[Historical] PC games on dvd-rom (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

This is a spinoff of an offtopic discussion on another thread on here, which is more appropriate in this subforum.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/a-quinn-martin-production.351359/page-20

Here are the relevant posts.

Don't remember the specific brand. I built a gaming system and made sure it had a DVD drive as I anticipated games coming out on DVD instead of several CDs. It was a DVD/CD-R drive (wouldn't burn DVDs - just play them). It was a "top of the line" system at the time - set me back ~$2000 (including the 19" CRT).

(Going offtopic).

I thought something like this might happen. Though in the end, I only ever purchased one pc video game which was released on a dvd disc (Grant Theft Auto: San Andreas).

By that time circa mid-2000s, some pc game discs were starting to go the route of just having a "install/download" program on the cdrom disc.

I haven't been able to find much information about how common were pc games released on dvd-rom discs. For most of the pc games I was buying back in the day circa early->mid 2000s, they were mostly on cdrom discs. Stuff like the Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA Vice City, etc ... which didn't require any online code verfication.

From anecdotal experiences of others on here, how widely used were dvd-rom discs used for boxed pc games before pc game downloads (ie. steam) were common? (ie. Where the actual discs had the game, and not a download program).

 

[jcroy]

The first time I stepped back from buying a pc version of a current video game, was Grand Theft Auto 4.

At the time when it was first released on the pc in late-2008, I remember reading a lot of complaints about the pc version being a lousy botch job which required a then-cutting edge very powerful computer in order for it to be playable. Initially it didn't disuade me from buying it.

When I saw the GTA4 pc version on the shelves at a nearby BB, I was about to buy it until I noticed on the back cover that the installation required an internet connection to enter an authentication code to a web site (probably steam). This was the point I said no, and put it back on the shelf.


Does anyone know how far back when boxed retail pc games (on disc) started to require entering authentication codes to a web site (such as steam) to activate the game after installation?

 

[Ruz-El]

I stopped playing PC games around the time the first THE SIMS came out. to my memory, it was the last game I bought, and it might have been out of a clearance bin. I was playing Playstation 1 by then, if I was gaming at all.

Anyone wanting to dip back into the old games, there's a ton of them available to play on the internet archives.

https://archive.org/details/softwar...]=emulator_start:*iafix*&sin=&sort=-downloads

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Anyone wanting to dip back into the old games, there's a ton of them available to play on the internet archives.

I’ve been back on the Oregon Trail thanks to those emulators

 

[Ruz-El]

I’ve been back on the Oregon Trail thanks to those emulators

It's funny, I showed these to a friend at work ages ago when he was talking about Phantasmagoria, and we ended up playing Oregon Trail haha

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It's funny, I showed these to a friend at work ages ago when he was talking about Phantasmagoria, and we ended up playing Oregon Trail haha

My wife wound up having an inpatient stay a while back for monitoring (all is well) which consisted mostly of extreme boredom, and so I brought in a laptop and Oregon Trail. For years she had mentioned she never played it as a kid and it seemed time to rectify that. And she didn’t die of dysentery! Score!

 

[LeoA]

I bought my first computer in 2003 when Papyrus/Sierra released NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, and skipped on a DVD drive.

It seemed like CD was still nearly universal at that time and I foolishly was spending over $2,000 on it (And wasn't yet buying DVD movies or tv shows), so skipped on the DVD drive thinking it was unnecessary and a good way to save a bit of money. But it was only a couple of years later that games started appearing regularly on DVD, so I started to regret that decision pretty quickly.

I actually still have several such purchases from circa 2005 that I need to someday play, that were bought for when I got around to installing a DVD drive or bought a new PC and have just sat since then. One notable release is compilation of all of IL-2 Sturmovik and the various expansion packs like Pacific Fighters on a single disc.

I bought Atari Vault on disc at Wal-Mart a few months ago, my first new physical PC purchase in well over a decade. I'll have to check and see if that was on a DVD or CD-ROM. Enough space on the latter to accommodate it all, so it very well may not of been a DVD. [Edit: It's a DVD-ROM]

 

[Clinton McClure]

I was out of PC gaming by the time studios began using DVDs. I think the last PC game I bought was The Temple of Elemental Evil in 2003.

 

[jcroy]

I recently went shopping at a nearby thrift store.

I looked through the video game section and saw that just about every pc game was a cdrom. It was large enough to occupy an entire bookshelf. I only saw one pc game on dvdrom: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.