Do people actually buy games from Steam?

Bob_Harris

Using www.best-game-price.co.uk. Three games that came to mind, two released in the last month.

Arma II
€17 Delivered
Steam €39.99


Silent Hunter 5
€27 Delivered
Steam €49.99


Bioshock 2
€27 Delivered
Steam €49.99

I know Steam has been over priced for years, but I still find the above results surprising. I thought digital distribution was supposed to drive down price?

Are they trying to tell me the 4-6GB of bandwidth I takes to deliver the game over the internet is much more expensive than the

• physical disk
• burning of the disk
• plastic case
• printing of a manual
• printing of box art
• distributing to outlets

and even after the outlets take their share it still comes out at roughly half the price compared to Steam?

Don't forget you might have to upgrade your net connection, maybe pay 10-15 euro a month extra because your current bandwidth cap just won't allow you download any significant amount.

I thought about re-installing Steam and purchasing some games through it, but I think not.

pixelburp

Yes I buy from Steam because, quite simply, most new releases these days are generally disappointments & I can hold myself until the dust settles, a proper assessment of the game is established & it invariably appear on Sale. Plus when you find bargains like Beyond Good & Evil for 5 yoyos, it shows the value of Steam

In any case, most games aren't worth the €30 tag these days, never mind 50.

cherryghost

i'm swaying more to digital purchases such as steam rather than the traditional hard copies.

- It's handy to download
- Games are updated automatically
- If you reinstall an OS and have Steam on another partition, you dont need to re-download/reinstall the games
- Their customer support is impeccible
- Their cafe accounts are great, and the library they offer on it is constantly updated
- The Steam sales are always great, they always spring a surprise.
- DRM isn't an issue on steam, everything is locked down to your account
- You dont need to stick in a disc to play a game
- Steam supports 'Join game' with your friends in some games
- Steam loves us :P

B00MSTICK

Their sales can sometimes be the definition of epic tbh

D4RK ONION

Yup, I buy games when they're on special offer, which is usually a serious bargain. I got BGE for €2!

I also originally got Steam to try out Audiosurf, and bought it as soon as the demo expired. I think it was a tenner, but what an incredible game.

folan

yep, only ever buy games that are on sale though, just like in any other shop.

leninbenjamin

Yeah, I buy most of my games on Steam. I rarely buy any on release though, wait a few months 'til you're likely to get a decent deal on them somewhere.

Fanny Cradock

I do. Their major sales can be very good value and their daily/ weekly discounts and bundle deals can also be excellently priced. This said the new releases are usually overpriced.

Burning Eclipse

Bob_Harris wrote: »

Are they trying to tell me the 4-6GB of bandwidth I takes to deliver the game over the internet is much more expensive than the

• physical disk
• burning of the disk
• plastic case
• printing of a manual
• printing of box art
• distributing to outlets

and even after the outlets take their share it still comes out at roughly half the price compared to Steam?

They're not trying to tell you any of that at all. Your mistake is to assume that price is derived from how much the product costs to produce... The reality is prices are derived from what people are willing to pay.

RobertFoster

Only when they have a sale on.

Jonny7

If there is some online game I know I will play forever e.g. like Starcraft 2, I'll pay the extra cash and get it on steam because
I'll never loose it
Customer support
It will always auto patch up

For more standard games, then going through play.com or whatever is cheaper

However the sales on steam are more than an incentive to have an account, you can get some serious deals.. just after xmas this year things went crazy.. 2 euros for stalker, 7 euros for GTA4, huge box sets for practically nothing

whitetrash

Jonny7 wrote: »

If there is some online game I know I will play forever e.g. like Starcraft 2, I'll pay the extra cash and get it on steam because
I'll never loose it
Customer support
It will always auto patch up

Blizzard have a thing in their store now where you can re-download any game you've registered a key for with them. I added my war3 key and am now free to lose the cd if I wish.

Mataguri

I tend to only buy off Steam these days, currently I own 141 games on it. It's just a hugely convenient service:

• No waiting for delivery.
• Auto patching of games.
• No physical media needed or present, a huge plus in my books.

It makes my gaming life easy and I dont mind spending a little extra for that.

SeantheMan

Steam nearly has a monopoly on games at this stage.

Its hard to find anythin but new releases in Brick'n'Mortar stores.
Online, people don't really like waiting for delivery.

And now and again, if you're willing to wait, STEAM does some crackin sales !!

Its a quality piece of kit, I've loved it for the past few years. And if you get any product from "valve" , you can be sure of excellent support

Angron

I use it, not all the time, but semi-regularly. I have on steam:
CS:S (online)
Killing Floor (online)
L4D (Bought disc)
L4D2 (Disc)
TF2 (Disc)
DoW2 (Disc)
The Unreal Anthology (5 games, online)
Portal (Online)
Trackmania (Free anyway :P online)
G Mod (Online)
MW2 (disc)

Considering I've only really started playing in the last 2-3 years, Most of the games I bought online were older, or as part of a special deal. If there is a game coming out that I know I'd like, (like L4D2) I'll get the disc if I can get it cheaper. But with the older games, I'll more often than not pick it up on steam, less hassle than trying to hunt it down online. And the deals, like when I got the Unreal Anthology, are pretty great, making it really worth it.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

In general they are way over priced. Their sales are very good though and you can pick up some oldshcool games for very good prices. Never buy anything new from steam, you are getting seriously ripped off.

Coriolanus

Well for one, it's not just Steam that has an influence on the price. The distributers do too.
From Vandal (Cd Projekt aka The Witcher people)

Just remember, Steam doesn't necessarily set the prices for games on the site -- they've asked publishers about the prices they'd like to sell games at. Publishers have to approve the pricing, or they have an option of changing it. With The Witcher: Enhanced Edition we asked them to lower the price in Europe (well, Eastern Europe, where the game is available on Steam) to be in-line with market expectations.

...

Valve sent us an email basically saying "here's what we're doing and here are the prices we're planning to use -- let us know if you need them adjusted" and I'd suspect that other publishers must have gotten that same email.. particularly considering the fact that we only have one game on Steam, so we're a minor player.

Also, as a platform, it's the (or was, somce of the other digital platforms are looking promising too) place to get indy games. Yes, if you read all the relevant blogs, and remember to check them, you'll find the indy games and you can go to most of the individual dev sites and get them there, but really, it's so much easier to just click that little Indy tab in Steam and see what's new.

super_furry

The Christmas/New Year sales are the only time I buy on Steam. Some great deals to be hand then.

Kinetic^

Mataguri wrote: »

• No waiting for delivery.
• Auto patching of games.
• No physical media needed or present, a huge plus in my books.

These are the main reasons I use it. I've about 90-100 games on it and to have the physical media for those lying around would be a pain.

cherryghost

Kinetic^ wrote: »

These are the main reasons I use it. I've about 90-100 games on it and to have the physical media for those lying around would be a pain.

stop borrowing money from me :pac:

EDIT: Should also mention theres a steam sale all week this week

L31mr0d

I use steam for purchasing Valve games, games I get caught up in the hype for so preloading scratches that itch, and games that are going jaw droppingly cheap in the sales.

In saying all that, I hate Steam as an application. I hate having to open it everytime I want to play a game. I use it mostly in offline mode now due to constantly being forced to sit there and watch the updater hang at 99% for 5 minutes.

Burgo

Don't remember the last time i bought a game from steam that was full price; think it might have been the orange box! steam sales are the only way to go.

Polar101

I like their specials, I don't normally buy full price games there. But I quite like buying games off Steam (especially slightly "older" games that are inexpensive), and I fully agree with what Mataguri said. I don't remember the last time I bought a PC game at a retail store, it was probably in 2008.

Overheal

Sometimes a Retailer will have a good deal, and Ill grab it. But more often, im not shopping for stuff: Ill be playing on steam and a good deal will present itself.

marco_polo

In fairness the Valve pack is not bad value at all

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2546/

If I think I will play a game a good few times then I would spends an extra fiver or so for the steam version, not much more than that though.

The key is to use steam wisely. I got Bioshock 2 + a free Bioshock for 50 yoyos preorder. Take out the free Bioshock, aka the current state of affairs and that price doesn't look too hot at all .

super_furry

Probably a daft question but if I register a store bought game on Steam is it in my account forever? Could I just junk the disk and box and redownload it whenever, as if I'd bought it on Steam?

Coriolanus

super_furry wrote: »

Probably a daft question but if I register a store bought game on Steam is it in my account forever? Could I just junk the disk and box and redownload it whenever, as if I'd bought it on Steam?

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-wusf-3601

Some, limited games can be. The list is on that page.

Can't really blame them for not doing every game that they catalog. After all they get nothing out of the bricks and mortar sales that people then register with Steam.

Cuddlesworth

Nevore wrote: »

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-wusf-3601

Some, limited games can be. The list is on that page.

Can't really blame them for not doing every game that they catalog. After all they get nothing out of the bricks and mortar sales that people then register with Steam.

I would assume that the games you can register with them, the publishers pay a surcharge for every one registered.

robby^5

I used to buy all my games on steam, now I'll usually stick to the sales. I understand why they changed their pricing format, but when you can get a physical copy of the game for less I really dont see the point in a digital-only copy...especially when some of the games I've bought can be added to steam and downloaded anyway.

Davidius

I haven't bought from them ever since they decided to adopt the $1 >= €1 conversion when they switched to localised currency. Convenience simply isn't worth it, shops are so much cheaper especially for Valve games.

Why bother paying €20 for TF2 when you can buy the whole Orange Box, TF2 inclusive for €15 with a physical copy.

LinHaX

In fact, but dont forget that a lot of games on discs are running on steam anyways