Digital Distribution - Or why I love Steam

Games
21

Yeah, I have switched completely to digital over the last twelve or so months. The main reasons are:

Price - I was purchasing the majority of my games digitally before it happened, but the Steam Xmas sale just gone utterly and ruthlessly decimated any remaining thoughts of buying locally. Being in Australia, the price difference is really noticeable with the local software retail marked up massively. I got the Dragon Age digital deluxe edition at release for about half what the regular edition cost in stores here.

I was near a large mall between meetings the other day with time to spare, so I wandered into the local EB Games. They had a sale on - but everything I was interested in I had already bought on Steam for nearly 25% - 40% of the price they were asking even on sale. I don’t see myself ever buying retail again, certainly not locally.

The only fly in the ointment is when publishers restrict online sales to certain regions, or even worse try and charge more in different regions. I either circumvent the region control with a proxy, or just ignore the game and move on - plenty of other stuff to play.

The only exception has been a few imports from the UK of cheap games either not available online (SMAC) or with the stupid region specific online pricing.

Ease of use - no discs! I also like autoupdating in Steam etc

Availability - A lot of the games I like are on Gamers Gate or are more niche - mostly strategy or euro RPG. A lot of these titles, except maybe for a few week window around launch, simply are not stocked in the local EB Games. They are definitely no where to be found in the local big box retailers. In the case of Risen it was actually banned here, but easily downloaded from Gamersgate.

Also, you people complaining about the download speeds, what sort of whacked up ISP do you have? :-) My local ISP runs a Steam mirror, so I get STEAM downloads at about 1.5Mb/s, largely cap/quota free. So about an hour for most modern games, two if it is a monster. For all those that say “well its only 30 minutes to the shop” - not if it is 6pm at night and they are closed!! Plus we have antiquated trading regulations, so most of them are shut all Sunday.

22

All of the product limitations (bandwidth caps, whatever) are the due to file sharing / torrenting. Some people have the PC on 24/7 torrenting. If you have a lot of users like that, your network can get screwed pretty quick.

Most of the plans in Australia have download quota’s. So it is as fast as ADSL2+ can go, but once you have downloaded whatever your quota is, they throttle the connection. I quite like this system, particualry as my ISP offers most “large” stuff I would want to download (game demos etc) quota free.

23

I would vastly prefer buying boxed versions, but the lack of quality stores selling the games (retail or online), god-awful DRM, and general difficulty in finding the latest PC games has me slowly moving to Steam or other digital distribution networks.

24

Steam’s big advantage for me is just the non-physical nature. I live in a world where I click on stuff to make things happen. I’m as likely to use a spinny plastic disc as I am to use a slide rule.

25

Or the fact that Australia is in the middle of no where. On top of that, a monopolized telecomm market plus a shortsighted government.

LUCKILY, my ISP too, has its own Steam content servers so I won’t complain … too much.

26

Steam is just more convenient. I accept that in 10 years when it shuts down I won’t have access to any of the hundreds (broke that barrier a few months ago) of games on my account. I buy retail copies of the few games I consider worth keeping for longer and search out working cracks for them.

27

The main reason I buy only through digital means these days is economic. I love the fact that I can pay fair prices for the games, while boxed copies usually cost at least double the price here as in the US (and very few games are available, there are usually very few - or none at all - promotions, etc.), which made it basically impossible for me to buy the games I wanted before digital distribution.

28

Not enough poll options! I chose #3, though my reasons aren’t typically “best deals.” I’d say that most of the PC games that I buy these days are digital, but I’ll buy a boxed copy if it comes with interesting stuff (Blizzard collector’s editions, for example), or if it is not available digitally.

29

I prefer boxed (300+ games - I need to re-do my database, as I lost count), but I’ll grab the best deals from Impulse (about 30 games) and Steam (about 80 games) as they come along, and every now and then I’ll pick something up from GOG (5 games). I like the physical materials, I like the boxes, and I like having a manual (a .pdf is NOT the same) - it saddens me a bit that they’re being phased out in most genres, but that’s life.

As digital providers go, I very much prefer Impulse over Steam but the sales just haven’t been as good or they come out after the Steam sales do and Brad et al loses out on my gaming dollars - I don’t know if it will similarly drop on Impulse, so I pick up the $5 sales whenever I see them. GOG has a cute “box shelf” which is a feature I wish others would adopt, but obviously there are fewer games to be had and many have limited gameplay due to not aging very well.

30

Like others here, I tend to buy digital if I can, but I will go boxed if that’s the only way or the price is that much lower. If you live in the UK and you’re not buying through Steam or Play.com but rather from a store, you probably took a blow to the head as a child.

31

Yup.
My current game machine did not come with a disc drive,but it did come with steam pre-installed.

32

I haven’t bought digital yet, although I have no problems doing so these days (too many problems with losing cases with CD-keys, disc problems, etc. that prevents me from playing games I bought).

I usually buy boxes from Amazon since they have free shipping on anything over $25 and they often have good deals on them. I tend to buy older games which I probably wouldn’t find in shops, since I haven’t had a cutting edge computer since 2001 and don’t usually have interest in the kind of games that demand that uber gaming rig.

33

I can’t say Steam is the only reason PC gaming exists, but it sure is helping in its resurgence.

As for me, I’ve got a wide mix of boxed and digital games. I now prefer digital games on Steam, GG, D2D, GoG or wherever else because of the great prices and immediacy of the delivery, but I’ll still buy boxed games here and there if I can’t get 'em digitally. Example, I just purchased Zeus and Poseidon on disk because I couldn’t find 'em digitally anywhere and have been itching to play 'em.

34

I prefer Steam but it does come with some irritations. First is pirates and folks who go to those archaic brick and mortar stores are always playing hours if not days ahead of me. Second, major Tuesday releases conflict with my WoW raiding schedule, meaning I can’t strangle my internet those nights and I’ll eventually get my shiny new game a day or two later. Third, it’s entirely too easy to spend more money than I wanted to on those godforsaken sales.

35

Joe, I am so submitting that to White Whine. ;)

36

I’ll buy from Steam if it’s cheaper or the same price as the boxed copy, and the box has nothing special beyond the disc. This has really only happened for Valve’s own products, and only recently. They’re still gouging us Europeans on all other games. For example Mount & Blade:Warband is $10-15 cheaper at the local Gamestop than from Steam.

I find myself mostly buying boxed games (and a lot of console games - price disparity is even greater with on-demand games for Xbox 360).

37

Im with yea, a big plus for me is that I don’t have to explain my purchase to the woman! I have my own CC so she never sees me buying any games :)

38

Um…are you sure hiding it like that is such a good idea?

39

I personally used to be a big fan of the service, but have since removed myself from using it for new purchases.

My primary problem is the fact that Steam deems itself a subscription service, so you are not actually buying into anything. The problem with this is, if payment goes bad over one game (merchant fault, bank fault, or personal), the entire account can be disabled, removing access to all games until it is resolved. This has happened on more than one occasion with friends, and even some QT3 people have posted about it here. I know it took one person here many months to resolve the issue.

There is something unsettling about having a third party control my entire line up of games, when I can run to the store and back in less than 30 minutes, install it in less time than it takes to download, and actually own a physical copy of a product that will not be taken away. Putting all those eggs in one basket just doesn’t work for me.

There are other reasons I would like to rant about of course, but that is the primary one. I am just old fashioned I guess, but I prefer to control my games, not have another company control my access.

40

I like digital copies so long as I don’t have to be connected to the internet to play. I had a digital copy of Dragon Age and swapped to a physical copy for the expansion. I know it sounds crazy, but there are still places out there where you can’t get a connection. It nearly gives me the shivers.