I just did a check of my se4:Gold dir (fresh install including latest patch) and it's only 206meg "Uncompressed" hmmm,.. I'm curious.. brb.. I rar'd my game dir and it shrunk to 65meg More than small enough to make a D/L Version available. Heck there are many game 'Demos' that are 250meg+ and they are available for free (with no guarantee of a purchase after the download) so it a 'Paying' customer would like the option to have a downloadable Version I think it's just plain wrong that it is not available.
(I would understand if the installer was huge like 640meg (full CD size) but 65meg? It's just not right.)
..I just checked and the 'Demo' for Dom2 is 71meg and the 'demo' for Starfury is 60meg So there really is no reason that a 'Download-Option' should not be made available.
I simply do not understand why there is not a D/L option for SE4:Gold. The arguement for 'Bandwidth' does not fly since they already have 'Demos' of equal or greater size which do not guarantee a sale.
Nuf said,.. Cheers!
Edit,.. I just checked the setup.exe on the SE4:Gold CD and it's 80meg... still not bad. Oh, and some of you might argue that the download Version would not have the 'Extras' but most of the stuff is allready outdated and more recent Versions of the mods are available from fan sites. So are the many utilities. And, I would further say that the D/L Version could be cheaper, there is no need for a printed manual, the .htm Version is included in the install. And The player who pays for the downloaded Version should make a CD backup to protect his purchase. It might be argued that this would encourage piracy, but the setup.exe could be protected by a reg key or some such animal.. Anyway,.. I'm babbling, sorry.