld which I though was ingenious. You did not have to buy 2 versions of the games and for developers they only needed to support one platform. Sweet. Too bad it never caught on in the US.

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