By Jim Rossignol on January 19th, 2009 at 12:14 pm.
We want to know a bit about your digital download habits, like whether you’ve bought a game via digital download in the past year, and how many you’ve bought. If you want to tell us, then hit the polls after the jump and click truthwards.
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{democracy:21}
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{democracy:22}
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{democracy:23}
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{democracy:24}
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{democracy:25}
Those random “n” are some bug in the poll code. Weird, but I can’t fix ‘em.
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Just the one, via Steam – SiN Episodes after having been curious for the best part of two and a bit years. It was only going cheap and the had the first game bundled in too.
Usually I prefer to have a box, though.
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Actually bought left 4 dead because of rps, wasn’t sure whether or not to, but the versus article sold me. completely satisfied, still been playing it quite a lot.
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I got a few games during the Steam sale, otherwise I tend not to buy download games.
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Yes! I am the first person to answer ‘No’, rendering the next two questions moot. Retail boxes for the win!
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Hehe, three in the last month! I used to be wary of digital purchases, but now its almost an impulse buy. Spending money is too easy.
I’ve also got lots of stuff on recommendation from RPS, both from the Hivemind and the proletariat (Ie. the commenters).
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I have bought more than 4 via Steam and I’ve bought World of Goo directly from 2D Boy. Out of the Steam games I’ve bought, 3 were gifts, and one of them, Defense Grid, was chosen because of a recommendation from Jim here.
Most recently I have got a Canadian friend (in fact the very same guy I bought Defense Grid) to gift me Mirror’s Edge via Steam and paid him via Paypal to circumvent the frankly stupid European price. €50 for a game that costs $50 USD in North America? You must be kidding. Thank God for my well developed international social network :P
So: Yay digital distribution! May it live long and prosper.
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Well I started buying games via Steam in their Sales and realized that was much more confortable and easy.
I tend to buy games with the box but now in 2009 we are going to have games like Natural Selection 2, Overgrouth and the one and only Zeno Clash that will be distributed in Steam and I will definitly buy them because it will be hard (impossible maybe) to buy a retail version in Portugal.
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can’t say for sure if I bought on recommendation from RPS or not. Last 12 months was mostly Steam purchases, I guess I can blame RPS for reminding me about XCom when I bought Terror from the Deep.
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I bought King’s Bounty through digital distribution for the sole reason that RPS had ranted about it in such a favourable light. Of course they were very right.
I buy a fair few of my games via Steam, for the sole reason that living in NZ makes the prices a good $10-$20 cheaper than I would be paying in a local store.
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The Steam sale skews my results wildly. Perhaps separate the ‘how many’ question for games under a fiver/USD/euro equivalent and one for above? I can’t help but feel buying a heavily discounted or significantly dated (‘good old’) game can’t really be read usefully in the same trend as purchasing, say, far cry 2, or the latest champ manager, at full whack.
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I’m only in the 4+ category because of the Steam Christmas sale, I would have been in 2 otherwise.
The reality is, 99% of the time, buying retail is cheaper, even for valve games. Left 4 Dead is £26.99 on Steam, it was £19.97 on release from Amazon.
I love steam, and if games were even the same price on steam as they were at retail, I would probably use it more.
To me it is ridiculous that if you buy games retail, you are paying the wages of a bunch of middlemen, using more natural resources and energy, and in the case of some games, you even get them on your steam account anyway, but you still pay less.
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i dont have that high intake on games
i mostly play hl2 mods and other valve games like tf2 , l4d but i bought all of them via steam
also audio surf after reading about it on rps
same with world of goo
cant even remember when i last bought a game retail store
think that was battlefield 2 so you do the math.
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I’ve been making use of Steam Weekend deals and indies, mostly. To be exact: Audiosurf, Overlord, Team Fortress 2, World of Goo, Trials 2, Bionic Commando: Rearmed (great game). Oh, there’s Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business as well, from GOG.
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Does digital download also include indies bought using BMT Micro and similar services?
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I’ve added a couple more questions to try and get some better maths on this.
KG
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I still tend to only buy stuff via Steam or possibly Impulse. I’ll only by a CD if I can’t get it via one of those other channels, or (in the case of Fallout 3) if there’s a collector’s edition that I want.
Steam has got more annoying lately though, with DRM-on-DRM. It would be nice if everyone who released a game on Steam trusted Steam’s own DRM, seeing as I’m having to use it anyway.
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Every PC game I bought in 2008 was a digital download except for WAR, and only then because EA’s download manager is an embarassing pile of watery piss.
I have bought games from Steam, GamersGate, Good Old Games, Greenhouse, and direct from the publishers (2D Boy, Cryptic Comet, Mousechief, Telltale).
And my MMO of choice, EVE, is only available digitally at the moment.
None of the above would ever feature in NPD’s stupid data.
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you expect me to know how much I spend on games? That is information I am very careful to forget in order to avoid any reactions of panic…
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I think I bought a little above 10 games via electromagical delivery of 0s and 1s last year. At least 3 of them (L4D, World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe) were based on coverage these games received in RPS. At least 2 more I discovered via input from your wonderful readership. I got about 5-6 physical boxes last year (2 of those collectors edition types), and I think most of those got covered by y’all as well.
I truly do love my boxes, but I feel they are becoming increasingly difficult in this global economy that’s connected by something a little more efficient that planes, trains and automobiles now. Back 25 through 5 years ago, the concept of digital delivery was almost unheard of. Now, getting it straight through the tubes is my preferred method to tender the value of money to a group of people for their arrangement of 0s and 1s.
Physical proximity to storefronts may enter into this equation as well (I’m a good 30 minutes from the closest game store, but only 10 from a Wal-Mart(R)(C)(TM)). However, those distances are made virtually moot due to my ability to order via Amazon (if I really want a box) or my beloved electronic transmission method. I know when I lived in a larger metropolitan area, I did tend to buy more boxed product as there were 3 games stores within a 5 minute driving radius.
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My order for Kings Bounty has just been posted, all thanks to a recommend from Ropapshogun.
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i buy digitally when its cheaper, which for some reason often isn’t the case
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I much prefer to download games, it’s much less hassle overall and means I don’t develop a massive pile of boxes. However, I’ll normally go with the cheapest option.
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I was totally expecting the second question to be ‘How many games did you ACQUIRE via digital download?’.
Would be an interesting comparison.
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How much do you spend on games:
* A bit too much
* Far too much
* I don’t need both kidneys, now do I?
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I think the only one I bought on the interwebs was World of Goo.
Not counting browser based games I was happy to pay a few quid to get more stuff, what with them not being downloads and all.
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Every game I’ve bought the last two years have been via download. A few years ago I wouldn’t have expected that’d be happening so soon, but it’s just so damn convenient.
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Left 4 Dead was a no-brainer (ahahah, see what I did??) and Space Rangers 2 was the direct result of a recommendation from RPS. EA’s Spore left me shaking my fist and wishing I’d bought it in a store I could take it back to, but apart from that I choose the digital option any time it’s available.
Sometimes I ‘digitally download’ a game I’m unsure about to check it out and then go buy the real thing to play it properly if I like it (e.g. Sins). I hope that doesn’t make me a bad person. Perhaps you should have an anonymous poll to compare different, er… types of digital download?
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I think I spend £300+ a year, I know it’s crazy since I rarely reach the end game.
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Seeing how games tend to take weeks to arrive in Brazilian retail shops, I am now quite fond of buying a game via digital download. Steam, actually. The fact that I’m a Valve fanboy only adds to it.
I bought some games that either the RPS crew or the folks who comment here recommended. Defense Grid is an awesome game. Audiosurf and Trials 2 are also great fun.
Oh, and I started playing EVE Online last week. Got mixed up while trying to buy a Gallante Frigate only to find out I somehow got scammed. After finally buying the thing from a different dude (even though I never got my money back from the first (failed) transaction), I found out that one of the rewards from a certain quest I just completed was one of these very same Frigates! Grr..
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The how much I’ve spent on games is kind of scary!
That being said my digital percentage of sales is skewed by my console purchases. PC only it would be 80% as opposed to 30-40% including other platforms
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I picked up both Armageddon Empires and World of Goo on the back of RPS warblings, and have been rather satisfied with both of those entertainment products. Cheers, RPS!
I also seem to have gathered something like twelve games on Steam (almost all budget priced, thankfully) and three others direct from the devs over the last twelve months. In fact, as far as the PC goes, only two of my purchases last year (Spore and Pathologic) weren’t downloads.
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I… I think it’s £300+ >_<
At least it’s definitely been that in 2008. So many great games.
Also just remembered I’ve bought two games from GOG last year. Freespace 2 did not disappoint – open-source for the win.
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I’m a box kinda guy.
You can’t take a Digitally Downloaded version of the Orange Box to bed to cuddle can you?
Also, I have bought a number of games on reccomendation of RPS, just not digitally.
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Digital delivery is my buying option of choice these days. You owe me many an hour of free time for recommending Trials 2 off Steam.
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I’m curiously both in the 4+ games and <50£ categories thanks to Gog and Impulse weekend deals, without them I would have bought probably half as much games for more or less the same price.
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When I can (which at the moment is less than always) I buy online. Obviously if there’s a massive markup I won’t bother, but the advantages in getting a product at zero hour on launch day (how exciting was it when the Orange Box went out?) and at high speeds (Steam most notably) are clear winners for me.
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Shit…
World of goo, the unreal pack*(6 games), hinterland*, trials 2*, Multiwinia*, Tank universal, Shadowground(free with TA and i already owned it), grid (back in febuary), Oddworld (both games), xcom pack that adds like 10 games, the ship, space rangers 2 complete (already had the base game).
The only game here over $25 was grid($42=24 quid at the time) if you dont count the unreal pack as one title.
*steam christmas sale
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MMO subs alone account for €360 for me, not even counting the games I bought (digital or otherwise)
so voted 300+ pounds a year.
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I forgot about gog, perimeter and sacrifice (buy one get one). But there are a dozen must buys on that service when i get around to finishing my degree.
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Heh, I spent $111 during the holiday Steam sale, but prior to that I only spent about $85 on games. I try to limit my videogame purchases to about $200/year.
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at $196 you underspent by $4, i hope you had already gotten trials 2!!!
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Because I live in Australia, I can only really download games that are a) cheap, and b) small, so I’ve only bought three via Steam in the last year: World of Goo, The Wonderful End of the World, and Audiosurf.
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Me and missus bought AoC boxed (we beheaded, staked and burned them, spreading the ashes over the Atlantic), otherwise all games were digital and all of those but one from Steam.
Iceland has been bounced around by Steam from $ to € to eh, that poundy sign that seems to have gone from my keyboard, in a couple years, but we ended up with $ again. Therefore, even with the ISK falling like a Very Heavy Thing(tm), games are still somewhat affordable for us. I *think* we’re still #300+ (that poundy thing again) though I can’t be sure.
There needs to be a 20+ games option though. Those sneaky weekend deals on Steam get me too often. Surprisingly, nothing on GoG has hooked me yet, I seem to own those I want to own..
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I think that my expenditure on digital downloads, at least in terms of games, will only increase. I put 21-40% but I suspect 2009 will see me jump up to the next category.
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Heh, I worked all this out the other day in the other thread, still, it is quite scary to see how much I spend on gaming over a year (~£300).
Still, I probably spend more on drugs.
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I don’t know Aussie Dollar => British Pound rate, so I made a guesstimate.
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My digital purchases from the last months:
World of Goo
Space Raners 2 Complete
Id software Steam Pack
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I’ve bought Bioshock via Steam. And some lightweight casual games. My internet connection is not the biggest. But the lion’s share of money for digital goodies is for subscriptions for online games. There were literally years when I’d lived on WoW alone. But that was then…
I probably would have bought Mirror’s Edge via Steam if I weren’t so damn impatient! So I hopped into the train and bought a boxed retail copy. And boy, am I glad I did! So, where’s your review of it, Dear RPS Dudes? I was so hyped up about ME because of you!
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these questions arnt exactly scientifically rigourous.
It could have done with for example
Q”How many games did you buy via digital download?”
A”0″
for all questions to properly gather the statistics, and the questions could have all stated “last calander year” to avoid and confusion still, its done now.
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I still definitely prefer having a boxed copy of something, but digital has proved to be a great method for indie games particularly and something I’m in a rush to get hold of or don’t feel like waiting for a late release date.
The thing holding digital distribution back for me and I would suspect alot of 3rd world countries as well (ironicaly exactly who this stuff should be great for) is the cost of bandwidth> With games starting at 4 gigs these days and then just blowing up from there I cant afford to download most new releases. At $10 a gig round about it becomes exorbitantly expensive and gets rid of all the benefits of digital for me, slow to get and more expensive in the end.
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steam has gotten a lot of my money in the last 12 months
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Is the final question for spending total or game purchases? Because since 2005 or so I haven’t bought a single retail PC game.
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I buy cheap indie things, so while I bought plenty of games via digital download (mostly via the dev’s website) my expenditure didn’t end up being anything ridiculous. Oh and the Steam holiday sales were good for me too.
I save a lot by not having anything to pay subs on. Watch me as I laugh at you MMO-people.
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Every game I bought last year was digital, almost entirely from steam. Of course since valve unveiled their new “Rape the Eurozone” price policy I am back to buying box games for the first time in about 3 years.
Where is that promised talk with valve about why they screwed us over with steam pricing by the way?
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I tend to buy boxed copies (especially if it’s some lunatic special edition, like the spiffing FarCry 2 wooden box with goodies), but thanks to the RPS Hivemind this year a good portion of digital downloads have been recommended and purchased including: Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble, Penny Arcade Episodes 1 & 2, Audiosurf, World of Goo and SiN Episodes: Emergence (hooray for mega sales). I’ve even purchased some games as gifts via DD, and now my girlfriends phone bill is drastically reduced as we talk via Steam since I got her playing World of Goo.
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If possible I think one more question should be added:
If available do you prefer to buy a game:
- Digital Download?
- In-Store?
Anyway, interesting results so far. Obviously given the readership here, results are going to be skewed, but I’m surprised that maybe 9/10 of us bought a game via DD last year (As I’m reading 408 against 23). Just three or four years ago those results would probably have been reversed.
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I would be buying many more games digitally if i had a credit card of my own.
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I’ve bought most of my games online lately – but that might be because they have been Steam-based mostly (eccept for EVE that is).
For example, I had heard of Mount&Blade via a friend of mine, but never more than that. But after seeing an RPS article about it i decided to download the demo and try it. Bought it less than an hour later. I would also likely have bought L4D even if you didn’t post any articles, but they sure made me even more exited about the game :)
DD is the way to the future I say (and Steam will be our messiah!… What…?)!
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I haven’t bought a game by download since Defcon.
Amazon or Play was almost always cheaper. I HAVE missed out on some of these smaller games which I do regret.
I’ve no standpoint against downloads, I just stopped doing it because the VFM wasn’t there. My Steam account has about a half a dozen download only games on it and twice that on my Stardock/Impulse account.
Oh, and I know about the Steam sales but I don’t buy stuff off the internet at weekends because I’m probably going to be drunk and it’s like taking sweeties from a baby for them.
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If it weren’t for RPS I wouldn’t have bought World of Goo, probably. At least I wouldn’t have preordered it. So thanks for that, RPS.
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Buying games via digital download is cheaper, easier – and often the only way if there are no physical copies in nearby shops.
No wonder its preferred way to purchase games for PC
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“Did you buy a game via digital download because of a recommendation on RPS?”
ALL FOUR of the games I bought digitally in the past 12 months were bought because of RPS recommendations. Audiosurf, Half-Life for 99 cents, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead
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Case in point M&B £18 off play.com, £21.76 off the Taleworlds website.
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Digi download – bringing games to hermits (with broadband)
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I prefer not to have a box and not to give my credit card details to everyone with an indy game so I generally wait for things to turn up on steam. Took ages to get a hold of world of goo. The major exception to this is the sam and max game… I cant wait for them. there too good.
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I can see the results but can’t vote on anything because there’s nothing clickable.
I think this might be an issue with my shitty ‘access the net
via a remote desktop on a central server’ setup at work though.
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You should make the questionary as one form because otherwise you can’t really show dependencies. For me it was Braid – on that edgie Box that likes to spin around.
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So far I’ve always preferred boxed games, but a couple of things changed this year :
- I finally can use PayPal (I don’t have any CC)
- our ISP finally upped the monthly transfert limit from 10Gb to 25Gb
… which is still not much, though.
For now, I find digital download mostly interesting for more or less (small) indie games that are unavailable (or pretty hard to find) in boxed version.
For big, AAA games, I’m still not sure I would prefer to download 4-8Gb for (mostly the same price) than getting the DVD from a shop.
Not to mention the requirement to have Steam (for example) running in the background.
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I bought Trials 2 partially because of RPS
World of Goo because of RPS
I buy most of my games on Steam except when they’re significantly cheaper at online retailers, which happens, but not that often because I almost exclusively buy discounted games. I’ve only bought one full price retail game in the last 4-5 years I think
I might buy Mirror’s Edge just out of principle
I don’t want to know how much I spent on games in the last 12 months, but I’ve bought more than one game a month on Steam and I’ve bought some collections too.
I pirated BioShock and bought it later, and I pirated Far Cry 2 and played it for a bit and I’m glad I didn’t buy it. I might buy GTA IV if they get their performance straightened out
Once you actually dare to give Steam a chance I think you will embrace it. I used to not trust online shopping, and I wanted discs for security and just for having something physical, but I’ve realized that I don’t need or want it anymore. People are resistant to change and so was I, but Steam is just more convenient
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Games purchased because of RPS:
World of Goo
Mount & Blade
Titan Quest Gold
Games not purchased because of RPS:
Dead Space
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@Jazmeister
Damn right. I buy most games, boxed or otherwise, online anyway, and digital download means I get them quicker. Valve’s weekend deals and GoG help too; cheap prices like that mean I’ll end up buying stuff with the intention of playing it in the future. I nabbed quite a few games in the Steam’s sale at Christmas and still haven’t installed some of them.
I find it funny that many “PC is dying!” doommongers ignore digital PC download sales, then by contrast tout the 360 and PS3 online stores as a sign of the healthy console market.
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http://steamcommunity.com/id/tecman/games
Help me, I am addicted to Steam.
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I pretty much only buy Valve games digitally. I did buy Half Life 2 in a box, but that was pre-Steam. The only other games I bought off Steam last year were Audios(m)urf and Abe’s Oddessy, or however you spell it.
I’m another box guy really… The type of bloke who has 360 games he only played once when he first bought it, but still doesn’t want to trade them in just in case he may want to play them some time in the future. So yeah, there’s boxes everywhere here.
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Btw on the whole € vs £ vs $ thing
The new prices include VAT. For me they are EXACTLY the same as they were in $ a few months ago. That still sucks though because the tax on Steam purchases doubled and the dollar went up, so prices effectively got 50% higher
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In fact, quite a number of the games I bought as retail boxes over digital downloads were due to the lure of a Collector’s Edition. I’m a sucker for a well stocked box of goodies (I can’t really get into Fallout 3 but I consider the purchase worth it for the bobblehead alone :p)
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I think you should add a question about how many full priced games people buy
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Got L4D (not really on a recommendation, as I was planning on getting it anyway… I have a soft spot for shooting the undead/infected), Audiosurf (it was on sale, and a bunch of folks I game with said it was beast), Stalker SoC (during a gaming drought, and was picked up for cheap), and most recently, Trials 2 (thanks to the many RPS mentions of it… actually was so much fun, got my bro and my best friend to buy as well.)
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I bought World of Goo because of all the raving you guys did about it on here (and I didn’t regret it one bit).
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Having 4+ as the top number in the second question is waaay too small, surely. I bought 4 in the steam sale, my total is over 20.
And the last question – what percentage of your spending is on digital products? Does that mean percentage of spending on games? I mean a lot of my spending goes on rent, food, bills etc.
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Virtually all of my games shopping over the last year have been digital. The only purchase I partially regret is Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast, which was on the recommendation of a certain KG. The single player game is indeed fabulous, but no-one mentioned the fact that the multiplayer / online component (which does constitute a significantly large part of the gameplay options) is totally, utterly and irredeemably broken. Sega don’t seem to have ever been in the least bit bothered. Anyone wants to talk about shoddy console to PC ports, there’s example #1.
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My number for this year is a bit of a spike – I picked up LOTS in the Steam sale – but I still would have bought more than 4. All non-scrambled, low-priced indie stuff – L4D is my first big-title digital purchase, I don’t plan to add a peer anytime soon, and I still wouldn’t buy a big title through anything but Steam. I was in the Sword of the Stars crowd when their vital patches were taking multiple months after release to percolate through D2D and GG. No thanks, ever.
I should probably work out some way to volunteer as a ‘gift’ purchaser for
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A question that I think should be added – do you buy online full priced games?
Since the habit of selling discount games hasn’t really caught on in Israel, I buy my games when their price drops beneath the twenty dollars.
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I’v found that, due in the main part to Steam, that I am buying more games and the majority are now downloads. If I didn’t have a 360, I wouldn’t buy any games by retail.
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Hypocee I think purchases are region locked on Steam =/
So if you buy a game in the US you can’t play it in Sweden, but I’m not sure
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I bought one game that had 3rd party DRM (Clear Sky) and I had to crack it to be able to play it
I chose not to buy some games because of their DRM
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My digital downloads have been limited to games not available via retail–indies, the GalCiv 2 expansions, etc.
I’ve come close to buying a few things off Steam, but the DRM is too much. I’d happily buy games off GOG, but so far I own pretty much all the ones I’m interested in!
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@Fulis
Not sure if that’s true. Steam certainly restricts the games available in your region, but gifts from other countries should work fine (So if you’ve got a US mate he can gift you Ubisoft stuff no problem, for instance). Unless they’ve changed that recently.
If there’s a region-specific version of the game though, that is what is installed/played. So for example, playing TF2 in Germany will always load up the censored version (No blood, gibs are random springs. It’s like partymode all the time).
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Yikes: £120 last year on Steam + £40 for World of Goo and Crayon Physics. My only retail purchases in that time were Spore and Pathologic; Spore because it was only available through EA’s crap download system and Pathologic because it was just too much cheaper at retail to bother buying off Gamersgate.
I also bought Jim’s book of course. :)
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I think i feel ill at the sudden realisation at how much money i’ve just spent on gaming in 2008. :S
including subs, lifetime sub, package deals, spur-of-the-moment buys and long anticipated titles its actually scary. And somehow I’ve managed to budget for it without knowing how much i’m spending on gaming in total… :S, weird.
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Damned valve value pack.
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I buy my games digitally when its easy. Scarily, I seem to spend a lot less on games than most people here. Most new games leave me bored.
The last digital game I bought was Sins of a solar empire. No idea what the last boxed one would be. Something old probably.
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Within past year:
1. Audiosurf
2. Defense Grid: the Awakening
Both worth it, ‘though impulse buys.
For now, I’ve stuck to “casual-esque” games in digital form. I can’t quite explain it, but if I’m going to experience a big bombastic blockbuster, like Fallout3, I still enjoy going to the store, taking a copy from the shelves, reading an actual instruction manual, etc. However, I could easily see myself giving up on this model entirely and happily moving to 100% digital download in the near future.
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I mention it because Jonas says it works. Will look around tonight, I guess.
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Only DD game this past 12mths has been Audiosurf on steam. (hmmm haven’t played that in awhile… //powers up steam)
Had planned on getting afew games during xmas on steam cause of the specials but of course I forgot!
If I’m going to be spending $50-100~ for a game I want a box. I’m oldskool.
and ofcourse the usual month subs to an mmo.
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The only games I’ve bought through DD the past year have been audiosurf and the id super pack from steam. Though with more games becoming available and the current UK pricing I think it’s highly likely that this year will bring a lot more to me.
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43.77% Retail – 56.23% Digital here for 2008.
Only one game of the so-called Triple-A category has been bought digitally at release price though (Left 4 Dead).
Hard to say where the balance will be by the end of 2009.
Probably GoG.com, Impulse and Indies going DRM-free direct sales will get a fair chunk of that 36% of my games expenditure that went to Steam in 2008, but looking at what I’ve effectively bought on Valve digital store this year I suspect most of that money will simply be saved or spent not-on-games.
At the same time, there’s less and less stuff released by the big publishers that appeals me, so retail may end up not gaining ground percent-wise anyway.
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I don’t care about the box at all anymore. I’ve got fast internuts (12Mb) and less than no shelf space (I have a column of game boxes on the floor next to me) so digital is the way to go.
The last game I insisted on buying in a box was for the collectors edition of Hellgate London, but that stupid box was 50% foam so that was the last straw.
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Yikes! It’s scary to realize how much you spend on games.
Though I do buy less and less games online since the price on steam compared to a boxed copy is simply silly nowadays. Well atleast for us Swedes. The last game I bought was Fallout 3 for €18 from a store. Compare that to the €45 steam charges.
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Hypocee awesome :D
If you buy a 50$ game on Steam in the US, is it 50$ or is VAT added after that?
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Uh…we don’t have VAT? Or any federal sales tax. The IRS asks you to volunteer a cut on any interstate (i.e. Internet) purchases on the honour system.
Again, that was just me thinking with my fingers. If it means going through TOR and building a new Steam ID every week because I’m violating ToS, that ain’t happening. I’m still at work and can’t investigate the Valvewrath situation right now.
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I bought 9 games from Steam (although quite a lot of them at the 5-10 dollar price point), and Kings Bounty from Gamersgate (after reading your reviews of it).
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It’s added after.
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Ever game I bought in the last year was via a Digital Download. Steam is amazing. It is the gold standard that similar services should hope to emulate. EA’s download service is horrible, especially because you have to pay extra to be able to re-download the game after several months. I also used Good Old Games to grab a couple of classics via download.
I don’t see myself buying boxed games at all in the future – unless I have no choice. I much prefer the convenience and instant gratification of downloading the title at home. Plus, I have limited access to games via retail since I live at the intersection of No and Where.
With Steam there is also the added bonus of not worrying about ruining or losing the original disk.
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Do new PC games even come in boxes? Last time I was at Best Buy, both L4D and RA3 had Xbox game-style DVD sleeves and that’s it. So unless you go for the collector’s edition boxes (which are now the size of what used to be regular boxes), what’s the point?
I would still buy retail if PC games came in huge 1990s-esque boxes, though :D
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What are US residents supposed to do for question 3?
Do I convert $ to £? Do I look up the ridiculous £ prices? Help us out here – can you edit the poll/post without screwing things up? Maybe I should just not answer…
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Lets be honest. I have a love hate relationship with Steam.
I love Steam for being so easy to buy from.
I hate Steam for being so easy to buy from…
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3, two of which were World of Goo (one a gift). Will certainly buy more downloadables in the future, but only, as before, direct DRM-free EXE downloads.
My only experience of Steam is trying to fix other people’s duff Steam installations so that they can manage to actually play the games they’ve paid good money for. Getting PC games to work is a dodgy enough proposition these days without having to worry about a DRM/download/install platform breaking as well. Dunno why you lot all seem to like it so much but I’m not gonna touch it with a barge pole.
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Bought 15+ games digitally and 4 regular old-fashioned ways, 3 of those MMOs. *shrug*
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I just divided $ by about 2…shrug.
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@ RabidZombie
I can relate to that. It’s the weekend sale that gets me usually. Of the 25 or so games I bought off Steam this year I think only Orange Box, Trials 2 and Uplink/Darwinia Pack were full price.
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Histograms FTW PLS!
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I spent too much. I think I might even have placed myself in the wrong category… I might need to be in the top :(
As regards the ‘n’s I think it is part of a subtle ploy to subconsciously change our answers to “no” to prove that PC gaming is dead, even with DD. Obviously.
Seriously though, good idea. Even a rough estimate among (fairly PC oriented, online-savvy) gamers is a good thing.
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I’ve spent over $450 on Steam in the last twelve months or so. This trend does not look to be changing any time soon.
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For those up above who cannot do conversion, Google is your friend:
http://tinyurl.com/7fregp
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Woe is me, that link is borked. Just type n dollars in pounds to have Google convert it for you.
Sorry for the trip-post.
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Bought about a dozen from Good old Games. Would heartily recommend it to anyone.
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(Cough) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Currency+Converter&aq=f&oq= (Cough)
I normally use the XE one, interface is nice and straightforward.
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I used to get downloads very rarely, but have come over to the idea more recently.
Even so, if a game is available retail, that’s usually what I’ll get – as internet retailers regularly provide cheaper deals.
The rise in digital downloads for me the past few years are the indie games. WoG, Aquaria, etc. are only available downloaded. I got L4D downloaded, but only because of the demo advance deal.
Also, yes, RPS do influence my gaming habits. WoG was entirely due to the glowing recommendations here…
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For some reason, only the first question (Yes/No) is answerable in my browser; the remaining questions don’t allow me to specify a value. I’m using IE7 on Vista.
P.
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I thunk it’s more a question of apples-to-apples than people not being able to multiply, guys.
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At least half of the money I spent on games last year went to digital downloads.
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I’ll admit I’m paranoid, but I always get a bad vibe when someone wants to know how much they have influenced my opinion.
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I haven’t bought many big games mostly because I haven’t found many games worth buying (also no job). The one game that I bought because of seeing it here was Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, I hadn’t heard of it before and it has given me plenty of casual game time.
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“I used to be wary of digital purchases, but now its almost an impulse buy. Spending money is too easy”
Indeed. I didn’t realise exactly how much I’d spent until I totalled it up :(
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Does piracy count as a DD? I kid, I kid. I bought WoG and FO3 on Steam during their big recent sale. I also bought L4D. Oh, and two iPhone games, though I don’t think they count in this discussion.
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Over the £300 and most of it on Digital (that’s how I prefer it), though with Play being so competitive in their pricing of late I’ve made a few more retail purchases than I ordinarily would of.
Certainly with the digital side of things I’m big on buying up older games, or games I already own but would rather have on Steam when they reach a suitable price point. The Steam weekends/January Sale is always a draw as well, esp for back catalogue games.
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Wouldn’t have known WoG and Trials 2 even existed, let alone bought them if it wasn’t for you guys.
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Ah…King’s Bounty and World of Goo are mine all because of RPS, and happen to be my two favourites of 2008!
Go you guys.
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Oh, and Trackmania…
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Interesting things to note:
I voted 4+ games, but that only makes up 20% of my purchases.
I’m more than happy to buy digitally, but I prefer a boxed copy if I can get one. So world of goo I’m fine with buying but if there was a retail box day1 I’d probably have gone with that. Also, a good deal of my digital purchases have been on the excellent xbla.
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Well, in the poll I claimed to have spent 150-200 (it says pounds, but I’m in America, so it’s closer to $150), but thinking about it now I actually got a lot of games via physical DVD/CD. STALKER, UT3, BF2, L4D… I also bought The Orange Box DVD, but my drive wouldn’t recognize the disc, and I downloaded the games off of Steam, so does that count?
But yeah, Steam’s digital distribution kicks ass… 98¢ for Half-Life? A free racer? There’s even a way to get HL2 Deathmatch for free! Yes, please!
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Data! yes! need more data porn!
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“Corion says:
What are US residents supposed to do for question 3?”
Or the c.190 countries in the world who aren’t from the UK or US, for that matter ;)! Just convert it, innit.
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You and your stupid “pounds”
Get a real currency.
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… *this is broken*
edit: Ok, now it’s working.
correction:
*c.190 countries in the world which aren’t the UK or US
@ aftershock? Real currency, eh? Sounds good! Give us some examples :) I just made 50 gold on the auction house. Now that’s a real currency.
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I’m in the £300+ category mostly due to the how low the pound is right now. I probably spent just a little over 300€ this year on games, (not counting hardware) which used to be around 200£.
The one game I bought only because of a recommendation from you guys was World of Goo.
And you or some blogger/article you linked to pushed me over the edge on Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider Underworld and Mirror’s Edge. None of which I would have been interested in from the reviews alone.
Generally I still prefer buying a DVD. It makes it easier to share with friends and family, which I do a lot. If I know that I won’t / can’t share a game, I just buy digitally.
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NICE! 1337 votes for ‘ Did you buy a game via digital download in the last 12 months?’(got it screencapped). I like the random n, by the way, I think its quite stylish.
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I began the year buying mostly retail games, but because I now have multiple computers I game on (Room, Living room, Work), I find myself wishing I had bought digitally. However, I like all my games in one place, so if it’s not digital on Steam, I buy retail.
These days, I buy through Steam whenever possible, and when Steam Cloud gets expanded to save games, it’ll be even more of a draw.
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Like some others I bought games due to the sale on Steam. I got three games for less than the shop price of one. For that I can forgo the box. I probably wouldn’t have bought any if it wasn’t for the sale.
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Being an archaic hunter/collector character digital downloads do not give me the satisfaction that unwrapping a new toy does. I want a box with good things inside.
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I bought Mass Effect on steam during the 4 hours when they accidentally switched back to US pricing (got it for $38, quite a bit better than the €50 they charge normally). Other than that, I think I bought 3 or 4 Portals and a BG&E as gifts during the holiday sale. Other than that, it’s been ages since I bought anything from Steam. Their prices just aren’t worth it usually.
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I’m quite proud of my 77 steam games
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I just checked my Steam history and I didn’t realize that I’ve bought 36 (10 of those was included in the Rockstar collection) and the total was almost exactly $400, so that was a lot of smaller games and during sales. I think I’ve only bought L4D and Orange Box for full prices on Steam (I’ve bought indie games at their full prices though) because most regular priced games are just too expensive.
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My digital download purchases are 100% Steam, because I know that if my PC dies, I won’t lose my game. I can always re-download it. I have confidence that my Steam purchases are safe, and that Valve will ensure that they are available when I need them.
I just don’t have the same confidence in other DD distributors. Should I?
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I get my digi downloads from Steam, Playgreenhouse and 2dboy.
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I’m a Steam tragic – I don’t believe in boxes anymore. This is mostly because the Steam prices are around 30-50% less than the retail versions in Australia, and that’s without taking the occasional ridiculous sales into account.
That said I don’t really buy much either, but it all comes from Steam. Last year I bought Left 4 Dead as the #1 pick, but went a little crazy over Christmas, picking up World Of Goo, Psychonauts, Darwinia, Multiwinia, DOOM, DOOM2, and Trials 2 for US$50, the price of a cheap Australian retail game. Perhaps one that’s been out for half a year now.
I grabbed all the X-COM’s for $5 last weekend too, because it was too good a deal to resist :D The main strength of online distribution is that the prices really get in your face and make you notice them when they’re cheap, while there could be a special on in a retail store and I wouldn’t have a clue.
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I’m old school in most ways – I like having the physical box and getting it cheap off Amazon – but I did buy Audiosurf, Trials 2 and World of Goo (wiiware) digitally because of RPS’s recommendation – although with all bar world of goo I did wait until they were on offer.
Actually if anything GOG has made me buy stuff via digital download more than anything: being able to get those games I heard about at the time but was too poor/had too rubbish a computer to play means that I’ve indulged myself a little with Fallout, Fallout 2, Giants, Sacrifice, Freespace 2, and TOCA 3, which is more “proper” games I’ve bought digitally than anything else before.
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Enjoy it while it lasts. They’re probably gearing up to offer you “localized prices” too.
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All Steam, all the time. I only played Valve games last year, anyway, apart from Audiosurf and World of Goo. Thanks to RPS for the heads up on those!
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I bought L4D, World of Goo, Crayon Physics Deluxe and probably something else. RPS should get a cut of all those, since the RPS reviews helped. Of course, if RPS got a cut, I wouldn’t believe RPS anymore. I buy mostly digital for the PC because its so easy and for the instant gratification.
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My download purchasing is still a low percentage. However my numbers are still ignored by NPD, as about 70% of my games purchases are boxes through online vendors.
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Boxes only, retail or online. No downloads for the moment. Too much control lost on the product, especially with the current state of DRM.
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My first and only digital game buy was Audiosurf for my sister late last year. It worked out ok. I might do it again for something small like that. But the prospect of a proper hefty game that way seems like far too much for my poor bandwidth quota. I’d have to nurse the connection at 3 in the morning and hope the planets align for nice decent speeds.
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Bought quite a few on steam this year. Mostly though, they were budget or indie games with the exception of L4D. I still tend to buy retail boxes for big new titles. Partly because id prefer a box for those and partly because it takes so bloody long to download for those only on cheapo broadband.
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Who’s spending 80-100% on digital product???
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Only via steam.
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I buy a lot over digital download, mainly Steam, but also some titles on Impulse. Also a good number of the games I play on the PC are independant, so many of them are obtained via download and use key codes to activate. I still buy retail products – but I like the convenience of having the DRM built into a system like Steam (most of the time) so that I’m not changing discs to play different games. I also think digital distribution serves my immediacy needs, in that if I like a demo of the title, I can then go and purchase it without the need for searching retail offline and online for a boxed copy, many more exotic/obscure indie titles just aren’t available this way.. so I’d put a big thumbs up for digital downloads getting the content to the customer.
I also applaud the reduction in the amount of house/shelf space I take up with games. Most of my boxed products having been slotted away in a disc only folder, with the key code pages being torn off and stuffed in behind them. I simply haven’t the room to store all the boxes anymore.
The only thing that concerns me is that your games are tied up into a mechanism, and if the relevant company goes down the pan, you’ll lose quite a hefty number of gaming assets. You can make local backups of the software, but the authentication and update procedures are tied directly into the download system… so perhaps spreading the load across one or two digital distributors is the way forward. Fingers crossed Valve or Stardock don’t take a nosedive in the near future..
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I bought 7 games that I can remember in 2008. 5 in the Steam sale/weekend deals:
STALKER
Trials 2 (RPS+)
Far Cry 1
Ultimate Doom
I-fluid
2 full price:
Bioshock (That was in 2008 right?)
Left 4 Dead
2 old games on the cheap:
Fahrenheit
Price of Persia 2 (My old disk got scratched)
And I got a 90 day timecard for EVE Online before I quit.
I think I actually spent less than I voted, that comes to under £100. I could have spent alot less though.
Games I didn’t touch:
STALKER
I-fluid
Games I played very little:
Bioshock
Left 4 Dead
Prince of Persia 2
EVE online
Games I play occasionally:
Doom
Fahrenheit
Games I played alot:
Far Cry
Games I play alot:
Trials 2
The game I played for hundreds of hours more than all the others combined, desprite having had it since 2004:
Counter Strike: Source
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Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Tecman, I put your Steam URL into
http://www.alabasterslim.com/worth.php
and it says:
You own 194 Steam Games worth ~ $2446.23
You ARE addicted to Steam.
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Four downloaded, 3 bought in physical form.
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Nice poll. I bought Sam and Max season 1 (counted it as one game as it was one purchase) and Left 4 Dead.
I have a fair few games on Steam and it’s the only online service i’ll waste any money on. My problem with most digital downloads (GoG excluded) is that you’re paying full price for a long-term rental with no consumer rights tied to that purchase, just a ‘oh we’ll give you something to let you play if we go down’ comment.
S&M was cheap – like £5 so i don’t mind losing that and Left 4 Dead is essentially sort of like an MMO in my mind – if the gameplay is good and the community is there it’s like paying for a sub to a local centre or something.
Oh, and just in case people forgot, i also hate DRM – in the online activation sense of the modern meaning. I’m completely fine with disc checks etc.
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Heh, I spaced on the poll earlier and counted console stuff. Of course you snobs don’t care about that. :P
My percentage of digital vs. physical when considering only the PC is much higher than 80%. I bought just a handful of games on disc this year and 50+ digitally.
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I got quite a few games from Steam:
-X3 Reunion
-X3 Terran conflict
- Vampires: The Masquerade bloodlines
- Orange Box
- Hitman: Blood money
- Prey (the 5 dollar thing)
- Audiosurf
Games like Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 I bought retail, because it was quite a lot cheaper in the local store.
Prices need to be more competitive on Steam.
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Whole bunch of stuff off Steam, SinsOASE off Impulse and Mass Effect PC off the abominable must-be-destroyed EA downloader thingy. (What can I say, I’m impatient and MEPC was released on a bloody national holiday of shop closing.)
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Just say Sins instead lol
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L4D and EvE articles made me take up EvE again and buy L4D. Great, inspired writing affects my wallet so :(
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Hmmm. I’m the same as a few commenters, I think, in that my console habits push the proportion of digital delivery in my spending.
Then again, factoring in things like DLC can bump it a bit. I’ve bought a bunch of stuff from PSN/Xbox Live Marketplace over the past year. And a fair chunk from Steam — particularly in their sales.
Also, I’ll echo Mr Chug. Thanks *so* much for recommending Trials 2. Can’t think how many hours I must have “wasted” thinking I was only playing for 5 minutes.
Oh yeah, and Vampire: Bloodlines: The Maskerade (or whatever it was called).
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About half of my digital downloads were console, but I didn’t notice a stipulation for PC-only. You lot sold me on World of Goo.
I estimated my total spend in Aus dollars, ignoring the pound sign. Then when I remembered all the extra games I’d bought over the year the total just about doubled, so it worked out the same!
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Interesting…I’ve spent about £150 on digital distribution and about £150 on retail.
As for RPS recommendations, there’s WoG, the X-COM collection and several wonders from the Steam sale.
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Now ask how often i actually play the game i have bought and downloaded digitally.
It is common for me to buy games on steam and not play them or only play them once or twice for a bit then not touch them again.
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Kings bounty, Space rangers 2, World of goo, Sins of a solar empire, Fallout 1+2, Tomb raider anniversary, Xcom, Beyond good and evil, Children of the nile Alexandria, Hinterland, all digital, that i can remember + LOTRO and WoW subs at various times. i got fallout 3 thru amazon tho. Ugh, well i’ve just realised i have too much disposable income.
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These days Steam (and to a lesser extent GOG.com) has become my purchasing platform of choice. Best Buy gives me a headache and I have to drive across town, whine whine whine. But if I can download a game, I will, unless there’s a pretty cool special edition like the Fallout 3 Pip Boy thing. Overall, though, digital downloads are the way to go.
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I wonder, is digitally purchasing a game without having to download it -at that specific point in time- still considered a digital download? If not, maybe you should’ve used ‘online purchase’ or something.
‘nyway, I purchased Aquaria and Defcon from Ambrosia, of whom I’m a rather devoted customer ever since Escape Velocity. Which you wouldn’t know of because you’re a bunch of non-Mac using heretics. *ahem*
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Whilst I would prefer to buy by download (it should be quick, cheap and low hassle) I tend to buy games as discs in boxes because:
- It’s usually cheaper. Mail order boxes get discounted far more aggressively than downloads. This is madness.
- Steam takes a week to load and tries to take your life over once it has.
- I’ve heard a few too many gripes about download services like D2D being slow with getting their versions of patches out for games like Neverwinter Nights.
So the games I’ve bought by download this year are Space Rangers 2 (a weekend special), EVE (unavailable on disc), and various bits of Guild Wars (noted for their slick infrastructure).
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STALKER: Clear Sky because of you guys, and one or two others I don’t remember.
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How about the question “Would you buy via digital download if you had access to a credit card?”
I don’t know about other people, but I do feel like I’m missing out. =(
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Heh, I picked £300+ but only because I automatically read it as $300…
No digital downloads for me, but that’s only because I don’t have a credit card. Although, even if I did, there isn’t much I would buy – mostly things that are unavailable in plastic-disc-and-dead-tree edition (expansions for GCII, EUIII…).
I’m rather paranoid and skeptical about relying on a digital handshake in order to actually obtain something I’ve bought. It means that you need an internet connection, for one, and that every step in a long chain of communications goes perfectly. And all of it is valid only so long as the service is maintained. I’d rather just have a disc, thanks (even if, as I can never get over, one once exploded in my drive). Plus, I just like having a nice, printed manual.
And finally… Is there any reason not to pirate the stuff, in the case of older games? XCOM and a few others on Steam, or, for that matter, all of GOG…? In most of those cases the original publisher and developer have ceased to exist anyway. Five minutes with DOSBox and your favourite file-sharing client, and you’re set.
And, bizarrely, I have this old Interplay box set, which I believe was a 15th anniversary compilation of 15 titles: Fallout, Descent, and Battle Chess, among others… And my favourite racing game ever, Whiplash (which I think was originally Fatal Racing in Europe). I think it was about $10 at a Business Depot back in the last millenium, and even my nine year old brain could recognize what a deal it was. And it turns out that these are more or less the first batch of games GOG got their hands on (and they’d try to charge you > $50! But to be fair, you’d get a lot of pre- and sequels thrown in too).
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I bought every game I could online. Some games were not available online in my region: Crysis (it was offered later), Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed (I think it was offered later), Dead Space (it became available this year). There might be one or two more, but, if so, they are not GfW — they do not appear on the Games folder.
Now, contrast that to online. There was some stuff I bought on GoG, Impulse and that Penny Arcade system I can’t recall the name for. I don’t think it’s more than a dozen all together. Plus a few direct purchases, such as World of Goo.
Then there’s Steam. This was a big year for Steam as far as I’m concerned. Many games became available on my region, many games became available at all, and I had a new computer capable of playing a lot of games I stayed away from before. So, in a sense, there was a slant. Still, I now have over 90 titles on Steam, ALL of which, with the sole exception of Half Life 2, where bought on Steam. And I think over 40 over those where bought in 2008.
This year started a bit more balanced. There was Crayon Physics Deluxe, Mirror Edge and all the Ghost Recon stuff (great weekend on Steam :). On the non-digital side, there was Infocom stuff on eBay and The Witcher on a regional ebay-like site. Money-wise, non-digital is prevailing, as both The Witcher and the Infocom stuff were rather on the expensive side. I doubt this trend will persist, though… :-)
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I wanted to thank you for this great read!!
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