Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Digital distribution’s a funny bugger – it’s growing ever harder to predict and apply patterns to it. One day, a new videogame from Steam et al is more expensive than its boxed-copy counter-part, then a few weeks later it can be selling for next-to-nothing. The Steam Christmas sale is almost unreal in both the amount and extent of its discounts, and it’s going to be having Valve’s competitors howling with despair. Honestly: some of these deals are yer-actual-genuine-proper-mental. Today only: Mirror’s Edge is £3.24, GTA IV is £5. In general over the seasonal shakedown: Braid is £1.74, Medieval II: Total War is £2.50, Ghostbusters is £5, Batman’s £20… And dozens and dozens more. Of course, there are sales on at the other major download services too..

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The Big K has news that the major digital download services are boycotting troubled enormo-shooter Modern Warfare 2 because of the inclusion of Valve’s Steamworks. Apparently Direct2Drive were first out with the news, saying they had “told publishers that they’d stop selling games bundled in such a manner until Valve “decoupled its retail marketplace” from Steam’s other services.”

GamersGate and Impulse will also be boycotting the title for the same reason. The implications of this aren’t clear. Does it play into Valve’s hands and given them an even larger grip on the market? Or is this the bell tolling for Steam’s retail service as a part of Valve’s gaming community?

EDIT: I AM STUPID. This is valid from tomorrow, not until tomorrow.

Quick post before I rush off into the rain-choked guts of England: don’t take this as a thumbs-up for Painkiller, since I don’t think the collective opinion of the Hivemind is overly favourable towards this retro-angled shooter – it’s deeply old school – but GamersGate nevertheless offered up a discount code for the humble RPS reader, should you be interested. It’s for the Painkiller Universe mega-bundle which includes the original Painkiller and the add-ons Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell and Painkiller Overdose. That’s a lot of pain killed.
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Go joyriding. And if a bout of twocking doesn’t appeal, you could be attracted to Gamersgate latest offer. Basically Volvo: The Game is available free to anyone with a Gamersgate account. As mentioned before, it’s been developed by SimBin, who you’ll know from serious sims like GTR and allows you to drive Volvo cars like Volvo car 1, Volvo car 2 and Volvo car 3. Er… probably. We don’t know much about Volvo cars. But – er – in this version you can play in an especially skinned Gamersgate volvo. It’s totally true. Press releases never, ever lie. Er… footage beneath the cut?
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This is the kind of thing we’d normally leave for LewieP to herd into his weekly Bargain Bucket post, but if we wait to mention it till Sunday, most of the great offers will be gone. So, call this the RPS Bargain Jar or something. Quite a few of you have griped about digital store GamersGate‘s general design over the past few months, and it seems they too were aware of their fugliness. There’s just been a big old redesign to make the site sleeker and noticeably faster – and, if you ask me, just a little bit GoG-esque. Shiny! And, thank Vonnegut, it doesn’t demand to install yet another icon into our heaving system trays. To celebrate, they’ve a week of ultro-discounts – a new price-slashed game each day, plus a particularly splendid one lasting the course of the week. Buy buy buy!
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Quick post on this one. News reaches me from staring at forums that King’s Bounty is on sale this weekend from Gamer’s Gate for twenty Euros. As much as we love the game – it’s Alec’s favourite of last year, after all - after the cheery collapse of the Pound Sterling, forty Euros is a lot for anything. At twenty it’s a total bargain. Hurrah for advanced capitalism.

In much welcome news – in our interview, Ex-Civ4 veteran Soren Johnson noted it’s a shame a spiritual heir for the game doesn’t exist – Paradox Interactive announces a sequel for Majesty, planned for in 2009. Only shame is that original developers Cyberlore aren’t involved, which is perhaps predictable, as they don’t exist in the same state anymore. Instead, the task falls to 1C: Ino-Co, who you may know from the recent fairly-fun Fantasy Wars. Blues have lobbed up the grabs, but there’s a little more on why Majesty was neat, some examination of 1C: Ino-Co and its trailer beneath the cut.
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