A digital distribution service owned by Valve Corporation. Originally created to distribute Valve's own games, Steam has since become the de facto standard for digital distribution of PC games.
I think steam itself is a great service.. the library of games alone is amazing ( you wont find that many games downloadable from one source legally )
but ...I believe some people here have missed the point I was trying to make. its simple.. would you still say steam is a great service if you had to pay $83.29 for a game that would be able to buy in the store ( with disc manual and everything ) for $49.99 ? don't get me wrong I love being able to play my games without having to put in the disc in the drive... but is that alone worth $33.30 more ?
and let me stress this for people who again have not realized that the prices and examples given are probably not for the same region as your in... like I've explained .. I do not live in the USA .. so the prices you get on your steam will not match the ones I get... which was the other point I was making... why I have to pay more for the same game..? look I kinda understand they adding the VAT for the people here in Europe cause that's sadly the law here now since 2003... ( which I still do not understand why... I don't pay that vat when I buy the retail copy on amazon from usa ).. but why is the games origenal price without tax already priced higher to begin with than compared to usa ?
Great service, and i'm in europe 2. If the price tag on steam is more expensive then in stores = buy retail store version. Should also note that in some occasions i got my games off steam cheaper then i could find in any local store though.
What really anoys me is the double dosis of DRM that some games are getting (crysis warhead, stalker clear sky...) Why should one put an install limit on that anyway? it's not like i can pirate it because it's steam and i'm never going to pawn my account off. so WHY?! And yes, the country restrictions. Especially when advertising pops up for a game that i really want, but turns out is region locked to me (Assasin's creed, ArmA)
Compaired to the garbage out there, steam takes the cake.
Still needs some improvement. Pricing for european customers is one, being able to enter the games you bought in a shop is another. Don't understand why you can buy for example Dreamfall on steam and download it, but if you already bought it in a shop you still have to use the disc. But I guess user friendlyness is still a few years into the future.
Here is another fresh example of steam annoyance !
two days ago when I started up steam .. I saw that World of Goo was on the coming soon tab and would be released soon... you could even purchase it already and it would probably activate on release... sadly I didn't have enough time to buy it right there and then .. so I figured I'll just buy it later...
today I finally get another chance to start steam again .. and I remember.. "hey world of goo is probably out now.. another new game to play.. Yeay!! " so I start to look on steam to see where it is.. I cant find it... " strange...!?! " I start searching for it.. again nothing.. figuring maybe they changed the name for the European version and maybe that's why I cant find it.. so search for the company of the guys who made it 2D Boy.. again nothing...
so I use a proxy and check it on the American site.. and the game is not only on the American steam site... but also its out !
they removed the game from the European steam !! ... why ?? is my money less valuable ? ...WTF gives !?
so.. how frustrating this might be... I just wonder if I would have gotten even more screwed if I did pay for the game when I saw it on the coming soon tab.... and then finding out I cant download it and play it....... or would I now be able to enjoy the game like the the steam costumers in the US ?
"A lot of games on there are dirt cheap though. £2.50 for Day of Defeat? Any day of the week."
maybe.. but how can you go about advertising a game on the service and then pulling it on the last day for the European service.. I just want some level of equality .. its bad enough they make us pay more for some games...but to pull game like that for no reason ?
Example. Bioshock 19.99 usd via steam. will be 59.99 for ps3 and you could probably find a 360 copy for 34.99 used. Steam is good for me.
"
would be good for me too.. sadly on my steam Bioshock is $54.99 .. and then there is the VAT making it $65.44.. making the ps3 actually cheaper !! would you say "steam is good for me" if you had to pay $65.44 for Bioshock ?
Things always have a markup, it's just very weird that they still keep it in dollars when they do it. That does mean, however, that the cheap games remain cheaper. For instance, if they converted to Pounds, CS:S would probably cost £15, wheras it works out around £12 because they keep it in dollars.
"A lot of games on there are dirt cheap though. £2.50 for Day of Defeat? Any day of the week."
maybe.. but how can you go about advertising a game on the service and then pulling it on the last day for the European service.. I just want some level of equality .. its bad enough they make us pay more for some games...but to pull game like that for no reason ?"
Just FYI for all the European people out there...It's the publishers screwing you over not Valve. Valve doesn't decide what games come out where and for how much. They just provide the service, publishers are the ones that decide to charge you $10 more for COD4.
"A lot of games on there are dirt cheap though. £2.50 for Day of Defeat? Any day of the week."
maybe.. but how can you go about advertising a game on the service and then pulling it on the last day for the European service.. I just want some level of equality .. its bad enough they make us pay more for some games...but to pull game like that for no reason ?"
Just FYI for all the European people out there...It's the publishers screwing you over not Valve. Valve doesn't decide what games come out where and for how much. They just provide the service, publishers are the ones that decide to charge you $10 more for COD4."
its not.. if it was than the retail store copy would cost just as much.. but it doesn't.
I reckon God likes me, because i've never had a single problem, be it crashing or whatever with steam, even back when it was apparently horrible in 2003.
I love it, I don't think i've bought a PC game outside of steam for over a year off the top of my head.
I don't know why StressedOutCat has such insanely higher prices.
Here in Canada, even with the current crappy Canadian dollar, Steam is just fine. Other than catching games on sale at the big retailers, Steam is usually the same price or cheaper. Especially good for picking up slightly older games. Add the convenience of not having a game box taking up storage space, and it's a win-win. I also appreciate that when buying an older game, you don't have to manually patch it yourself!
I've never really had a problem with Steam. I constantly hear people bashing it, but I don't really understand why. It's most definitely the best digital distribution platform for games, period. I can see how you are frustrated being from Europe, though.
"A lot of games on there are dirt cheap though. £2.50 for Day of Defeat? Any day of the week."
maybe.. but how can you go about advertising a game on the service and then pulling it on the last day for the European service.. I just want some level of equality .. its bad enough they make us pay more for some games...but to pull game like that for no reason ?"
Just FYI for all the European people out there...It's the publishers screwing you over not Valve. Valve doesn't decide what games come out where and for how much. They just provide the service, publishers are the ones that decide to charge you $10 more for COD4."
its not.. if it was than the retail store copy would cost just as much.. but it doesn't. "
"Regional pricing on Steam is also a controversial subject. It is widely used by publishers to artificially ensure that prices on Steam stay comparable to or above the retail price of a game in user's area, which considering regional differences and exchange rate fluctuations can lead to dramatic differences. Thus, as of April 2008, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare costs $49.95 USD in the United States but $88.50 USD (not AUD) in Australia."
As a fellow Europeon I feel your pain. But I just don't buy shit over Steam, and rather buy the retail. Doesn't really bother me as I was able to install the full version of my retail purchased Orange Box to my hdd allowing me to not bother with swapping dvds.
If you are interested in buying old games on download though, I would recommend GOG.com, which is a european project and I don't think they mark their prices up. I have at least not yet come across a product that is artificially inflated.
"As a fellow Europeon I feel your pain. But I just don't buy shit over Steam, and rather buy the retail. Doesn't really bother me as I was able to install the full version of my retail purchased Orange Box to my hdd allowing me to not bother with swapping dvds.
If you are interested in buying old games on download though, I would recommend GOG.com, which is a european project and I don't think they mark their prices up. I have at least not yet come across a product that is artificially inflated."
call of duty 4 on steam is $82.24 inc. VAT, which is £51.14 I can buy call of duty 4 from play.com with free postage for £32.99 ($53.04)
It doesn't stop there though. Bioshock on steam is $64.61 inc. VAT, which is £40.17 I can buy bioshock brand new from play.com with again free postage for £9.99, yes TEN POUNDS! or $6.21
Steam is great I love it and i agree the service is great, but their prices are questionable for us British or Europeans. Also steam games rarely go down in price yet their retail counterparts go down all the time as they get older.
The Price of those games are up to the publishers, Valve has no problem putting games at a lower price. That is all up to the Publisher, bitch at them if you have a problem with prices on steam.
"A lot of games on there are dirt cheap though. £2.50 for Day of Defeat? Any day of the week."
maybe.. but how can you go about advertising a game on the service and then pulling it on the last day for the European service.. I just want some level of equality .. its bad enough they make us pay more for some games...but to pull game like that for no reason ?"
Just FYI for all the European people out there...It's the publishers screwing you over not Valve. Valve doesn't decide what games come out where and for how much. They just provide the service, publishers are the ones that decide to charge you $10 more for COD4."
its not.. if it was than the retail store copy would cost just as much.. but it doesn't. "
"Regional pricing on Steam is also a controversial subject. It is widely used by publishers to artificially ensure that prices on Steam stay comparable to or above the retail price of a game in user's area, which considering regional differences and exchange rate fluctuations can lead to dramatic differences. Thus, as of April 2008, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare costs $49.95 USD in the United States but $88.50 USD (not AUD) in Australia.""
QFT!
Being in america i find that steam is a great service, i have used it to buy many games, Audiosurf, Left4Dead, i could keep going. Being able to pre-load the games and play them as soon as they unlock is amazing! But i really feel your pain man, but in the end you cant shit on steam just becuase the publishers are price-fixing to make sure they sell box copies of games.
How does them making Europe pay more for their games make them "ignorant"? It may make them greedy (in your eyes), maybe even "arrogant", but I don't see anything to justify ignorant because I'm sure their accounting department or whatever knows about exchange rates. Sucks to be you, I guess.
Great.. seems there is no end to the Steam / Valve dishonesty. Now we finally get to pay in our own currency.. But according to Steam 1 USD is equal to 1 Pound / 1 Euro
This is getting out of hand.. Copy of Left 4 Dead on steam 49,99 Euros compared to a retail copy of Left 4 Dead on play.com for 37,99 which includes free shipping.(I bet I can find it even cheaper than the prices on Play.com this is just a quick example) So even Valve games are more expensive on Steam than retail ? Doesn't this kinda blows the theory out of the water that its the publishers who make valve overprice the game on steam and its not valves fault... !?
Uh... Valve owns Steam, so there aren't any publishers to force Valve to do jack shit with it (for their own games). If you ever thought it was someone else doing it then... wow.
Yup. And true, other publishers who bow to Valve and have their stuff graciously pimped out on Steam don't give you the great deals Valve gives you, but that's their problem. Anything you buy from Valve will be an amazing value for your money.
If this is about Steam including new currencies then I'd say, as someone from the UK, it's a good thing considering how badly pound sterling is doing against the dollar. My copy of GTAIV cost me more in dollars than what I would pay now on Steam. I don't know how it works for the Euro. Anyone talking about "IP discrimintation" should wake up and realise this is about economies and tax.
Steam is the best thing going for PC gaming right now, but that isn't to say there aren't problems. Firstly the "no DRM", well that's up to the 3rd parties that put their content on Steam, if you remember Crysis Warhead originally came with all it's DRM intact on it's Steam release and GTAIV has secuROM. Steam also isn't usually the cheapest option anyway, unless you're talking about Valve titles.
"An impulse purchase or impulse buy is an unplanned or otherwise spontaneous purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse purchaser or impulse buyer."
On hot deal forums, I've been seeing people list the games they bought from Steam recently. Steam has a 'sale' going on till today.
Many of these purchases to me seem they were made without too much research. Their purchase habits are like this following example:
For example, a shopper in a supermarket might not specifically be shopping for confectionery. However, candy, gum, mints and chocolate are prominently displayed at the checkout aisles to trigger impulse buyers to buy what they might not have otherwise considered.
If these people took the moment to search a bit, they would see they could get the disk version cheaper locally or via mail. They claim Steam provides easy access to the game, no CD/DVD needed. So those who misplace their disks won't be out of luck because Steam uses no CD/DVD, it's all online. What happens if you forget your Steam login and you don't know your email password? "Oh well don't forgot your email password..." or "why pick such extreme example" may be said. I say... don't lose your disks.
What happens if you're on an island and want to play a game you bought from Steam? No net access, it's not installed on your PC. Now what? "Oh you should have installed it before you went on the trip and set it to offline mode" .............. yea okay... I forgot, now what? "Tough sh!t buddy, next time prepare for the trip better." LOL . If you had the disks however, you could install it on your computer. How about the computer is at the destination without internet? I'm sure I can think of more examples and others can counter them, we can go on and on.
Thing is people just buy without thinking of the ramifications from the purchase. Without thinking of the advantages and disadvantages. "OMG, I just bought xxxxx and xxxxx for yyy... OMG OMG" hahaha...
With this recent Steam holiday sale you have people listing like 5-10 games and coming up with totals of how much they spent:
hahahahaha... I think it's kinda funny. Come on... buy 1 or 2 games, tops, play them... beat them and then move on. By this time other games will be on sale. But there are people who buy these Steam games, like a fat person who doesn't stop eating. Eat lunch, okay... then wait for dinner time... don't eat steak and ice cream and cake and steak again in between lunch and dinner... jeeez....
You have money to spend, fine. Everyone has food in the fridge but we don't eat it all in one sitting. Get on a Steam diet.... you Steam fattys. ;-)
You don't need the internet to play games on Steam.
Edit: Also, I hate the hypothetical question/idea of an island. If you were on a fucking island you wouldn't be playing games as there wouldn't be any electricity, so that argument is moot.
"You don't need the internet to play games on Steam.
Edit: Also, I hate the hypothetical question/idea of an island. If you were on a fucking island you wouldn't be playing games as there wouldn't be any electricity, so that argument is moot."
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