For sure GOG's downloader does. HIB's delivered via torrent do too. This is the 21st century. There's no excuse not to.
I haven't ever bought anything off GOG. I think it's a great service, but I haven't ever felt the need to pick up the older titles off there. But yeah of course torrents do, thats really only 2 services though, and the 2nd is so dependent on the community seeding properly and for a good length of time. I do think this should be added to Steam and many other clients (even updates for MMO games), but for me it's not a deal breaker.
Because it is completely unecessary on all services except, apparently, Steam. I've installed at least two games that refused to work right until I verified game cache. I'm talking same day here: install Absolution, can't finish the first level until I verified. I think it was Saints Row The Third that refused to run at all until the cache was verified. The pirate version (based on Steam version) of both worked the first time. How's that for irony?
I can't name one game in over 15 years that I've had to reinstall (excepting Steam) because of something wrong with the game's file system.
I've had non-Steam games act up over the years where I just found it simpler to wipe the game. But those are usually titles that you can mod, then come out with updates and such. But theres been other times I've done it. It's not common, but I also rarely ever verify game cache's as well. Though you do list 2 games, it could vary from game to game, I have not played hitman yet sadly.
They should be prepared for it. They never really are.
That goes for any sales or heavy load of any type, but no one ever is. I'm a huge MMO fan, and one of the best memories for me ever was WoW Gates of AQ opening up. I remember I jumped on a gryphon for a 10 minute flight to get down South to head to the location. And the server crashed right as my gryphon landed. When it came back up I was just leaving my original location, so 10 min flight again, crashed at same spot. I had to ride that flight 5 times before it stopped crashing.
Then there of course was more crashing later, since then, WoW nor any other MMO has ever done huge world events like that sadly. Because no matter how much they prepare, they don't think people will skip out on work or school just to be there for something like that, and people will.
Seen many MMO launches where people complained, said that there should have been preparations in place, and usually there was or is, but they always guess on the low side, since it's the cheapest. Then they can just say "the amount of interested people surprised us".
Though in recent times, Steam and other games taking on massive amounts of stress during these times does seem a lot better. Can just hope that trend continues. I think part of the issue is, PC gaming is actually gaining a lot of popularity. And they just haven't been able to predict how popular some of these titles would actually be.
