Steam Exlusively

[Untadaike]

Wasn't there a chance that OG's price could raise once the full game's released? That's why I pre-ordered. Besides all the obvious reasons.

[Joxer]

Just my tuppence worth...


I bought Lugaru recently, directly from wolfire, for £12.95 which was slightly better at current exchange rates than the $19.95 posted at the time. Alot of things are more expensive in the UK than the US (and elsewhere).

[gamegoo]

Its cant be steam only, steam doesn't support mac

[Assaultman67]

...The suggestion being that retailers are highly paranoid about digital distribution killing their industry, and have threatened to stop buying as many games (and theoretically killing a lot of developers profits) if digital distribution got too cheap.
Next Gen Podcasts has a good chat about that, but I can't remember what episode it was. Steam was mentioned on there, too.

That's kinda a stupid threat ... if steam did drop their prices, and retailers stopped supplying as many games, the market would just move to buying their games off of steam faster ...

They're trying to control a market ... which historically fails often ... companies have to realize they need to adapt to competition rather than trying to subdue it.

1. Did a little digging and there seems to be a consensus that Steam's profit cut is around 35 - 50% but, obviously, I can't possibly verify that without some kind of insider admission.

that's massive! ohwell, you make some very clear points.
also, i to happen to know that your not getting ripped off in europe because they cant be bothered doing the right currency conversion. it is simply because games in europe cost more. you should ask 'the man' why.

a friend of mine recently went to taiwan, you can get the same retail copies of games there (dont say pirated cos i had them checked out) for like 10 bucks australian. thats 7/8 bucks american.

thats not because they forgot to change dollars to yen or whatever they use up there.

ps. games are more expensive in australia too.

Isn't there a "game tax" as well as a tariff european countries put on imported goods? ... i always thought that was the reason as to why they were so expensive ... (they have specific taxes for cigarettes, booze, and gas in the US.)

[Uberbeard]

...The suggestion being that retailers are highly paranoid about digital distribution killing their industry, and have threatened to stop buying as many games (and theoretically killing a lot of developers profits) if digital distribution got too cheap.
Next Gen Podcasts has a good chat about that, but I can't remember what episode it was. Steam was mentioned on there, too.

That's kinda a stupid threat ... if steam did drop their prices, and retailers stopped supplying as many games, the market would just move to buying their games off of steam faster ...

They're trying to control a market ... which historically fails often ... companies have to realize they need to adapt to competition rather than trying to subdue it.

What makes sense and what they're doing are different points, and as a counter suggestion there are plenty of examples of market control being enforced, hell that's what the western school of commercial business was written on.

Anyway, as much as I dislike game retailers for helping to sustain ridiculous conventions when selling games, I wouldn't like to see a massive shift to online distribution. There's something unsettling about the idea of not actually having any proof of ownership over something other than a digital contract.

I wouldn't exactly call it mindless paranoia, but retail sellers have exaggerated the threat posed by online providers only a little. They just have to remind us all of the DANGERS of the unconquerable interwebs.

[Blorx]

Regarding DRM; piracy is inevitable on PCs, I don't think being Steam exclusive would affect our piracy numbers much.

Just figured I'd back this up. It won't. =P

Yeah, I quoted TPB. What of it? Don't start on the anti-piracy rave. Fan-made Cider ports are still the only way some games can be played on Mac.

EDIT: ...other than BootCamp, which some people end up pirating a copy of Windows to use. =P