Games on Flash Drives. Discuss.

[legionaire45]

Woot was selling some games on 8GB Flash Drives for like, $10 or $20 a while ago - I picked up a copy of Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. No annoying CD key type thing from what I remember, which was a plus. Installing it was an awesome experience.

Online distribution is still king in my book, but Flash drives are a nifty little gimmick.

[=sw=warlord]

All you'd need on your drive is registry information and possibly some files relating to modding or community content creation (such as a "mods" directory or something).

Why would you need registry information?
The only thing needing installation is modding folders, the software would/should just load off the drive like a Video on a DVD, softwares on the media but dosn't need registering.
Plug in the game, auto menu shows up and your ready to play.

[Advancebo]

Selling little laptop consoles that only have enough space for the game thats preinstalled on it.

/idea

[Amit]

Why would you need registry information?

3rd party applications, such as Xfire would need the registry in place to automatically find the folder, unless you use the custom option. This is because USB Flash drive letters are different if you have multiple drives and devices, or changed the drive letter.

[NuggetWarmer]

What I've been wondering:

Wouldn't people complain about having to use the USB all the time? I mean, I really enjoy being able to have many of my games just launch off my desktop or wherever else they're stored. No CD required. Maybe they could include a computer install exe in the USB?

[=sw=warlord]

What I've been wondering:

Wouldn't people complain about having to use the USB all the time? I mean, I really enjoy being able to have many of my games just launch off my desktop or wherever else they're stored. No CD required. Maybe they could include a computer install exe in the USB?

What would you preffer, Securom infested software that you can install on your pc or software on a USB with the DRM built onto the chip?
I know which i would preffer.

[NuggetWarmer]

What would you preffer, Securom infested software that you can install on your pc or software on a USB with the DRM built onto the chip?
I know which i would preffer.

ur dum

[=sw=warlord]

ur dum

There's plenty of games that require you to have the DVD in drive even if its installed on your pc, so having a USB would be no different.
In all honesty i think the pro's outweight the cons.

[ExAm]

I don't think anyone realizes the terrible implications for modding that this poses. Impossible DRM due to format = no modding = bad.

[Cortexian]

Like I already said ExAm, it would be possible to have the game place a "mods" directory on your computer somewhere. As well as editing directories for all the files required to make mods or custom content. If implemented correctly they could keep all the actual game files on the USB drive with hardware DRM protection to prevent copying to HDD, and verification of integrity. This would allow end users to add in and create their own mods on their own PC without having access to the actual game files...

This could suck for people using things such as SoftTH and other game add-ons that require files being placed in the game installation directories or sub-directories.