Steam pricing vs. local retail pricing

steam is great when they run discounts, other wise downloading the game can be a mission but if you got uncapped, its a win
 
Steam's weekend special are better than what any of the local retailers ever have to offer. You rarely if ever see relative recent games getting marked down by 75% at the local retailers while that happens often with steam.

Steam is competitive when it comes to release day pricing but they totally win when it comes to specials.

With no bandwith worries anymore for me steam has become a super option.
 
Stefan9 said:
Steam's weekend special are better than what any of the local retailers ever have to offer. You rarely if ever see relative recent games getting marked down by 75% at the local retailers while that happens often with steam.

Steam is competitive when it comes to release day pricing but they totally win when it comes to specials.

With no bandwith worries anymore for me steam has become a super option.
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exactly. not to mention that there is also mid week madness...
 
Stefan9 said:
Steam's weekend special are better than what any of the local retailers ever have to offer. You rarely if ever see relative recent games getting marked down by 75% at the local retailers while that happens often with steam.

Steam is competitive when it comes to release day pricing but they totally win when it comes to specials.

With no bandwith worries anymore for me steam has become a super option.
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Yeah could not have said it better myself.
There was just a special on buy 3 of the game and get 1 of the game free so if you have a clan its a score for whole clan.
 
I love steam and their specials. I think the journalist should also consider Impulse as they are the main competition to Steam and they have a great user support policy and I have a few games on Impulse as well.

I balance my purchases between Steam and Impulse so that I support competition in the market!
 
Nictron said:
I love steam and their specials. I think the journalist should also consider Impulse as they are the main competition to Steam and they have a great user support policy and I have a few games on Impulse as well.

I balance my purchases between Steam and Impulse so that I support competition in the market!
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I think currently direct to drive and gamersgate have a bigger market share. But yeah there are some good options now that bandwith isn't a worry anymore.
 
I actually prefer to get my games off steam. Usually, fairly new releases go on special and I wait to get them then. Beats having to store all my game discs and them getting lost.
 
Steam is cool but just downloading the games to my hdd is a pain, I mean it wastes a lot more space than if I buy a hard copy. So Steam is cool but its not for me.
 
Ken-Block said:
Steam is cool but just downloading the games to my hdd is a pain, I mean it wastes a lot more space than if I buy a hard copy. So Steam is cool but its not for me.
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With HHD prices al low as they are.
if you got a 500gig hhd you can get a lot of games on it, got 32 games on it and its only 150g so far.
 
Ken-Block said:
Steam is cool but just downloading the games to my hdd is a pain, I mean it wastes a lot more space than if I buy a hard copy. So Steam is cool but its not for me.
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I assume that the Steam version would be the same size as the DVD version of a game. If you are worried about about freeing up space on your HDD, you can un-install Steam games and just download them again later (you don't mention an internet cap being a problem).

I would only choose Steam over a boxed copy when the game is on one of Steam's great specials. SA's PC game prices are quite good, so for me it is normally better to buy a boxed copy.
 
crazydude said:
I assume that the Steam version would be the same size as the DVD version of a game. If you are worried about about freeing up space on your HDD, you can un-install Steam games and just download them again later (you don't mention an internet cap being a problem).
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You can also backup the games you download to DVD if you like (then you have to add cost of blank DVD in, not much, but still).


  • Disadvantage of Steam: What if you loose your steam login or account gets lost somehow? Then all the games you have bought disappear because they are linked to your login.
crazydude said:
I would only choose Steam over a boxed copy when the game is on one of Steam's great specials. SA's PC game prices are quite good, so for me it is normally better to buy a boxed copy.
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It's nice to have the "real box", with a nice picture, not-always-useful-manual, and a serial number.
Also, you can't resell your games on Steam as far as I know, but you can always give your game to a friend once you've finished with it in real life.

Another thing I think about is money: If I buy directly from America, then my cousin, say, who works at say, BTGames, loses out on making money for their store which pays his salary. So money is effectively lost which could have stayed in the country to feed and house people.
 
*wipes blood from my eyes, thanks defza*


Stefan9 said:
Steam's weekend special are better than what any of the local retailers ever have to offer. You rarely if ever see relative recent games getting marked down by 75% at the local retailers while that happens often with steam.

Steam is competitive when it comes to release day pricing but they totally win when it comes to specials.

With no bandwith worries anymore for me steam has become a super option.
Click to expand...

Summed it up perfectly thanks.

However if you can get the hard copy for the same price I'd go with that.
 
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Ken-Block said:
Steam is cool but just downloading the games to my hdd is a pain, I mean it wastes a lot more space than if I buy a hard copy. So Steam is cool but its not for me.
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LolWhat!

I got a lot of games and well most of the hard copies you guys seem so attached to is just gathering dust in a shelf.

As for in response to Defza what if you loose your steam account details. If you used steam more often you would probably not loose the details. Also its a good idea to have a hard copy of all your username password for everything from email to IM clients to MMO clients to what else.

The really down side of getting all the games onto your hhd is that hhd can fail then you loose all that date but quesst what you can get it back from steam. You also have an option on what games you want to install(download) and those you don't want to. Uncapped makes it posible yes I know the time it take to download the game is really long but still at least its not lost forever and you can't get it back.
Dvd gets unusable your not getting your game back that's for sure.
 
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