A British company has launched a new way of downloading games.
Unlike other systems, Awomo allows people to start playing a game before all the software has been downloaded.
The developers say that waiting times between clicking a download link and actual game-play have been slashed.
"This is a super-fast way of distributing games. For the first time we have created a system that really does for games what iTunes does for music," said Awomo boss Roger Walkden.
While the digital distribution of music is well established, video-game downloading still makes up only a small percentage of total sales.
Tomorrow's world
John Houlihan, who manages the Computer and Videogames website, told BBC News digital downloading represented the future for gamers.
"File size [of games] still makes digital downloading prohibitive in many cases, but as fibre optic comes in, that will really change things," he said.
Digital distribution of video games was pioneered by the developers of Half Life, Valve.
Launched in 2003, Steam has grown into one of the leading portals for video-game downloads with nearly 600 games on offer and 20 million subscribers.
However, with Steam - and other digital download services, such as Direct2Drive - the entire package needs to be downloaded before it can be played.
With file sizes in the gigabyte range, downloading can take a significant amount of time, especially on broadband with limited bandwidth.
source: bbc
Unlike other systems, Awomo allows people to start playing a game before all the software has been downloaded.
The developers say that waiting times between clicking a download link and actual game-play have been slashed.
"This is a super-fast way of distributing games. For the first time we have created a system that really does for games what iTunes does for music," said Awomo boss Roger Walkden.
While the digital distribution of music is well established, video-game downloading still makes up only a small percentage of total sales.
Tomorrow's world
John Houlihan, who manages the Computer and Videogames website, told BBC News digital downloading represented the future for gamers.
"File size [of games] still makes digital downloading prohibitive in many cases, but as fibre optic comes in, that will really change things," he said.
Digital distribution of video games was pioneered by the developers of Half Life, Valve.
Launched in 2003, Steam has grown into one of the leading portals for video-game downloads with nearly 600 games on offer and 20 million subscribers.
However, with Steam - and other digital download services, such as Direct2Drive - the entire package needs to be downloaded before it can be played.
With file sizes in the gigabyte range, downloading can take a significant amount of time, especially on broadband with limited bandwidth.
source: bbc
