Pumping Irony gets philosophical on patchers
Filed under: MMO industry, Patches, Academic
Patchers. The upside and downside to online gaming. Sure, they bring you oodles of new content, but they can also result in wait times before you get in to play you favorite game. But did you ever stop to think about the difference in patchers across the genre? The subtle difference that's exhibited in each company's updating program, like logging in before downloading your update, or the amount of updates in a game?
Pumping Irony did. That's why they sat down and looked at the patching process amongst different games and began to get philosophical on your favorite (or most hated) launching device. Is requiring a player to log in helping you with your download times? Or is it just another barrier to keep you waiting longer before you get in to play, which may offset companies getting subscribers back into action? These questions and more are described within, and it's certainly worth the read for any MMO junkie.
Pumping Irony did. That's why they sat down and looked at the patching process amongst different games and began to get philosophical on your favorite (or most hated) launching device. Is requiring a player to log in helping you with your download times? Or is it just another barrier to keep you waiting longer before you get in to play, which may offset companies getting subscribers back into action? These questions and more are described within, and it's certainly worth the read for any MMO junkie.

















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen said on 12:23PM 5-03-2008
He didn't go deep enough. Login vs. not login? never bothered me.
What really matters is how good their servers are, whether they use torrents, if their website is UP on patch day, forums, etc.
If I may judge on one post alone his blog is just a rambling mess.
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sgeeding said on 1:22PM 5-03-2008
Though I mentioned at one point the availability of alternate download sites and torrents, they weren't the point. But neither was I trying to be "philosophical" about things as the title here suggests.
It's a strange thing to find a minor quibble of a post get linked to a 'big' site like Massively.
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