Comments on: Braid Coming To Impulse, Others

By: James G

James G — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:00:47 +0000

Just to let folks know, Braid has been announced on Steam:

$14.99, €12.99, £9.99

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:13:01 +0000

“with current pricing on STEAM even the weekend deals are msot of the times more expensive than retail here”

SO. BUY. RETAIL.

By: redrain85

redrain85 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:10:47 +0000

@drewski:

I don’t really see a distinction. Moaning is a result of entitlement, and it happens plenty on both sides. It’s not unique to the old-school PC set.

I don’t believe the majority are asking for fair treatment “just because” we’ve been around the longest and we’re somehow special. We just couldn’t see any justification for charging $5 more.

At any rate, kudos to Jonathan for lowering the price.

By: AdrianWerner

AdrianWerner — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:45:09 +0000

@Paul Moloney:
with current pricing on STEAM even the weekend deals are msot of the times more expensive than retail here

@drewski – no. It’s simple fair play. We buy our hardware upfront, there’s no fee publishers have to pay to console companies etc. It’s not a sense of entitlement, it’s simple distate for paying more without any logical reason besides “I said so”

By: UncleLou

UncleLou — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:09:14 +0000

It’s funny that PC gamers think they’re entitled to the same pricing as consoles for indie games, yet I don’t see big long comments threads on RPS complaining about consoles getting games $10 higher than PC because of licensing.

That’s because we pay for our hardware upfront, and don’t have to pay aubsidised hardware off game by game. Bit of a simplification, admittedly, but not far from the truth. :p

By: drewski

drewski — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:54:53 +0000

It’s the sense of entitlement that is the problem, not whether or not there is moaning on other sites.

By: redrain85

redrain85 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:46:03 +0000

@drewski:

It’s funny that PC gamers think they’re entitled to the same pricing as consoles for indie games, yet I don’t see big long comments threads on RPS complaining about consoles getting games $10 higher than PC because of licensing.

Well, that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? RPS is a PC-centric site, so naturally most of the discussion will be about what we like or don’t like about what’s happening with the PC games market.

I see plenty of comments on other sites, with people moaning about having to pay more for console games than PCs. Or how about when Valve releases updates for their games on the PC first, for free? Watch the shit hit the fan, every time.

It happens on both sides of the fence. Don’t anyone try to make it somehow seem emblematic of the PC gamer set.

By: Markoff Chaney

Markoff Chaney — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:31:05 +0000

It could be 5$. It could be 1 red cent. It’s the principle of the thing, in my mind.

As I said before (albeit in other ranting comments), he is welcome to price the game at whatever price point he feels. He can charge 17 thousand dollarydoos for it. That is his right as a producer of content. As a consumer, I have the choice to purchase or not purchase his content at the price point he sets. (This is where many pirates get their justification from and one should realize it’s pointless attempting to argue with someone that would ~~steal~~ replicate penny candy if they could) I, personally, choose to gladly purchase it at the price point already set by his own precedent for the exact same game. Mind you this is a price point that he said was five dollars higher than the 10 dollars he wanted to charge, but Microsoft made him charge 15.

I don’t want to discourage competition, but I do want to encourage fairness and equality, all things considered. Is the rent/average pay/whatever lower at Costcutter or WH Smith or is one just being a price gouging jerk? I can tell you where, all things being equal for me as a consumer, I would purchase my Orangina. Am I wrong for bringing in an advertisement to WH Smith and notifying them that they could possibly move more product (and make a higher net profits based on volume instead of markup) and have better good will toward and from their community? Idealistically stupid? Yeah, I’m that. Fair doesn’t enter into the real world. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling you something.

I am not in any way trying to defend higher pricing for console games because, honestly, they should cost higher for the simple reason that the cost of the hardware is subsidized by the manufacturer with the expectation that they receive additional licensing fees from software sales to make up for the loss leader of the console. Until publishers have to pay nVidia, Intel, ATI, Asus and every other hardware manufacturer a kick back for putting the game on the a PC (and thusly lowering my initial cost of purchase of the hardware) I think that’s only fair and has a basis in reality in economics.

Finally, I just want to say again I look forward to this game. It was rough not to pay for funny money on Microsoft’s console to buy it. I’m glad I get to enjoy it on my platform of choice for the same price. Seems fair to me. ;)

By: AndrewC

AndrewC — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:02:28 +0000

I would argue against the ‘simpler=dumbed down’ position. For one ‘dumbed down’ is a rhetorically loaded phrase that implies that console owners are all mouth breathing morons – implies without any of that pesky ‘proof’ business. It’s an easy pejorative used by the fanboys, so if you are using their language it is your own fault for being lumped in with them.

Secondly ‘simpler’ can be a design decision just as much as it can be a compromise. Is Serious Sam simply a dumbed down ArmA? Is Sega Rally a dumbed down Grand Prix Legends? This ‘dumbed down’ implies the nominally PC way of making games is the only true way of making games, and we’re back into fanboy territory.

And for the records, the smaller maps of Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2 wound me up no end, but perhaps we should let that pain go? It’s been a while now.

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:55:09 +0000

“And now with the whole Valve Euro pricing diseaster I won’t buy anything on STEAM ever again untill they fix the damn thing. [...] Dawn of War 2 on STEAM is twice as expensive as boxed copy in my country..yes…TWICE.”

Erm, so, don’t buy it. And buy stuff that’s worth buying.

Sorry, people, but I see people getting so angry about this issue they lose all rationality. I use Steam purely out of self-interest; boycotting it totally is as silly as using it to buy everything:

* If something is cheap (weekend bargains, value packs), I’ll buy it.
* If something is not cheap (most new releases), I won’t buy it but get it online retail.

Simply, easy rules that mean that I get value for money from Steam and don’t spend my time frothing at the mouth on ‘net forums. If everyone follows this method, sooner or later, publishers will be forced to drop their direct download prices.

Try it sometime.

By: AdrianWerner

AdrianWerner — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:47:50 +0000

I like Stardock over Valve, so whenever a game is avaible on both Impulse and Steam I choose Impulse version to let Stardock get my money :)

And now with the whole Valve Euro pricing diseaster I won’t buy anything on STEAM ever again untill they fix the damn thing. At least Impulse doesn’t make me pay extra just because I live in diffrent country It’s getting ridiculous…I somehow swallowed paying the same for DD as I did in retail, but paying more? Dawn of War 2 on STEAM is twice as expensive as boxed copy in my country..yes…TWICE. What a joke

By: QuantumGravitas

QuantumGravitas — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:23:19 +0000

Uncleloo said: “Small example: Game not on Steam? People flat out refuse to even consider buying it. Another: Absolutely everything gets called a “bad port” these days. Everything. I am not excusing bugs here, but people sometimes forget that the PC’s biggest strength is also one of its weaknesses. It won’t always be as smooh sailing as it is with console games.”

I agree with the first point. Steam fanatics are the same as any corporate fanboi. But then again it is not entirely unreasonable to want to support one of the PC’s premiere games developers or to want to have only one games/shopping client installed on their machine. However, I cannot diagree more with you on the second. The number of games that originate on, or have their development tailored to inferior console hardware, which are then ported across to Pc generally are poor efforts. How many games still direct you to console controls? Several spring to mind. (e.g: Star Trek: Legacy) How many take advantage of the PC control system without forcing you to either plug in a pad or stick with unweildy key commands shoe-horned in at the last minute? How many restrict their game worlds to console limitations which PCs transcended years ago – eg draw-distance? How many simplify the gaming experience for the console masses? It was not PC’s that invented quick-time, press-button now events.

There are many genuine reasons to call a game a ‘bad console port’ – PC’s are amazing pieces of kit and too often developers choose not to take full advantage of them because what they made for the consoles is deemed suitable enough. They – the developers – dumbed down the gaming experience for mass consumption (a prime example is to compare the first Deus Ex with it’s console-developed sequel, Invisible War) and when PC gamers raise voices of dissent we get stuck-up people on comment threads accusing us of ‘inflated senses of entitlement’. There ARE voluble morons in every faction who will ruin it for the rest but these people should not detract from what are real and geniune concerns.