Quote Originally Posted by 'ahtremblay',index.php?page=Thread&postID=148509#p ost148509
Quote Originally Posted by 'Gadzooks',index.php?page=Thread&postID=147986#pos t147986
Quote Originally Posted by 'heyaz',index.php?page=Thread&postID=145727#post14 5727

Quote Originally Posted by 'Oswyn',index.php?page=Thread&postID=145175#post14 5175
Imagine 5 million people trying to download 15GB at the same time...
And manufacturing and shipping 5 million copies to retailers was a much easier feat....
Manufacturing that many cds these days is not that much work - with the automated systems they have now, especially overseas, it's not that big a deal - making 5 million of them, you're probably looking at a dollar or less per box, including cd/dvd, all printed materials, and the custom imprinting for the cd-keys. I've worked on projects like that, not 5 million, but I've worked with the big boys in CD duping and box manufacturing, it's really not that big a deal.

Bandwidth for 15g, spread out over several million people? $$$$! Which is why they use Bittorrent, if they had to host servers with direct download, they'd be broke.

Me, I'll probably buy 5 copies online, get the keys, and download one installer, install one copy, set it up with all the addons and stuff - then make 4 symbolic links to it. I did that for BC.
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lol, man, I'm trying to contradict you or anything, but if you think worldwide shipping of 5 million boxes of physical material is simpler than allowing direct download over bittorrent, you need help!
It's fine, I'm not mad - but do you know how much bandwidth is? It's not so much a "simple" decision, as it is straight up a cost issue.

One box probably cost them less than a dollar to make. The retailers pay the shipping costs.

Paying for bandwidth for 5 million copies? Who knows - but I'm betting the cost/account is more than shipping a box. Then they get to seed enough for everyone, pay for the bandwidth, and have enough left over for those who got it finished to log in...

Who knows? Maybe they could do it - but I don't know if their infrastructure could handle it, if they could afford the bandwidth, plus the stress of 5 million people hitting the seeds or their servers, then there's the impact to the bittorrent network...