Dragon Age - Steam Sale
 

Not as generous as the other titles but it is a new, AAA game. Nikus points out Dragon Age is currently $37.49 on Steam, or the Digital Deluxe version for $48.74.
More information.

The whole Steam sales thing is turning into a pretty big story, IMHO. It's really changed how I buy games.

I used to just look at a game when it came out and decide if it was worth the price. If it was, I got it. If it wasn't, I forgot about it. But now I'm giving games a second look because Steam will put them up for sale at half price or even less. Something like Assassin's Creed, which reviews said was fairly good but got really repetitive, suddenly becomes worth buying when it only costs $10. Who cares if it gets repetitive? I'll just quit when it does. ("Bargain bins" at stores have provided this kind of service, too, but most of the time they really are bins. Good luck finding a fun game in them amongst all the "Wii Cheer" and "Deer Hunter 23" games.)

I don't know who gets paid what when a game goes on sale for 75% off but I do know that I've gotten to play games I normally wouldn't have seen and, even though I paid a lot less, at least I did pay something for them. It's certainly a good thing all around in the short term. I wonder if it will lead to a deflation-like attitude, though, where people refuse to buy games?

Beyond that the whole digital download sales thing has been amazing this fall - D2D's $5 sales, now Steam's mega sales and D2D's 24 days of Christmas and reasonable deals at Impulse and GamersGate … sweet stuff. I have bought loads of stuff just to not deal with disks.

… now I wish Sony would learn and have a nice PSN sale … :(

NA gamers can get the boxed version for $34.90 at GoGamer.com over the next 5 days.

http://www.gogamer.com/Dragon-Age-Or…VVviewprod.htm

yeah, it's unreal how many games ive scored the last couple weeks. Try em out, if you dont like it well youve lost 5 or 10 bucks.

I'm looking at games on the store shelves, and telling people "hey, you know you can get that from d2d right now for 5 bucks…"

Sounds like companies are trying to squeeze last dollars out of a bad year. But whatever the case it has changed the way I buy games. Im definetly going to buy more digital games in future now. They are easier to install and play, they dont take any space or collect dust and now they are cheaper too. And with my soon-to-be 100/5 internet connection I dont have to worry about slow downloads either.

Im currently making steam a catalog of my installed games. Im adding all games into its list even the non-steam ones. It works better than any "games"-folder I tried to use previously.

Saw that too, took the opportunity to pick up Braid for just over 2€ (!) and the Witcher EE (finally) for 10€. Sweet sweet stuff.

Can't believe intelligent people voluntary use ring0 DRM bloatware like Steam on their machines…

I installed Steam only once (when HL2 came out), saw what it did, RMAed HL2, reinstalled a backup and never looked back.

Digital distribution is the devil of gaming and if it will be the dominant way of buying games I will convert to another hobby (or play s.th. from my 320+ collection of boxed games). I only bought some games online (NWN1 premium modules that weren't released on CD and Mysteries of Westgate), only because they were not available boxed.

All good games are rereleased in chepo boxed versions or are available for a few bucks at ebay or third party sellers at Amazon in their original form.

There is NO excuse to buy games online and destroy the culture of games. Where did the culture of music go, after itunes (nearly as bad as steam) appeared? Yes, down the drain - no more interesting cover art, cool booklets etc… All gone for good. Thank you Apple, thank you Valve.

Good night.

OMG DRM FUD … ALL DRM R TEH EVILZ … welcome to 2005! ;)

I thought music was about … y'know MUSIC? Sorry, but cover art is the same as whether the singer is good looking … irrelevant.

Are you fore real?

Actually, as a more serious reply, Steam is NOT a rootkit, and as time has progressed they have made their DRM less and less invasive. This year they did a major revamp to their 'security suite' as well.

Pretty much every physical or digital game uses *some* type of DRM at this point, even the 'benign' DVD-check portion of SecuROM has blocked many from playing their legal copies. It is a sad reality … but it is one that many of us - even some of the others who are pretty intelligent - have learned to deal with.

I also much prefer a retail box to a DD version, but I don't have any illusions that DD is some sort of conspiracy. :)

i can understand the hesitation to accept digital distribution - I was once of that mindset myself. And it does have its advantages / disadvantages, but seriously - the good far far outweighs the bad. If given the chance ill buy something off the shelf, but as time goes on, more and more you have to sign into one service or another anyway like windows live and all that anyway…

The key word here being "distribution". It's just another method to distribute media, that's what it's all about, the songs/games/movies whatever youre trying to get. Not the packaging it comes in!

Sir_Brennus … revealed!

http://meltyourfaceoff.files.wordpre…n-foil-hat.jpg

And yes, I'm just joking around! :)

Sorry guys, you are seriously mistaken here.

I don't think DD is a conspiracy, but it IS a customer rip-off. Let me explain in detail why I will never ever sign in a DD service or a payed online game.

(On a sidenote: I'd love to play The last Remnant, because I like both Western and JRPGs, but I cannot, because I have to install Steam to play it. I don't know why the publisher is unable to produce a working, non-inversive authentification tool, like say telefone (Two Worlds) or even online (Mass Effect). I can't sell the game, though, because I'm a collector)

1. Games are about games, like music is about music. Not true. Three years ago there had been an exhibition about record cover art from the 1920s to 1980s in our local Frank Gehry designed Art museum. The exhibition made something perfectly clear: the impact of music as a form of art, as an expression of its time and as a driving force of social development can not be divided from its presentation, e. g. lyrics, cover art, liner notes etc. If you do so, you could also start judging Once upon a Time in America by its dialogues only and not consider image composition or the score.
Retail boxes are an integral part of video and computer games. Destroying them means destroying the art form.

2. Games are cheaper online. Not true. Mostly games are sold for the same price here in Germany, no matter if online or retail. This is massively criticised in the media, but still it stands true.

3. The haptic element is unimportant. Not true. I work with 16 to 25 year old students mostly, who use illegal movie streaming services all the time. I argue with them that they steal copyrighted property and suggest using legal services. They always deny that with one explanation: "Why should I pay for s.th. that I can obtain for free and with no real threat of being punished?" - The interesting fact is that they DO pay for movies at the cinema (nowadays it's even more expansive than buying DVDs), because they get "something more".
The physical copy of a game that I can touch, the box, the manual and the cloth map, the figurine and such, those are "something more" that the industry should focus on, because people are ready to pay for this.

These are the three most important reasons that I could think of and, yes I am for real.

Games are cheaper online, and more readily available. Take it from someone who bought about ten of them this weekend. For example Knights of the Old Republic, 5$ is the going price online right now. Even a boxed copy on Amazon , used, probably without a manual and scratched to hell is gonna be 20.oo by the time everything's said and done. Majesty2 was 7.50 yesterday @ D2D, in brick and mortar stores youre looking at at least 30.00 still.

And not all download services use clients that you have to run to play, STEAM is not the only service out there!

I have two shelves full of boxed games but to play them I need to find the box, open it,
open dvd drive, remove current dvd disk from drive, find its box from somwhere, put the old dvd in it, put the new dvd into the drive, close the drive, close the autopopup from windows, find where I installed the game (som new games dont even put links at all), check if there are new patches, update if there is, click the start button. It takes time.

With DD I browse my list of automatically patched games in Steam and click once what I want to play. So much easier.

Also if the game is old its still mostly guaranteed to work on my new OS, because digital download service takes care of that. With old boxed games though you never know if they work straight away or require extra work to do so.

Then theres of course the cheapness thing. This xmas they are practically giving away DD games.

I can understand some of the points sir_brennus make, but frankly points like DD is “evil” is just ridicules. Last month I bought Dragon Age: Origins CE, in the store, because that’s the kind of game I like on my shelve, but I also bought Borderlands over steam, it was cheaper that in the stores, It came out sooner that the stores, and I did not have to drive in to the city to pick it up, so I think that was a nice deal.

Digital Download is also better fore the environment, if that’s something that’s on your mind, it’s 100% Co2 free, if you are downloading, while you are using your computer to something else.

sorry dude, but "buying used games = piracy"
devs get not a single $ from that.

i love to buy virtual goods, but only if they are EXTREM cheap to have.

Sorry guys, you may not understand the pricing thing here:

To make it clear: In Germany games on STEAM are mostly more expensive than in a retail market. And they are ALWAYS more expensive than an import from GB.

If you don't believe me (and understand a little German) read the comments in this thread:

http://www.gamestar.de/community/gsp…d.php?t=351284

[EDIT: It's march / april 2009, so it is a current thread. It's a comment thread for an essay that's called "Why are computer games so expensive?"]

That is so wrong. Publisher propaganda to push the DD policy forward. Most devs are payed while being contracted. Rest of the product cycle is for the publisher ONLY.

No it's not, then you buy a game you are free to sell it, if you don’t like it. To use your logic, selling your used car is stealing from the from the car producer.

Yeah, and recorded music is destroying live performance, which is the true musical artform.

The world changes and forms evolve. I can understand your appreciation for the box but it isn't integral to the artfrom - it's a form of marketing for promotion through the most common distribution form - retail. Again, I get that many people like that and good for them - buy retail. That's your choice. I collect some artists myself. For others, I appreciate the choice to buy that one good song they made rather than subsidise other crap by being forced to purchase the entire album.

By the way, your choice to import has similar long-term implications. There's no need for a pretty box if all the customers buy over a website. Your own choice will have as much impact in the long term.

DD offers choice. You don't like it - fine. Let me have my choice.

Oh, and for prices, try to think outside your own, limited, personal experience. Try coming to Australia and finding a copy of Dragon Age for AUD$43 - go on, try it. Then tell me Steam is always a rip off.

Last point, the distribution phase is not all for publishers. Granted, the publishers are first in line but a successful game can generate significant royalties to the benefit of the developer. It doesn't happen as much as I'd like but I can't help that the public often buy crap.

Random price comparison (all prices for Germany in €):

CoD - MoW2: Amazon 39,99 (retail), Saturn.de 55,95 (download), gamesload 48,95 (download), STEAM: 59,99

Dragon Age: Origins: Amazon 44,95 (retail), Saturn.de 48,95 (dl), gamesload 39,95 (dl), STEAM 49,99 (dl)
The game is also available new and sealed for 37,98 (incl. p&p) on amazon shops.

Risen: Amazon 42,45 (rt), Saturn 49,95 (dl), gamesload 34,95 (dl) , STEAM 49,99 (dl)
The game is also available in near mint condition for 34,00 (incl. p&p) on amazon shops.

Import prices are even cheaper: You can order Borderlands on the German Amazon web page new and sealed from GB and get it for 23,84!!! (that is 10€ cheaper than the cheapest online version - Steam charges 33,49). Look here http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listin…2079712&sr=1-3

The European and especially the German customers are being ripped off. If I could get DA for 26,00€ (which is 37,50$) it would be an alternative. But alas it isn't.

So, we get to the heart of the matter. It's not really about destroying the medium, it's about price. I can't see why this upsets you; if you don't like the Steam system in the first place, why would you care about the price?

He went beyond that - he said quite clearly that we must not be as intelligent as we seem to even allow a ring0 rootkit such as steam on our systems …

I almost feel a bit stupider just for replying to this, but oh well, here goes.

Steam is not a rootkit. You straight out, flat out, wrong about that. Nothing to argue.

I got the Orange Box for $15 just now on Steam. It would have cost me $80 - $90 to buy it in a store (if I could even find it). The current Steam sale should put an end to the debate over what way is cheaper to buy games (leaving aside that this is something that should really just be considered on a case by case basis). Me, I check all the options when I want to buy a game. Buying from Game.co.uk, from a local store, or from Steam. Steam is almost always the cheapest. You are simply wrong about this. It's clear that your hatred of DD has blinded you to simple reality.

Which brings me to this - your other point about boxes and physical items - you are wrong in so far as you are claiming that there is a right or wrong preference. It's a matter of taste, you see. I find that game boxes end up just being clutter. Things that get lost. Or I lose the manual that has the key on it. Or I have to dig around to find an old game. Such a pain. On Steam, this is never a problem. Switching DVDs in and out is not a problem. I prefer DD. It's better for the environment, too. Serious point - the production of the packaging and physical media has a carbon footprint. Game boxes ending up in landfill. DD is simply a more efficient way to get the bytes onto your drive.

Even in Australia with out shitty internet and oppressive bandwidth caps it makes more sense. Steam content is hosted on Telstra servers, so my Steam downloads are unmetred. Wonderful.

Bioshock is $5 on Steam right now. Five Dollars. I defy you to find it cheaper in a bricks and mortar store.

The real conspiracy here is retail trying to bully publishers to favour them so that they have a chance of competing against DD.

You're going to have to wake up to reality or change hobbies, I'm afraid.

I think it's a fair point to say that DD release-point price being equivalent to that of boxed copies doesn't make much sense from a consumer viewpoint, tho'. It makes a lot of sense from the publisher viewpoint, as they still don't have a full handle on retail-vs-DD and are holding off the boat a bit. Understandable.

But from a consumer standpoint you will always be fleeced if you're not an intelligent consumer. That's just a fact of life. You want stuff cheap, you'll have to invest some effort. DD isn't always cheaper nor is it always more expensive. I'm not rich, but I get by very well browsing retail, online stores and digital download services (having accounts on Steam, D2D, GG, GOG and Impulse), though of course I have the added advantage of review copies.

I dunno. To each their own. But digital download has grown beyond its birth pangs, and will soon be the most important medium to PC sales, and quite possibly saving the platform from the death everyone kept blabbing about (though I never bought into that fullly anyway). Sounds good to me.

You misunderstood. I said "it would be an alternative". Not that the price is the main point. I just tried to point out the fact, that DD is not always cheaper, not even in most cases cheaper.

What is always true is, that you get less for your money.

The Movie industry has understood. Instead of bullying illegal services they present something like Avatar in 3D, something that can't be torrented. The music industry favors live concerts now, which is also something that can't be torrented. Some game companies also seem to have understood. Look at dtp/ anaconda: They release a personalised retail version of Drakensang 2. Something you never can torrent. You can't torrent the box with your name, you even can't torrent the game content, but that's another matter.

And you think we can save the platform by selling something which is less than its counterpart for (roughly) the same price? It's time for you to wake up: Some gaming companies make the same mistakes as the music industry once did. Do you remember BMG selling "basic" versions of the CDs without cover print, booklets and such for a tenner? That is the equivalent of STEAM and it brought BMG down into the hands of Sony.

Guys, it's time to repend.

@Mike
I said you are all intelligent people. I just wondered why intelligent people do obviously strange things.

@the green house argument
People, for DD servers must be running to provide the download and authentification services. DD is not CO2 neutral.

Can? As far as I can see, it pretty much already happened. It's certainly not stoppable anymore now.

What garbage. When I buy a game then it's because I want the game not the box. With a game like DA, I got the collector's edition, because I wanted the cloth map, metal case etc. That's the exception. I would have gotten far better value for my money if I had gotten it on Steam for $40 or so. I payed $130 for the game at retail.

Jade Empire is $3.75 right now. It would cost me at least $20 to buy it from a bargain bin (although it would cost me more in terms of transport (more carbon footprint) and time to find it at all. You can't tell me that the actual bytes comprise less than 20% of the value of a game purchase.

Or can you? Or will you just ignore the facts you're presented with and spell 'repent' incorrectly again? I think that word 'repent' says a lot about your position - it's a faith-based position, not a fact-based one.

I also think you are getting less for the same money when games are still sold at full price as DD. This will be the case for at least as long as the retailers have enough power to force retail prices <= DD prices.
A printed manual, a box and a DVD I can take into my hands are worth something for me. If the publisher can't offer the same experience digitally he should compensate the missed part of my experience with a lower price point. If the DD version is cheaper I'm willing to think about it. If the price is equal I buy retail.

Well, I think that DD has a very obvious and clear (price) advantage when it comes to budget (bargain bin) games. But that is not surprising. Except for the really big ones no retailer is going to actively stock up on bargain bin games. As a retailer you don't waste valuable shelf space on crap like that. You might have one small bargain bin area where your stock is made up of excess stock, returns and that kind of stuff. Additionally, if you're a really big retailer you might have a very small budget game area where you put the <= EUR/US$ 20 games but again you will most likely try to keep that as small as possible and you are only going to offer really popular titles of yore that are more or less guaranteed to sell. That's it. You just don't take more chances than that as a retailer.
DD has the very obvious advantage here that there is no stockkeeping to worry about. The publisher can pretty much set an arbitrary price as long as the DD provider plays along (i.e. as long as the DD provider's costs are covered). It's just a matter of negotiation. It's only natural that they can go much lower than retail.

As for new full price games, right now no DD service can even begin to compete with retail as long as you live in one of the major Western markets (Europe, US). This will certainly change as DD becomes more and more popular.
However, in the long term, once DD really takes off, I think that we will also see a counter-movement on the retail front. I wouldn't be surprised if some (smaller/mid-sized) publishers will specialize on high quality retail releases then, i.e. games like we used to get them back before the millennium with colored manuals and maps plus the kind of goodies that are only to be found in CEs these days.

Perfectly reasonable. I'm sure you understand that others value accessibility and convenience over a manual and box. The difference is Sir_Brennus thinks we're bringing out the fall of civilisation.

@Badesumofu
Pointing out spelling errors made by a non native speaker marks a new all time low in this thread. Thank you for taking the blame. BTW the "repent" remark was clearly an rhetorical exaggeration. Sorry to have hurt your religious believes.

@all
I don't speak about the fall of civilization, but about a wrong direction the industry is heading towards - not for the benefit of the customer but in quest for even more money. But it is a failed quest.

But there is a silver lining! The PSPgo and the Nintendo DSi are without doubt the flop innovations of 2009 - both platforms only created to circumvent the retail and preowned market, but the customers didn't sheepishly follow the all too clear scheme and avoided both systems.

And you know what is the "gaming trend" of 2009? It's Farmville and other Facebook game crap. These games are the main thing that stand in the way of DD. They are millions in numbers, they are free to play and they don't need physical copies. So, why pay, if you not only can get fun for free, but also legally for free? On the other hand, if you get something that other don't (think of the personalized Drakensang 2 edition), people are willing to pay.

I always buy the CE if there is one, because the transition to Amaray cases in 1999 was a wrong decision. The best way to decrease the value of your product is to take away its individuality. Same box = same shit. Remember what I said album covers: "Sticky fingers" will always be the record with the zipper for most people, even those who cannot name one song on the album.

Believe it or not, the people always will prefers sth physical over somthing virtual - the best proof is that the "paperless office" which helped the IT revolution in the 1980ies never came, instead there is more paper used than ever before, just because people tend to feel better, if they can touch sth.

All in all: Als long as the next Gamestop is 1000 yards away, as long as I can buy the Steelbook SE of Jade Empire for 5,72€, as long as the number of games sold on ebay for 1€ is as high as it is, as long as some companies know what the customer wants, this long I don't have any need for STEAM, GoG, Gamesload or whatever they are called.

What I have is the hope that everything will turn out right and the brilliance of old Origin game boxes will return one fine day.

Actually from what I've understood the financial problems in the gaming industry would have been significantly worse than they were over the last year if the industry hadn't been propped up by digital download and DLCs. I think to some extent both are "less fair" to consumers than retail, but "fairness" to consumers comes down to what people are willing to pay for what.

The gaming industry ruined its own profit margins years ago and needs either high pricepoints for games or propped up profit margins via DD and DLCs. We have one, but if the consumer decides to penetrate the skewed profit margins then we're looking at wholesale collapse. That might be a good thing, the gaming industry being significantly less healthy than most people assume and in need of a good collapse, but it's not happening as long as consumers are happy with what they're getting at the price they're getting it.

Your objections are about two years late. By this point, Valve's games are already selling more by digital download than by retail. You talk as if this is not a reality we already live in.

PSPGo - yes; DSi … no. You are completely wrong on all counts with regard to the DSi (a seeming trend with you). DSi has loads of features that include all DS Lite capabilities (except for GBA slot) add a SD card slot, and a 'DSiWare store' which is sort of like Apple's iTunes App Store selling small DS games.

The DSiWare has not been a huge success yet, but the DSi itself has sold more than any other console. Failure … um, no.

I like the boxed copies as well and still will try to buy something that I have a physical copy to, plus I like supporting a local retailer. She's nice. :)

With that said I had the same experience as Sammy. I bought a ton of games from Steam, Impulse, GoG and GG. However, I didn't buy one from D2D. I'll never support D2D until they make more of their games worldwide. Right now D2D is pretty much only for NA customers.

I bought more from gog and Steam than the others. While I still will buy a boxed copy for games that I know I will like to replay later on down the line I like being able to find games that might not be available at the local retailer like X-Com (I have that game, but the convience of having already set up for Windows XP is worth the 5 or 6 bucks it cost), Lords of Magic and Planet Alcatraz.

I have more games downloaded now than I ever had before. I wonder if the recent news about the World of Goo Anniversary Sale, where you paid what you felt the game was worth, had any effect at all on the decision to have these tremendous sales. By all accounts the World of Goo sale was an overwhelming success.

You realize this is not D2D's fault, but rather the decision of the publisher, right? Or rather, the NA publisher signs for DD while the European publishers do not, for example.

This isn't just D2D. Until recently, the Witcher was available on GG and Steam as well but only for NA costumers. The only thing D2D does wrong compared to Steam or GG is that it lists the games as if they are for all costumers rather than hiding them based on your location (like Steam does), not blocking you until right before you pay. That's just silly.

I realize that, but it doesn't change the fact that D2D is by and large only for NA. I couldn't even by a Mac game for my sister because of my location. In any event, I won't even look there for any kind of game until this changes.

I also know that impulse and others have a few games that can't be bought by anyone out of NA, but the selection is a lot better than through D2D. A few games might have restrictions on them, but definitely not as many as through D2D.

One thing that is a little annoying is that I tried to buy X-com through Impulse and couldn't (it was the only one out of 8 that I bought that had this restriction), but had no problem through GG. Since it's the publishers who decide where their game can be sold then D2D needs to hire better lawyers to write up the contracts or salesmen to get the publishers to offer it outside NA. Obviously it can be done. Or maybe D2D doesn't need worldwide sales. They can just exist on sales from NA which is fine for them and anyone else in NA.