Steam sales have started

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m3ta1head said:
Why the hell did I ever pay $50 for BC2? :(
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I bought it for $50 at the pre-order "month-long preview beta" phase and have no regrets... I logged 250+ hours post-launch near that time, and still play several hours a week :D.
 
Day one: Meat Boy, BC2, Titan Quest and Deus Ex Collection. Ohhhhhhh boy, that's like 100+ hrs of game play between them the way I play.
 
Didnt see a whole lot I wanted. Wolfenstein and Prototype are the 2 games Im keeping an eye out for and neither are on sale. Maybe theyll go later.

I did pick up Battlefield Bad Company 2 for $6.97. Not sure if its any good or not but it always looked interesting and for $7, ya cant go wrong.
 
Guys i found this in another thread in the forums so ill post it here. it lists every single game on sale without having to mess around in Steam itself. Very handy

http://www.steamgamesales.com/?sort=savings&order=desc


I ended up buying The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom for 50 cents never played either of them figured for 50 cents who cares right lol
 
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Super Meat Boy , Prince of Persia (Cell shaded version) and Deus Ex Collection.

God I love Steam.
 
GoldenTiger said:
I bought it for $50 at the pre-order "month-long preview beta" phase and have no regrets... I logged 250+ hours post-launch near that time, and still play several hours a week :D.
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I only have about 100 hours logged. I haven't played the game much until recently-punkbuster was giving me tons of crashing issues before that just got resolved with the latest pbsetup update. I could have saved a shit ton of money by buying it when the game was on sale for $20, or today for $6.79 :(
 
Good day so far pick up
F.E.A.R. Complete pack (5 games)
Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands
Indie Kids Pack (I had Crayons Physics Deluxe and Max and the magic Marker on my wish list for months ) ;)

Hoping to see a Tomb Raider pack ( all 3 for cheapo)
Crysis Maximum Edition
Assassin's Creed 1 (I still don't get why is selling for 14.99 this game should be 1.99 by now)
Need for Speed Shift (doesn't look likes going to drop below 15.00 :mad:)
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Darth Athena for 3 bucks :D
whatever other crap looks interesting
 
Finally picked up BFBC2! I figured I couldn't go wrong for $7. Are the Prince of Persia games any good?
 
Danja said:
Finally picked up BFBC2! I figured I couldn't go wrong for $7. Are the Prince of Persia games any good?
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The Cell Shaded one reminds me much of the cell shaded Zelda game on the N64. Just beautiful to look at and the princess part of it is well designed as she isn't a bother to bring a long the entire journey. Solid game and for the easily worth it.

Also if you buy the Prince of Persia 2008 game make sure to enable V-Sync otherwise it wont load.
 
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yeah id wait on metro 2033. it will drop again. Its very under appreciated. I find it a great game
 
Godmachine said:
The Cell Shaded one reminds me much of the cell shaded Zelda game on the N64. Just beautiful to look at and the princess part of it is well designed as she isn't a bother to bring a long the entire journey. Solid game and for the easily worth it.

Also if you buy the Prince of Persia 2008 game make sure to enable V-Sync otherwise it wont load.
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The cell shaded Zelda games are on the Gamecube.
 
I bought the FEAR pack for $9.99, I coulda sworn I had these games, but I guess not!!

anyway, it's all good, I'm downloading the original FEAR, never played it!

looking forward to it
 
Fail said:
I bought the FEAR pack for $9.99, I coulda sworn I had these games, but I guess not!!

anyway, it's all good, I'm downloading the original FEAR, never played it!

looking forward to it
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FEAR 1 is awesome....FEAR 2 is awful. Quite a contrast.
 
The sale is already highlighting how exploited non-US territories are when it comes to pricing. Bad Company 2 is still a good buy at US$14 but it's double what the US pays for the exact same collection of files with the exact same expenses in the exact same currency. Mafia II and Civ 5 were 25% off, and were still fetching US$60 each on the Australian Steam. They are US$80 normally.

And before the Steam/Valve fanboys start screaming about how it's up to the publishers and not Valve to determine pricing, Valve is definitely not making any noise about it being ethically dubious and it is Valve's sales platform - they clearly have no problem with whatever extra revenue they receive from this bullshit.
 
I just beat ME 1 and now ME2 at 14.99 is a steal but unsure if i should bite now or hope and pray its on the daily deal =/. Titan Quest is in the cart, already own the first one but alas i can't find the DVD anymore lol.
 
Kaash said:
I just beat ME 1 and now ME2 at 14.99 is a steal but unsure if i should bite now or hope and pray its on the daily deal =/. Titan Quest is in the cart, already own the first one but alas i can't find the DVD anymore lol.
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ALWAYS wait for daily deals. if a game you are wanting doesn't go on a daily deal then you can buy it on the last day of the sale. its $7.98 on Gamersgate for the next 6 days if you are really impatient and are not devoted to Steam.
 
I live in japan not sure if that matters but when i went to gamersgate it was not listed that cheap. Also it only shows the digital deluxe edition for 39.99 =/
 
Kaash said:
I live in japan not sure if that matters but when i went to gamersgate it was not listed that cheap. Also it only shows the digital deluxe edition for 39.99 =/
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yeah it must be on sale just in certain regions then.
 
Plague_Injected said:
The sale is already highlighting how exploited non-US territories are when it comes to pricing. Bad Company 2 is still a good buy at US$14 but it's double what the US pays for the exact same collection of files with the exact same expenses in the exact same currency. Mafia II and Civ 5 were 25% off, and were still fetching US$60 each on the Australian Steam. They are US$80 normally.

And before the Steam/Valve fanboys start screaming about how it's up to the publishers and not Valve to determine pricing, Valve is definitely not making any noise about it being ethically dubious and it is Valve's sales platform - they clearly have no problem with whatever extra revenue they receive from this bullshit.
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I agree 100%

Both the price of games and also the release dates of games on steam allow too much room for dicking over certain nationalities for no other reason than they can get away with it.

I've stopped buying games on steam that are released late in the UK and I also refuse to pay over the normal £30 for a launch day game which is this new crap trend by the guys making CoD and some other devs. Vote with your wallet.
 
Finally, bought FEAR 2 and the DLC

10 more days to go. I really hope I can restrain myself from breaking my budget :p
 
Plague_Injected said:
The sale is already highlighting how exploited non-US territories are when it comes to pricing. Bad Company 2 is still a good buy at US$14 but it's double what the US pays for the exact same collection of files with the exact same expenses in the exact same currency. Mafia II and Civ 5 were 25% off, and were still fetching US$60 each on the Australian Steam. They are US$80 normally.

And before the Steam/Valve fanboys start screaming about how it's up to the publishers and not Valve to determine pricing, Valve is definitely not making any noise about it being ethically dubious and it is Valve's sales platform - they clearly have no problem with whatever extra revenue they receive from this bullshit.
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Market forces are market forces.

In the Darwinian struggle for survival, companies push one another to compete, and pricing will always eventually settle towards the lowest possible point. Always. Any economics professor will confirm this.

If Steam's prices are 'too high', for whatever reason, then that opens the door for a competitor to undermine Steam by providing the same service at a lower price point, as long as a profit can be made. Consumers, because of the lower prices, will flock to that new kid on the block, the result being that Steam will be forced to lower its prices.

Any product is priced accordingly. At random, you could take, bananas, say, and try to find a price point. Try selling a single banana for ten dollars - good luck with that. Other sellers would cut you down in a second, and no sane person would buy from you. It's the simple principle of supply and demand.

If Steam is selling a title in Australia for more than in the US then you can bet your life that there's a reason for it, as any economist would tell you. If Steam's prices are too high then it's an economic certainty that some other company will take advantage of that, and undermine them.

The one exception to this rule, obviously, is when a monopoly is formed, at which time the government must step in and dismantle it in order to promote competition in the marketplace. In this case it's fairly obvious that Steam has no monopoly, since there are multiple sites to download from (yes, Steam is most peoples' preference, but being preferred doesn't make you a monopoly).

I'm not even sure I understand your argument? You're saying that the prices of games are 'too high' outside of the US? The prices are what the prices are. If some company can sell the titles for less, and still generate a profit, then that's going to happen. Guaranteed every single time. Capitalism has a built in mechanism for this. It's why capitalism works and other ideologies don't.
 
WabeWalker said:
Market forces are market forces.

In the Darwinian struggle for survival, companies push one another to compete, and pricing will always eventually settle towards the lowest possible point. Always. Any economics professor will confirm this.

If Steam's prices are 'too high', for whatever reason, then that opens the door for a competitor to undermine Steam by providing the same service at a lower price point, as long as a profit can be made. Consumers, because of the lower prices, will flock to that new kid on the block, the result being that Steam will be forced to lower its prices.

Any product is priced accordingly. At random, you could take, bananas, say, and try to find a price point. Try selling a single banana for ten dollars - good luck with that. Other sellers would cut you down in a second, and no sane person would buy from you. It's the simple principle of supply and demand.

If Steam is selling a title in Australia for more than in the US then you can bet your life that there's a reason for it, as any economist would tell you. If Steam's prices are too high then it's an economic certainty that some other company will take advantage of that, and undermine them.

The one exception to this rule, obviously, is when a monopoly is formed, at which time the government must step in and dismantle it in order to promote competition in the marketplace. In this case it's fairly obvious that Steam has no monopoly, since there are multiple sites to download from (yes, Steam is most peoples' preference, but being preferred doesn't make you a monopoly).

I'm not even sure I understand your argument? You're saying that the prices of games are 'too high' outside of the US? The prices are what the prices are. If some company can sell the titles for less, and still generate a profit, then that's going to happen. Guaranteed every single time. Capitalism has a built in mechanism for this. It's why capitalism works and other ideologies don't.
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Except Steam is (I think) the only DD-platform that sells all of its titles to Australia. D2D doesn't seem to have been willing to play ball with the publishers, so it is forbidden to sell the majority of its games to Australian customers at all, let alone for the same price as US customers. Therefore, Steam does function as a monopoly in Australia.

Your post shows a little ignorance of the gaming situation overseas and the enormous weakness of the US dollar right now. The Australian dollar fetches anywhere between US$0.95 to US$1.05, depending on the markets - no irrelevant banana analogy or "it's ok because we're capitalists" argument justifies why we should pay upto double for the exact same product. Games in stores carry higher prices due (partly) to the added costs of running a retail store, profit margins, freight costs and an inability to buy in bulk due to a low population spread across vast distances. The same costs do not in any stretch apply to the digital versions of the products...therefore the inflated prices are not reasonable. Unfortunately, too many of my compatriots are stupid enough to pay these exorbitant prices because of the fabled advantages of Steam. They do not understand that paying artifically-inflated prices benefits nobody but the publishers who make 80%-100% more money from game sales for no added cost....nor do they understand that you can often find games in B&M game stores or online retailers for signifcantly lower prices than on Steam.

The reason why this exists is, apparently, due to the retail chains kicking up a stink over being undercut by Steam and threatening publishers with a hold on stocking their products. Therefore any attempts to undercut Steam (like D2D who are prevented from doing so by publishers) and/or the big gaming stores will result in anti-competitive sour-grape behaviour from those who stand to lose.

You could argue that Steam is restricted in the same way as D2D in that if it asserted some authroity over pricing that it would simply be prevented from selling to Australia...but Steam has a far, far bigger stake in the online market than D2D. It has a lot more muscle to flex in keeping prices reasonable for non-US territories, but seems reluctant to do so. If it resulted in a US$10 hike I could live with that...but not US$50 hikes for Fallout New Vegas, US$40 hikes like for Civ 5 and Mafia II, and US$30 hikes for Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.

Ubisoft, Valve and Eidos seem to be the only ones who are keeping the prices of their games relatively uniform across all territories, with Capcom starting to come around as well with the pricings of Lost Planet 2 and Dead Rising 2. 2K, Bethesda, EA, THQ and Activision are the biggest offenders of price-fixing.
 
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I think wabe just confirmed that the argument is basically as I said it. It's the "because we can" methodology.

My reaction to this is basically to deny sales on the principle of the thing, if steam want to be complacent in letting their customers get ripped off then fine, I'll stop buying games that are over priced, or release late or whatever.

Steam is actually an inconvenience to me, and I pay for that inconvenience because I want to reward the developers for their hard work, but the moment they try and take advantage simply because they can is the moment I'll abandon that inconvenience. This is now how I operate on principle, if valve release a game late in the EU/UK then NO SALE, if they jack the UK price up unreasonably, then NO SALE.

The argument that they have no control over what the publishers do is stupid, they can allow/deny access to their service so to at least some degree they have leverage to stop this stupid profiling of customers based on region.
 
Good way to go. I just wish more people expected higher standards from the groups that expect us to accept an ever declining level of quality or, at the very least, voted with their wallets.

For Wabe and others who are interested in the Steam price-fixing issue...some examples here.
 
You don't seem to understand the fundamentals of economics.

I wasn't attempting to justify the prices of the titles overseas, I was simply stating a fact of life, that market forces drive the prices to a point of equilibrium.

And, yes, bananas are perfectly relevant, as are apples and oranges, or any other product under the sun. A company will always charge what it can get away with - but an equilibrium will always be reached, due to competiton, provided there's not a monopoly in place.

You say that your fellow countrymen are stupid for paying the prices at Steam. Completely irrelevant, I'm afraid. It's just basic market forces. If people are willing to pay for something, and a competitor can't provide the same service for a lower price, then the price will be what the price will be.

I was invited to a professional hockey game the other night and was astonished, not just by the price of the ticket, but by the price of the parking at the venue. When I discovered how much the players were getting paid I was utterly appalled. But it matters not one whit that I think it's ludicrous to be paying young men so much money for doing basically nothing when we're not even paying our nurses enough money - if people are willing to pay two hundred dollars to watch a hockey game, and forty dollars to park their vehicle, then that's what the prices will be, and the players themselves will earn ridiculous amounts of money in consequence.

The fact is your fellow countrymen aren't nearly as stupid as you claim.

If Steam is charging 'too much', as you claimed in your post, then another company is surely going to take advantage of that, and undermine them. In that case, if Game A were to sell for $40 at Steam, and $20 at another site, then your countrymen wouldn't buy from Steam.

Personally, I don't believe that Steam can be undermined in your country. In the shark infested waters of capitalism there's ALWAYS some opportunistic person who's ready to jump in if prices can be lowered. If the prices haven't been lowered then there's a reason for that.

And quite frankly, if Steam's prices really are artificially inflated, and another company hasn't rushed in to take advantage by lowering the prices and stealing customers from Steam, then - I hate to say this - but that ain't Steam's fault, it's the fault of your countrymen.

Sorry, but that would never happen in America - hell, it wouldn't even happen in Iran. It's an improbable scenario to say the least. Prices are driven by market forces, and nothing else - and, yes, a price point of equilibrium will always be reached in a market economy.
 
Accepting economic facts is not what I am having a problem with - it's accepting that the status quo with this particular market issue is in any way reasonable or fair to the consumer, or something that I should in any way play ball with. As long as it remains, I'll vote with my wallet and make noise about it.

I stated that there are factors that flat-out stop new competitors from undercutting Steam - namely publishers who determine who can and cannot sell their products as digital downloads. Therefore there is a monopoly that cannot be broken. Your analogy about the hockey game is interesting, but people still at least have a choice of watching the game for free / on PPV on TV, or parking their car somewhere else and walking to the venue; even though the game can only happen once in one location, there are still options about how people watch the game and how they get to and from. The digital-distribution-of-games situation in Australia et al doesn't have that luxury. Steam is a monopoly in function if not in strict definition because new competitors will be forced to sell the games at the same price due to publishers, who are apparently doing it because of EB, Game, GameTraders et al; therefore there is far less incentive for new competitors to start up because they can't really offer anything that Steam doesn't. We have an option other than Steam as well (i.e. getting the boxed versions of games), but none as rewarding as a digital distribution platform free of price-fixing and sales restrictions.

The problem doesn't exist at the same levels in the US because the games in stores are priced in rough parity with those on Steam. If Steam, D2D and/or publishers all decided that new releases would all be sold at US$19.99 outside of promotional sales, without exception, you could expect the same outcries from B&M stores who are claiming to be unfairly undercut. If another competitor came along and offered the same deal, the same outcries would occur and the new competitor would be crippled by the publishers. I accept a possible hike on games on the Aussie Steam due to the US Steam having parity with US retailers but not Aussie retailers, I think that's fair enough, but not near-100% hikes like Fallout New Vegas. That's just insane.

As hesitant as I am about moving from stores to digital distribution (namely because my country isn't anywhere close to having the infrastructure or a free enough ISP market to accommodate gamers downloading 10s of gaming GBs a month on affordable broadband plans), I think these price-fixing problems will remain until publishers ditch B&M stores altogether.
 
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So is that Super Meat Boy for ~4$ dead now? Since it was yesterday?

I am just now finding out about this and from the looks of the screenshots those deals were only for a day?
 
Check the main Steam storefront page, the deals are going for another ~4.5 hours, then the next set of daily deals will be posted.
 
Are the Prince of Persia games any good? Which ones should I get? They list 6 on sale.
 
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