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It's the most wonderful time of the year (Steam summer sale)

Started by Josef K, July 12, 2012, 06:51:29 PM

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Dark Sky

Quote from: Consignia on July 22, 2012, 10:33:51 PM
Maybe it's a function of being told it's hilarious, but I never found Portal funny at all. It struck me as forced and smug. I particularly didn't like any of the memified bits, but I don't remember even cracking a smile whilst playing it.

Blimey, I couldn't possibly disagree more.

So saying, I went into Portal completely fresh when I played it, without knowing it was a comedy game, and with no knowledge of any part of it which had been turned into a 'meme'.  Nothing about it seemed forced or smug to me at all. 

Though I sympathise that if you had encountered a whole host of people telling you how much they love their companion cube, shouting "THERE IS NO CAKE" and singing Jonathan Coulton songs at you all the time, the game itself might appear a bit wearisome.  But don't blame the game for that.

madhair60

The final chapter of Portal 2 is the best thing.  The best thing.

I'm gonna play it again right now.

Rev

Quote from: Rev on July 22, 2012, 04:10:44 AM
Good to see Fable 3 mysteriously going up in price in the space of a few days; today's 75% discount is a quid fifty more than it was when I bought it a few days ago.

Replying to myself here, I know, but I did suspect that I may have got things wrong.  Nope, Fable 3 increased its base price from £29.99 to £35.99 for the extent of the time it was a daily deal.  Beautiful.  This was the first Steam sale I've kept an eye on, but is this kind of thing common?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Rev on July 25, 2012, 01:26:16 AM
Replying to myself here, I know, but I did suspect that I may have got things wrong.  Nope, Fable 3 increased its base price from £29.99 to £35.99 for the extent of the time it was a daily deal.  Beautiful.  This was the first Steam sale I've kept an eye on, but is this kind of thing common?

Prices on Steam are set by the publishers, not Valve. Valve do have suggested guidelines and, from what I remember, will discuss pricing with publishers.

With Fable III in the recent sale, from what I saw  towards the end was that the complete pack cost £8.99 – and it wasn't possible to buy the game on its own (if you tried, you put the complete pack in your basket). If that did include all the DLC (if it didn't, only one quest pack was missing), even at £29.99 as the main game price, the entire amount comes higher than £35.99.

75% off £35.99 is £8.99 - £1.50 more than you paid. I had a quick look at Steam Prices and the regular price for Fable III did go up the way you said during the sale. Did you get the base game or the complete collection?   


Rev

Oh, I wasn't accusing Valve of anything - if anyone's going to be opportunistic during these things it'll be the individual publishers.

I did just get the base game when it was either a flash or vote sale, rather than the DLC pack, because once bitten with Fable DLC and all that.  The daily version was arguably a better deal, but I don't know, it still feels a touch misleading and crooked to me.


Zetetic

That doesn't really seem a good fit for this thread. It's specifically about Steam and certainly not much to do with the summer sale.

With that said, here's an article with some actual decent length excerpts.

QuoteWe want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It's a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.

I agree that supporting Linux now is a good hedging strategy, as supporting Mac OS X was a few years ago. The rest is perhaps reasonable speculation about where Microsoft (and Apple) hopes to take software distribution on the desktop in the future, and perhaps particularly how the different parts of Microsoft feel about games for Windows (in the general sense).

Taking it as a comment about Metro probably isn't justified, and I wouldn't agree that Metro will be a catastrophe although it certainly is brave and may prove to be overly insensitive.


Ignatius_S

Quote from: Rev on July 26, 2012, 12:10:17 AM
Oh, I wasn't accusing Valve of anything - if anyone's going to be opportunistic during these things it'll be the individual publishers.

I did just get the base game when it was either a flash or vote sale, rather than the DLC pack, because once bitten with Fable DLC and all that.  The daily version was arguably a better deal, but I don't know, it still feels a touch misleading and crooked to me.

Sure, and I didn't think you were! If my tone suggested otherwise, then many apologies as that wasn't my attention!

Personallly, I wouldn't say it's crooked but I think they should have continued offering the base game on its own - the pack was a great deal, but if they've offered the base separately, I feel they should have continued.

Your posts got me thinking and I wondered perhaps the sales were mainly for the base game, which they didn't want and they changed it to force people to get the pack. Just an idea! I might have a look at the Steam forums as I can't recall this happening before.

quote author=Jim_MacLaine link=topic=32364.msg1700206#msg1700206 date=1343335552]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377

I don't use Steam personally but do you agree?
[/quote]

Which bit in particular? Newell was talking about a fair bit there! That Windows 8 is going to be a disaster?

Jim_MacLaine

Possibly wrong thread. Wasn't his point that windows 8 may possibly be a disaster for Steam, hence the embracing of Linux.

QuoteThis is seen by commentators to be a reference to the inclusion of a Windows Store in the Microsoft operating system.

This is a shop through which users will be able to buy apps for their Windows 8 device.

On some versions of Windows 8, it will be the only way to get downloadable software such as games.

Microsoft takes a cut, up to 30%, of every sale made through this store.

This could be a significant threat to the massively successful Steam online game store that Valve runs and which gives it a commission on every title sold through the online market.

A Windows Store closed to everyone but Microsoft might reduce the range of games available for sale through Steam.

Anyway, as you were.

eluc55

Following Portal, I'm now playing through the next of my games: The Darkness 2. And by god, what a piece of shit that game is.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Jim_MacLaine on July 27, 2012, 12:12:56 AM
Possibly wrong thread. Wasn't his point that windows 8 may possibly be a disaster for Steam, hence the embracing of Linux....

Newell was talking about all companies in the Windows space, rather than Steam in particular – e.g. said a "catastrophe for everyone in the PC space." The OEM comment was bunk (on the Zetetic), how many companies is he seriously talking about?.

The story you quoted doesn't make it clear that the games that have to be exclusive to the Microsoft store are ones that will work on tablets and traditional computers. So if PC games developers all begin to develop games that will work on Windows tablet, Steam would be hit hard... but that ain't going to happen.

The online store will be the only way of (legally) obtaining Metro style apps – although the store will also sell non-Metro apps, this type of software can be obtained in the same way as current Windows software.

In a nutshell, Windows 8 will be the OS for x86/64 hardware (so yer usual laptops and desktops), whilst Microsoft is releasing Windows RT as the OS for arm-based software (e.g. tablets) but also runs x86/64 hardware as well... however, there's another new thing called WinRT (no one's going to get that mixed up!). WinRT (basically a collection of application programming interfaces) is needed in order to create Metro style apps.

So if someone makes a Metro style app, their software can be run on both Windows 8 machines and WindowRT machines. If a developer just wants to make Windows 8 software (i.e. just for laptops and desktops), they can – and they don't have to sell it through the Metro store (but can if Microsoft accept it). Although Steam sells games, it's also a gaming service – and in fact, Newell (or one of the Valve guys) says that price isn't the main factor in piracy and if you have a good service, people will pay for it; they gave the example of being advised don't launch Steam in Russia because piracy is so endemic, but Valve have had great success there. For Steam users, who see it as a service (or rather one that that has great value to them), Xbox Live (which MS will no doubt be using) is going to have to compete with that. At the moment, Steam dominates online distribution for games – unless Metro really takes off to such a degree that financially it pays to be locked into a single distributor, I can't see it trouncing Steam.

Also, with Metro, there's the matter of designing apps that currently will be used on touch screen devices and non-touch screen ones; I think MS is trying to get around this by the touted keyboard for the Surface, but we'll see....

Something I've been hearing about recently is that companies are still working on their Windows 7 migration plan, never mind Windows 8. Going further, as the Ars Technica review of OS X Mountain Lion pointed out – and I should say I agree with this – is that consumers who regularly upgrade their OS are enthusiasts, while the majority will upgrade when they get a new machine. This I feel ties in with a point that Newell was making – that for a platform to prosper, there needs to be a decent gaming platform ("People don't realise how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behaviour,") Now, he was talking about what is "holding Linux back", but one could argue that this could hold Metro back. Personally, I think this is an oversimplification – there were triggers that drove people buying Macs, but gaming ain't one of them.

Newell is hardly the only person who is acting like a Doubting Thomas when it comes to Windows 8 – especially when people who think Steve Ballmer is doing a bang up job seem to be thin on the ground. Arguably, the company has been losing its way for a long time – e.g. mobile strategy; bringing out a product to compete with the iPod at a time when Apple was pushing the iPhone. There seems to be a lot riding on the recent appointment of Mark Penn as corporate vice president for strategic and special projects – as a pollster and political spin master (advised Blair and both Clintons), he might be too used to short-termism, however.

Getting back to Valve, personally I think it's been looking to Linux as a platform for a loooooong time now and wouldn't be surprised in the Windows 8 hoo-ha is a bit of a blind.