What's the best, most price effective way to share files physically to a large group of people?
Lets say you wanted to give out a movie at a fair, or distribute a self made game or a movie at a con, what would be the best medium to do that?
>Disk: My knee jerk reaction used to be to say any sort of disk. A disk with a jewel can cost together less than half a dollar for a consumer, if you skip the jewel it can go as low as 15 cents, it's also relatively easy to carry and disposable. but I've started hearing about more and more people saying they don't have a cd player anymore, that they have either removed it from their PC or will remove it when they get a new device. >question/problem 1) are people really getting rid of their cd players? Is the medium starting to fade from the world? is there anything to replace it
So now I've thought the only thing left is flash drives, but these can cost 5 bucks a pop for the very cheap ones, and even if you buy them at bulks of hundreds from a specialized order you'd have a hard time finding someone who goes below 2 bucks. That's 4 to 15 times the markup from a disk. That means giving away a hundred at an event or selling something short of 5 bucks will come at a serious loss, and quite the inconvenience.
I assume nobody uses cassette tapes anymore, but maybe I've been living under a rock, I haven't been asking. The only other medium I know of is blue ray. I honestly know nothing about blue ray besides that it's really good for film and that it has a specialized player. It's not as steep as paying for a bulk of flash drives, You can find a bulk of 50 for 36 bucks on amazon. 70 cents a disk isn't awful, but how many people actually have a blue ray player? Are there any physical mediums that are current that work well that I'm missing?
To sum up T L D R >what's the best way to distribute media physically? a disk? a flash drive? a blueray? >are disks a technology that's going out the door, if so, what's replacing it? Thanks.
Store the file in the cloud and give a card or printout with the URL or QR Code for them to retrieve the file.
Nicholas Rodriguez
That's a pretty smart solution, this does work really well for a lot of stuff, but what if lets say it's something that's 1) too big for a cloud or big enough that I wouldn't want it up there permanently 2) a product that is being bought, so a piece of paper with a url wouldn't be very appropriate. 3) something that I wouldn't want passed online cause paranoia. 4) given to people that may be complete neanderthals in terms of tech
And since you are already here, do you still have a disc/blueray player or is it really a medium on its way out the door?
Regardless, thanks for answering. super helpful.
Mason Allen
Most people use their phones as their main computer. DVDs are the next best thing, almost nobody has a Blu-ray drive on their computer.
Easton Johnson
Fair That's a good point you are making with the phone thing, since phones can oporate with sd cards, could that possibly be a medium? is there a type of sd card cheap enough that you could distribute it? Would the average person be able to put it into their phones and use it?
Once again I'd like to say, seriously thank you very much for the help. absolute mvp.
I'm working on some games and animation and I've looked for kicks at different ways to distribute and advertise it.besides online like selling them at cons or handing it out at events. Dug a little about physical mediums and was surprised to hear that some people stopped using CDs. Thought it might pay off to ask about it here. didn't want to specify exactly my problem cause I wanted to learn more in geenral about physical mediums in our day and age since apperantly I live under a damn rock. That cloud and note tip was helpful though so I guess that's thread.
But that sounds boring so feel free to believe I'm a secret agent looking for new ways to deliver nuclear files using the sharp minds at 4 channel dot org.
Levi Cox
>feel free to believe I'm a secret agent Not quite my line of thinking.
>I live under a damn rock that much is obvious how the fuck do you work on games and not know that people don't use CDs anymore? New computers don't even come with CD drives now
Easton Parker
How big is the data in GiB?
Nathan Robinson
Given those requirements, your best options seem to be either burning the files to CD/DVD, or giving out USB drives with the files on them. Enough people have Bluray players that this would be appropriate if you're giving people a video to watch, but it's quite rare for people to have Bluray drives in their computers, especially considering your "neanderthals." I would also suggest you look into running a server at the fair / con, and let people who are physically there to download the material their phone or laptop. If its a game, many PC gamers are foregoing having a disc drive in their system entirely and get everything from online services. Most PC games don't even get physical releases anymore. While there are people that would appreciate you giving out physical copies, I think it's going to be hard for you forego any type of online distribution of your game, unless you're okay with your game remaining niche and having a small playerbase. There are places where you can upload the game and only registered users can log in to see / download / play it, but unless you integrate intrusive DRM it's going be hard to really prevent people from passing it around. Also, realize that if you hand out the files physically, there's nothing stopping your customers from uploading the game / videos to a filesharing service when they get home.
Chase Ortiz
Dammit how did he find me out my plan to hide my hentai was foolproof.
I work with a pc from 2014, I draw using paper and a decade old scanner, the rest I do in a 12 year old version of flash and a 7 year old version of photoshop using a 4 year old intuos. I'm working with ren'py to put my games together, at least I'm not using actionscript&swf. I have a friend who called me a dinosaur when I told him I still use the brightness color picker and not the hue one that's standard today. I found it really crazy hearing people talking about not having CD players in their machines anymore, I knowthe format is old, but uit's still being widely used and there's no real upcoming replacement for cheap good physical storage that isn't personal. classified
1) That's a really good idea too. Thanks! that could be useful to give it to people like that.
2) I 100% agree with you on having to put it online. it would be crazy not to have your game online. I'm interested in additional manners of distribution rather than alternative. Having my game be shared around on discs alone would be crazy. I don't care about preventing people from getting my game.
Thank you very much for the help.
Jonathan Perry
different strokes for different folks?
Cooper Cook
is this more pedo codewords, like """GAME"""? Just give it away for free and set up a donation thingy.
1) no, you can literally see the damn girl in the photo. I said I'm using ran'py too, the gamne's a visual novel with a sex ending. I don't know how you got from that to pedoshit.
>just give it away for free and set up a donation. 100% gonna have it up like that, but I was also curious about physical distribution. THought it would be cool to go around handing out or selling discs of my work, dug around to see if it's something doable. The rest of the question like untracabulity and idiot proofing was curiosity on the matter since I don't know much about it.
Zachary Robinson
Don't listen to the zoomers, give it a physical release. I'm working on a game and it'll be physical exclusive. I use my blu-ray drive regularly, discs still cannot be beat for long term backup CD quality is superior to spotify, that isn't even including DVD audio, SACD, blu-ray audio, or the fact CD is capable of more but the red book hasn't been updated. Netflix 4k streams have a fraction of the bit rate of a blu-ray, let alone 4K blu-ray Digital distribution should not be paid for but I can't blame you if people are dumb enough to give you money for a download, it is nothing more than a donation and the drones and industry won't admit it. >how dare you use physical media Notice how digital distribution drones get triggered by the mere mention of physical copies. They are mentally ill
Ethan Jenkins
>hurr durr digital distribution is bad because centralized streaming services provide shitty quality
Andrew Perez
What if it's a passworded ZIP that you give away and you sell the password to it? Nothing's stopping people from downloading the full file, but if they don't have the password to it, it's useless.
Leo Stewart
I personally treat my audience as human beings, those who won't pay, they won't pay ever. But if they want to support you they'll pay a fair amount, So I just set up a gumroad ($0, minimum to access) and patreon and let the money flow through those. Treat your audience with respect and they'll do it back to you. Just don't be a total pushover.
Leo Sanchez
and I work with a PC from 2009, CDs were dead then, physical distribution is dead, most people your hand your CDs out to won't even be able to play them, not that there's any fucking point when you have the internet
>I'm working on a game and it'll be physical exclusive. retard
Justin Morales
Nothings stopping people from downloading the password?
Andrew Hernandez
Well, there's yiff.party for getting access to patreon only content too, but only 0.1% of your audience will know and willing to use that, Which means there's a group of people that won't pay, they'll do their best not to. Do use to block them from doing it.
Levi Torres
what?
Jayden James
Pirates won't pay most of the time, no point stopping them.
Leo Cruz
that's correct, still doesn't explain why you think a passworded zip is going to copy protect anything
Jose Morales
Stops low level sharing via discord, blogs, etc.
Kayden White
lol what? you write the password next right next to the download link, if you cant be bothered just repacking it yourself I hope you're not one of the guys in this thread trying to sell a game
Henry Turner
You'd be surprised how effective that tactic is. For a lot of creators, they doesn't attract people dedicated enough to do such a simple thing.. (eg 95% of patreon only content)
William Gomez
it's not effective at all, stop talking shit
Liam Myers
Ok, go onto yiff.party and see how many $3000+ level patreons that have none of their content leaked.
Michael Jenkins
SD cards CDs are 650MB You can get 1GB SD cards for practically free
Charles Roberts
>You can get 1GB SD cards for practically free From who?
Joshua Anderson
>go onto yiff.party i'll pass
Caleb Hernandez
Glad someone on Jow Forums is willing to admit defeat in an argument, hard to come by.
Easton Myers
are you kidding mate if you want to leak a passworded zip, unzip it then zip it back up without a password are you seriously going to keep pretending you're right
Connor Garcia
Meanwhile in the real world, this absolutely deters a lot of people from accessing pay-for content.
I know as an enthusiast, this seems fucking stupid, but the sheer amount of content that remains locked behind patreon paywalls proves otherwise.
Luis Morris
Did it ever occur to you that maybe your furry friends don't want to share it, and the fact that it's behind a passworded zip is irrelevant
Nolan Myers
>what's the best way to distribute media physically? a disk? a flash drive? a blueray? I'd use DVDs. While optical drives in desktops have become a bit less popular, and they've basically disappeared out of laptops, I'd be surprised if there were many people without access to any DVD drive at all. CDs are more expensive than DVDs these days, and they're not nearly as durable. Bluray drives are still weirdly expensive, which makes them not as common.
>are disks a technology that's going out the door Yes, but very slowly.
>if so, what's replacing it? The internet.
Ian Hill
So now you're just moving the goalposts. Also, if you know what yiff.party was you wouldn't even make that assumption in the first place.
Brandon Rivera
I'm not moving the goalpost, you're confusing correlation with causation, if someone wanted to share something a passworded zip isn't going to stop anyone I have no interest in your furry website
Alexander Phillips
>Again, thanks for showing everyone on here how ignorant you are on the subject. am i supposed to be embarrassed I don't know the inner workings of a furry porn community?
Cooper Taylor
I know how people pirate games, and if you think a a password on a zip is going to stop anyone you're in for a surprise You also shouldn't be surprised if someone doesn't want to look at furry porn in support of your argument
Owen Davis
>95% of patreons go unleaked. That's because the patreons are honoring the person they're pledging towards, obviously
Jaxson Watson
So you admit, it does stop people from sharing exclusive content, thanks for agreeing.
Kevin Davis
>Has question >Asks it in a way that also lets you learn something Based OP
Noah Young
Came here to say extacly this
James White
no
Noah Campbell
not him but i dont understand your point if people pay for something theyre not likely to share it? is that what youre saying? if that were the case then why are there thousands of people sharing music, movies and books on soulseek/torrents? why are people sharing exclusive patreon content on yiffparty? i dont get it
Lincoln Hall
could setup an open wifi ap and have it redirect to a local webserver with your content available to download from it an AP with openwrt installed and a usb port can do this just on its own, don't even need a laptop to serve from heck, it may be possible to do this just using an android phone, someone has probably made captive portal software for it
