Has anybody else noticed how more and more people are selling CD’s of game add-ons on eBay that they have downloaded from the Net? I have to admit I bought a Half Life one about a year ago, the only reason I bought it was because I thought it had one mod that I couldn’t get anywhere else (I can’t even remember if it did or not!).

I tried to create my own CD once at FileFront but it was such a pain that I gave up. Another CD I bought was from a Polish website that had quite a few otherwise unavailable mods on it. I considered making CDs of my files and making them available the problem is that legally you are not allowed to sell any mods or maps that are made and the sellers get round this by saying you are paying for the time and effort of downloading the files and burning them onto a CD etc.

One Idea I had was to sell my hard drive! I know that sound kinda stupid but here’s what I thought. I have 160Gb HDD with over a 100Gb of game files, mostly mods and maps but some videos, that leaves about 50 Gb free. Now somebody comes along and says “I need a new HDD and I really want those mods and maps, what shall I do? Buy a new HDD and spend hundreds of hours downloading the files? NO, PlanetPhillip can sell me his HDD.” Fantastic Idea!!
You know I’m joking, right? (£150 and the drive is yours.)

I recently let my overseas subscription to PC Gamer lapse, it was costing me £65 per annum and because of my aversion to spoliers I only really needed the DVD, It arrived 6 weeks after being available in the UK, so I was never up to date on any of the forum discussion, bit of a waste really. The problem with magazine and online subscriptions is that they never have everything I want. It’s the exclusive stuff that bugs me, IGN have something that GameSpot doesn’t and vice versa. This means you can’t join one because you’ll miss out on something else. Things should only be exclusive for the first few months, then everybody should have it.

At this point, unless you have the mental capacity of a headcrab, you should be wondering what is he talking about? Ah, well I’m about to draw these seemingly different threads together to produce a simply stunning idea! What we need is for some clear and bored individual to start offering personalised monthly CD/DVD subscriptions. You sign up for a month’s trial and if you like the service you sign for a year. What you get is a monthly CD/DVD delivered to your door containing all the releases (Demos, mods, maps, screenshots and videos) of your chosen game/genre. I would pay $10 a month for this. Somebody with a very fast connection and a bit of spare time could really help a lot of people without time or fast connections and maybe make a buck or two in the process.

So, what do you say? Got a bit of spare time on your hands?