Mr Khan said: twesterm said: liquidninja said: Malstrom says here in his post Lending. ...Lending is an extremely important part of the ‘viral nature’ of making sales. Satisfied and enthusiastic customers make the best salesmen. A child, hooked on Super Mario Brothers, will sell Super Mario Brothers to other kids better than any salesman alive... ...And this brings us to the subject of digital games, namely WiiWare. Iwata says WiiWare is supposed to be the great laboratory of gaming. This is all fine and good, but the real objective, which I think Iwata would agree, is to put these experimental titles in as many hands as possible. You just can’t have the diehards buying these WiiWare games. And the makers of these WiiWare games would surely want as many people as possible to PLAY their game... I think companies are so anal trying to keep people from stealing that they don't take into consideration all the word of mouth people can generate by sharing. Now, companies are saying demos don't help sales but that's probably because most demos suck or worse the games themselves suck. This could be one of the issues holding digital distribution back.   Do you really blame them for being wary of people pirating the games?  Do you really think the honor system would work on digital copies? This would probably be their main concern, though there are certainly ways around it. Trial software of all kinds exists, so you could pick up a WiiWare title for a 100 minute trial, or something, and then it would become useless, instead creating a link on the channel menu to punch you over to the Shop Channel. You could "send" trial software of games you own just like you can gift anything off the Shop Channel

I think pirating is the reason why Nintendo won't open up the SD fully, so I NEVER would expect them to allow lending. Actually I'm surprise that the PS3 allows lending, it's probably not widely known though.

The lack of free demos of WiiWare games is the most disturbing thing of WiiWare. Surely I would have bought some more games if I could try it before pay for them.

Online only wouldn't really work, thanks to WiiConnect24 (you're both online 24/7).

I recall that the proposed solution was a "trial period" option, wherein you lose access to the game for a day or three, and your friends gets it for a day or three. At the end of that period, his copy dissolves, and yours is restored. Not sure how technically feasible that is, but I don't see it as impossible. More importantly, I think being able to lend out your digital games would be great for increasing sales, much like shareware was.

 Its easy,  all you have to do is give them your login and password, I suggest changing it just for this time period,  and have them create a user for your account, then login into your account on their system.  They can then view your download list and "share" anything you bought.  The he gives you his login and password and you do the same.  I dont think this works with private Betas or SOCOM though.

Also the new users/account on your machines cannot be deleted, otherwise the games will no longer work. Plus if you do decide to delete each other off your respective consoles, make sure you deactivate the account first, that way they, and you, can still do it 5 times.

It's not like they couldn't inforce a limit through DRM.

Say I want to lend you MM9 but all that time you have it I couldn't play it. Then when I get it back you couldn't play it anymore. (unless you buy it)

A very short version or level from a game automatically downloaded with an update might help people know about a game. If it is brilliant people will buy the rest of it. Free stuff is perhaps a good marketing tool... if the game is good enough, especially for non-net nerd gamers.

Because DRM's always make people happy?

I disagree to an extent, not so much with your premise so much as with how you limited it. The point of what Malstrom's recommending isn't just "offer demoes," which goes under the "Free stuff" you alluded to. The other two consoles already do that, and while those are helpful they are NOT as powerful as what Malstrom is advocating, namely allowing us to lend others are downloadable games.

It's a bit of a subtle difference, but with the first model the onus of finding/demoing games lands primarily on each player. That's fine, and I'd take it over what we have now (although curiously, I've seen some studies that say that demoes can be detrimental to sales in select circumstances). However, when you permit people to LEND their games to friends and families, you're doing two things.

First, you're making it easier to get people who aren't as much into games to try new stuff, because this way the gaming enthusiast does all the work of finding+downloading+bringing the game over. The first one is especially important for people who aren't as much into gaming as we are, as not only will they not have the time to browse through and sample dozens of titles, they're also less likely to bother in the first place, or stick with it for long periods.

Second, and this is the real key, when YOU lend someone a game you're not only letting them try it out (which is all a demo does). You're also implicitly recommending it to them. In other words, letting folks borrow games is a big part of the word-of-mouth approach that all marketeers will tell you is the most effective advertising strategy.

Simply put, lending>>>>>than just plain demoes, for sales purposes. I think whichever company let you do this would find their digital sales spiking relatively quickly. It would be especially easy for Nintendo to do this, since their SD card system is already meant to be super-portable. They've already surprised us by letting us gift digital games, and now they've done the common-sense thing in unlocking the SD slot. I think there's a good chance that they'll permit lending, albeit with quite a few restrictions, and that we'll be able to test these hypotheses soon enough.

WiiWare already has DRM. Why not make it to where you're less restricted with it? (ie let me lend to others if I want.)