Steam sales aftermath

housecat said:
That's one crappy game people shouldn't be buying anyway.

But no, there is no Steam piracy. There are wholly illegal Steam server networks, but that's awesome.. unsupported, unpatched, half-ass networks for people too poor to buy a game on a sale day.. no thanks.

Like I said, Steams piracy preventions are not only DRM but also convenience and ease of use. I'm sure piracy is way down from the days before Steam.
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Umm.... every game on steam has been pirated....

And actually, piracy is up since before steam. Keep trying though.
 
I saw the sale but did not buy anything. A couple reasons, one because I have little time to play these days and when I have the time, AC2 on PS3 is great.

The other more important reason is this, I was asking myself about a couple games I wanted to buy, if this game was full price would I buy it? The answer is no so I would just move on.

Same thing happened with Bluray movies, I was at FutureShop and they had tons of movies for $9.99 or less. I asked myself the same questions and ended up buying nothing.

If something I really want, I would pay for and the proof is getting games on release day although knowing that a couple months they would drop in price.

So I guess the sale did not affect me all that much and I'm sure a big percentage of people won't play all the games they bought.
 
boxterduke said:
I saw the sale but did not buy anything. A couple reasons, one because I have little time to play these days and when I have the time, AC2 on PS3 is great.

The other more important reason is this, I was asking myself about a couple games I wanted to buy, if this game was full price would I buy it? The answer is no so I would just move on.

Same thing happened with Bluray movies, I was at FutureShop and they had tons of movies for $9.99 or less. I asked myself the same questions and ended up buying nothing.

If something I really want, I would pay for and the proof is getting games on release day although knowing that a couple months they would drop in price.

So I guess the sale did not affect me all that much and I'm sure a big percentage of people won't play all the games they bought.
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I'm pretty diehard on finishing all the games I bought, mainly because my wife let me buy anymore til I finish the ones I have :D. That said I bought Alpha prime for $.99 just because and I doubt I'll finish unless I absolutely force myself to.
 
boxterduke said:
The other more important reason is this, I was asking myself about a couple games I wanted to buy, if this game was full price would I buy it? The answer is no so I would just move on.
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I've done something like that as well ... but the problem with doing that is I generally don't want to buy a game *because* it's full price. For example, I could look at DoW2 (which I bought on sale on Steam). If I asked myself "if this game was full price would I buy it?", I'd say no ... it's not worth $40+ to me. I *did* buy it though, because I thought it was worth the $20 I spent on it. Asking yourself that question is kind of loaded and just seems like a way of talking yourself out of buying something.

A better question might be "Is this worth the sale price to me?" With that question, I've passed on GTA4. Originally it was $40 and $7.50 on sale. I certainly wasn't going to pay $40 for it new, but even on sale (despite the glowing reviews), it really just wasn't worth $7.50 to me. If it had been worth $7.50 to me, but I asked myself your question, I still wouldn't have bought it.
 
Gambit said:
I've done something like that as well ... but the problem with doing that is I generally don't want to buy a game *because* it's full price. For example, I could look at DoW2 (which I bought on sale on Steam). If I asked myself "if this game was full price would I buy it?", I'd say no ... it's not worth $40+ to me. I *did* buy it though, because I thought it was worth the $20 I spent on it. Asking yourself that question is kind of loaded and just seems like a way of talking yourself out of buying something.

A better question might be "Is this worth the sale price to me?" With that question, I've passed on GTA4. Originally it was $40 and $7.50 on sale. I certainly wasn't going to pay $40 for it new, but even on sale (despite the glowing reviews), it really just wasn't worth $7.50 to me. If it had been worth $7.50 to me, but I asked myself your question, I still wouldn't have bought it.
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I'm a $10 and under guy. The only I pay more is for complete editions. I blew some like $24 on the Prince of Persia pack because I never got round to beating any of the games after the first one. So 3 games for $8 a pop didn't feel too bad, but that's the most I'd ever spend.
 
I spent quiet a bit on the steam sale, picking up some new games and some old classics that I wanted to replay.

Defense Grid: The Awakening
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky (ROW)
Max Payne Bundle
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Torchlight
World of Goo
Machinarium
Ghostbusters: The Videogame
Star Wars: KOTOR

I would be interested in seeing some numbers on how the steam sale did overall. I wanted to get the DLC for Fallout 3, but didn't really want to spend that extra money getting the game again.
 
Gambit said:
I've done something like that as well ... but the problem with doing that is I generally don't want to buy a game *because* it's full price. For example, I could look at DoW2 (which I bought on sale on Steam). If I asked myself "if this game was full price would I buy it?", I'd say no ... it's not worth $40+ to me. I *did* buy it though, because I thought it was worth the $20 I spent on it. Asking yourself that question is kind of loaded and just seems like a way of talking yourself out of buying something.

A better question might be "Is this worth the sale price to me?" With that question, I've passed on GTA4. Originally it was $40 and $7.50 on sale. I certainly wasn't going to pay $40 for it new, but even on sale (despite the glowing reviews), it really just wasn't worth $7.50 to me. If it had been worth $7.50 to me, but I asked myself your question, I still wouldn't have bought it.
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that is the exact reason I passed on GTA4 as well...it wasnt even worth pulling out my CC for to me, so I guess I'd only buy it with a couple of bucks cash or something :D

I did finally sign up for steam and get on some of the deals, burn out paradise/thq pack and the witcher (wanted that one for a looooonnnnngggg time now) are more than enough to keep me sated for some time, certainly long enough for mass effect 2 to go on sale but I couldnt bring myself to bother with much else despite mild interest.
 
demingo said:
Umm.... every game on steam has been pirated....

And actually, piracy is up since before steam. Keep trying though.
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Yeah, I said how every game has been pirated, you have no inside information so don't pretend you do. Everyone knows about the Chinese steam servers and so forth.

Cite your source on piracy being up since Steam in proportion to market growth.

Piracy is not up. PC gaming's "marketshare" has likely increased, leading to slightly more pirates than before.. but overall there is no way piracy has increased in proportion to the market since Steam/D2D ect. Also, I would wager nearly all the piracy increase has come from emerging markets like China where they can't or refuse to pay for anything.

Or guys like you.
 
Of course piracy is up, piracy is constantly increasing, websites like TPB made piracy accessible to the general public, if you know anything about the history of piracy, especially when the scene was small then you'd know it's steadily increased since when it started. I remember back when you practically needed to be part of the scene to get a hold of anything and piracy was mostly done through hacked FTP accounts etc...

Now a days you load an app, type in the name and click search, largely due to P2P technology its completely mainstream, anyone can do it.

Obviously thats not directly related to steam, steam is growing because the market is, warez is growing because the market is, the more games the more piracy...I certainly wouldn't say that there is more warez directly because of steam, in fact i'd say it's having a hinderence on piracy, it's convenient and often cheap which removes a lot of reason to pirate.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
i'd say it's having a hinderence on piracy, it's convenient and often cheap which removes a lot of reason to pirate.
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You are so right I could have pirated some of the games but with the steam sales, I ending up buying a ton of games. At 70 dollars a pop you are stuck if you don't like the game, that's really hard to swallow.
 
piscian18 said:
Defense Grid: The Awakening is the best game ever EEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVEEERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Fantastic game. Not one I thought I'd get into, but once I tried it, it was GAME OVER ..... I was hooked.

Picked it up last spring when it was on sale for $5. I feel no remorse that I didn't wait for the holiday sale when it went down to $2.50. Big deal. That game rocks!
 
switchg3ar said:
You are so right I could have pirated some of the games but with the steam sales, I ending up buying a ton of games. At 70 dollars a pop you are stuck if you don't like the game, that's really hard to swallow.
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Exactly!

I had access to some games and felt bad about playing them. When Steam introduced their Holiday sale I quickly bought those games that I enjoyed.

Usually I only purchase a couple of games a year since I'm not as into gaming as I once was anymore. Now when I hear about great new games, I just wait until they go on sale for $30 or $20 maybe a year after they came out.

If a game is really good, even one a few years old, will still be good! Also, buying games after they have been out for awhile allows you to see which games are truly good and which are over hyped.

Now I look forward to the next Holiday Steam Sale, I hope they continue this event.
 
I think the number of new customers this brought to Steam has offset the number of people that will wait for the 60%-90% sales you only get around Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is a tremendous way to push for new users and show them the advantages that Steam has (autopatching, unlimited downloads, no CDs, no keys, etc etc)
 
Serpico said:
I think the number of new customers this brought to Steam has offset the number of people that will wait for the 60%-90% sales you only get around Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is a tremendous way to push for new users and show them the advantages that Steam has (autopatching, unlimited downloads, no CDs, no keys, etc etc)
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Yeah steam is so convenient its ridiculous. I know lots of people who buy the same game over again on steam just because they do not want to hassle with the CD keys, the juggling of DVD/CDs, and want to play the game anywhere on any computer.
 
I bought 25 games from Steam and 3 from gamers gate in about 5 days of feeding frenzy. I think it cost me about $160.00 total. I think from now on I may just wait for Xmas and other holiday sales and never buy a PC game from retails stores again. That still leaves the PS3 raping my wallet though. I want Demons Souls for PS3 and every store wants $69.99 CAD for it. Screw them, I will wait for it to either come down in price or I will never buy it.
 
Did not buy that much, I think a Total of 11 games. Which were the late released games or games I have not purchased yet. Still pretty good as others have said this has made just switch from ''I want a hard copy for my box of games collection''' mode into just having a ton of games in my games steam list. :p
 
TBONEU said:
Exactly!

I had access to some games and felt bad about playing them.
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You admit to being a pirate and yet you have had an account here for 7 years? Never heard the saying, "loose lips sink ships"? Learn it, live it. :p
 
Casper312 said:
Did not buy that much, I think a Total of 11 games. Which were the late released games or games I have not purchased yet. Still pretty good as others have said this has made just switch from ''I want a hard copy for my box of games collection''' mode into just having a ton of games in my games steam list. :p
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Until you run out of HDD space. Steam can't span multiple HDDs unless you use RAID to make all HDDs seen as one. I think Steam needs to re-think how the client behaves in that regard and make it so that you can install Steam games to multiple HDDs and partitions.
 
I bought more games over the sale than I previously had in my Steam game list. The only games I had in Steam before the sale was the ATI free HL2 pack, Mount and Blade, and TF2.

While I'm still extremely happy with my purchases, it caused me to discover something that may keep me from purchasing much else there: Only one login per account. If I buy a game, my wife can't login to my account to play it even if I'm playing something else. While I can see the purpose behind this I think they could at least verify that a second user is using the same external IP and not running the same game at the same time. Or maybe they could institute some kind of family account that would allow this.
 
Udo said:
Until you run out of HDD space. Steam can't span multiple HDDs unless you use RAID to make all HDDs seen as one. I think Steam needs to re-think how the client behaves in that regard and make it so that you can install Steam games to multiple HDDs and partitions.
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MKLINK /J

It's a pain in the ass compared to Steam asking if you want to install it to another drive but it's not hard either.
 
well I started using steam when the orange box came out. I installed everything registered and tried to play. OH you can not connect to the servers. LOOK HL2 is a single player game I am trying to play it. NOT without authorization. WTF so I call them. Yes there is a switch you can turn that off. OK MORON how do I do that when I can't connect to your servers.Yes our servers are down you can try again later. F this bs if the game can be played single player this feature should have been turned on at the time you install it and IF you want to play online turn this on. What about the people who do not have internet are they Fucked from day 1? Well if they email us we can send them a command to turn it off. OK if they have no internet how do they email you?Oh they can call us. OK (God are you really this fing stupid) I am calling you I want to play what I paid for. HOW DO I DO IT!!!
You need to wait for the servers to come back up and then check this box. SCREAM
NO these moron Gods think the world revolves around then and the customer should kiss their ass.

after seeing this I can not think of trusting these idiots with something and expecting them to deliver.
I do not and will not use steam or any of their bs.
 
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sparks said:
after seeing this I can not think of trusting these idiots with something and expecting them to deliver.
I do not and will not use steam or any of their bs.
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ok relax, calm down and take a breath. what they were trying to rationalise to you is that, you have to download your own account information before you can play steam protected games offline. so if you can't get connected the first time then you obviously won't be able to play, how is that different from any other type of drm, besides the fact that it works.

housecat said:
Yeah, I said how every game has been pirated, you have no inside information so don't pretend you do. Everyone knows about the Chinese steam servers and so forth.

Cite your source on piracy being up since Steam in proportion to market growth.

Piracy is not up. PC gaming's "marketshare" has likely increased, leading to slightly more pirates than before.. but overall there is no way piracy has increased in proportion to the market since Steam/D2D ect. Also, I would wager nearly all the piracy increase has come from emerging markets like China where they can't or refuse to pay for anything.

Or guys like you.
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yes every game that comes out on steam or any other publisher gets cracked and distributed on or around the day of release. it may come as a shock to you, and that's ok, doesn't make you an idiot or anything. just saying in response to your rock solid security praise, and console bash for no apparent reason, that this is really not the strong point of steam, or why you should buy into it. you should choose to download from steam instead of somewhere else, because they offer services with their games that no one else does, and sell them at reasonable prices.
 
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mas said:
yes every game that comes out on steam or any other publisher gets cracked and distributed on or around the day of release. it may come as a shock to you, and that's ok, doesn't make you an idiot or anything. just saying in response to your rock solid security praise, and console bash for no apparent reason, that this is really not the strong point of steam, or why you should buy into it. you should choose to download from steam instead of somewhere else, because they offer services with their games that no one else does, and sell them at reasonable prices.
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It's not "rock solid" but it is convenient enough and secure enough, that people who used to pirate no longer bother, and I think the difference it's made has essentially saved PC gaming (if not only saved it from the age-old "is pc gaming dying" debates).

I don't like consoles, and I'm glad to see PC gaming take what is it's.

Now we have news that Steam is really starting to rape.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/3390/
 
piscian18 said:
I now have 136 games on steam . My wife had to block my paypal account. Defense Grid: The Awakening is the best game ever EEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVEEERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Mind the cores Zeke!

I bought enough from Valve [edit: Steam] that I didn't remember everything and was pleasantly suprised to see Mass Effect waiting to download.

Borderlands @ $33 was the only game I was worried about and I'm enjoying it. The only letdown, such as it is, is the constant popup for some community bullshit related to GTA IV.

Anyone get in on the "Bob Came in Pieces" sale? Decent game.
 
i bougt another game last week on steam... Psychonauts for 2$ is and incredible deal!

i need to stop buying games....
 
I only buy games on Steam if they're on sale.


I'll not buy full-priced games until they implement some sort of family account so my wife can play a game from my account while I'm on and playing something else.
 
Bankie said:
I only buy games on Steam if they're on sale.


I'll not buy full-priced games until they implement some sort of family account so my wife can play a game from my account while I'm on and playing something else.
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yeah i have to agree with you on that Bankie. Same IP (ie same location) should enable steam to load multiple time
 
housecat said:
.....but overall there is no way piracy has increased in proportion to the market since Steam/D2D ect. ...........
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Cite your sources please then?

For me, i bought about $130 in games, and games i otherwise NEVER even would have considered buying, ever, like the THQ pack.
 
Steam has been a great way method of getting people to buy these games. I am not sure what the problem is using a system that works. Guess there will always be rebels.
 
Lordy, these steam deals have done massive damage to my wallet. I really get chapped by pulling out a CD-ROM for disk based protection. If the game is cheap enough, I've duped on steam to avoid the disk check.

One thing I don't care for is the off-line mode. I work in the field 4 days a week, and might not have net access in the hotel. One game lock/hard crash later, off-line mode is off line. Not uncommon for the hotel to only have wireless access too. (Note to self: buy wireless card for box)

Be a while before I pay full price for a game again. Got a very large backlog to sort through...
 
I only bought a few games during the sale, GTA IV was an absolute robbery at $8 or whatever it was at, got BF2 complete collection for $10

I just hope Steam doesn't turn corrupt
 
gravityparade said:
If someone buys 10, 15, 20 games they start to collect all these games which get very little play time, and rather than playing these games through to their finished extent, people will play the game for an hour and move on to the next and never come back to it. I think these sales open people up to the habits of excessive game buying and it's priming valve's customers to behaving differently when it comes to selecting games for purchase.
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I personally have to disagree, as a person who bought about 15 games. I've downloaded about a third of them now, and of that third I've played two all the way through (one twice) am currently enjoying the third, and have logged about 25 hours total on the two online shooters I picked up - all in the last three weeks. I also downloaded one which I had a hard time getting into, but this isn't some laziness on my part - it was just not really what I was in the mood for. It'll be perfect for when I need a break from the shooters though.
 
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