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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...
Blizzard wouldnt even have to do it, they could third party it out through direct2drive and steam, both would love to have the chance. D2D has sold blizzards products in the past, shame they didnt this time.

Also... you gotta understand that just because they offer the online version, doesnt mean 5 million people will use it. Hell there are still people who break into cold sweats anytime their credit card gets NEAR a pc...

I'd say at most 50% would use the download, and if they sent it out to Direct2drive they could split the bandwidth with them, on top of that blizzard always uses torrents... so no issue there either,

**Edit just to add this, there is now a digital download available straight through blizzard.