Well not just like that. But maybe let me download an image from some server or something. Doesnt have to be a CD.
Or activate my key for some download distributor.
I can see the image thing working, maybe - but remembering that they still have to pay for the bandwidth for you to download it, so I doubt such a service would be completely free anyway. But the download distributor thing probably not - a download distributor (like Gamersgate) is a completely different publisher and they'd get nothing out of the deal, so I doubt they'd accept. Some copies of the game come with a key that you can use in GG, but those are exceptional cases where GG must have some benefit from doing so.
I agree that it would be a good service to offer - but I can also safely say that publishers have absolutely no obligation, so to expect them to do so and be disappointed when they don't strikes me as odd.
Edit: And btw your banana camparison is misleading - i didnt buy the banana, I bought the right to eat a banana. Yeah and one banana. After i smashed it - shoulnt it be possible to just get a new banana and not to buy the right to eat it again?
No offense by the way.
No offense taken, I'm just curious. As a retail worker, I've seen people come into my store and ask for a refund/exchange on items that they've damaged - it happens with alarming regularity. So, for me this kind of expectation is almost amusing.
As for the banana comparison, you're not buying any rights at all. You're buying the
ability to play the game. A license is literally just permission to play the game - nothing more.
A more apt analogy might be a book, instead. Like games, all you're buying is the physical product and the license to read it - the actual writing itself remains the property of the publisher and/or author. If you damage a book, you wouldn't ask the writer to replace it, either in physical or digital form, would you?
Same question could be applied to CDs and DVDs. You're not buying any
right to listen/watch it, you're buying the
permission to do so.
