Bioshock Available on Direct2Drive for Preorders

Bioshock constitutes the most important news these days and there isn't any way to avoid it. 2K has announced a partnership with IGN's Direct2Drive service for preorders and will be available for digital download in conjunction with the game's North American retail release on August 21 and European release on August 24.

"BioShock is a highly anticipated, award-winning title that we are proud to make available immediately to gaming enthusiasts on Direct2Drive," said Jamie Berger, SVP Consumer Products & Technology for IGN Entertainment. "This is an incredible title to add to our leading library of content and we're excited to make it available to gamers online on the same day and date that they can buy it in retail stores."

I have never understood why there is a delay between the US and European launch dates. It takes light eight minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth and the electricity has almost the same speed. If you can't arrange world-wide launch for the retail version you can at least have one with the digital distribution one. There might be some marketing ploys involved but as a gamer I couldn't care less about them. I don't want to watch YouTube movies of Americans playing and for a game like Bioshock three days is long enough for some players to actually finish it. By the time we are able to play, some will already brag about it on forums, spoiling the experience, not to mention the warez scene that will have three days to make a pirated copy available for the poor Europeans.

This is not good business and in spite of the world globalization trend we still have to wait in order to get a simple software that otherwise could be available in the next minute. It has always been said that people fail to learn from their own mistakes and this attitude only strengthens that belief.