Serik55

EB Games isn't the only PC game retailer. Best Buy, Fry's, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Play.com, GoGamer, etc. still have generous PC game offerings. Every new PC game is being shipped in slim DVD cases. You might get a quick start guide if you're lucky; the manual will likely be a PDF file. Over the years, I've watched games go from big boxes --> miniboxes --> DVD sleeves. Special editions are the only way to get the goodies these days. If retail wasn't 20-40% ch

Another vote for Europa Universalis III. Sadly, Paradox games hit the bargain bin pretty fast here in the U.S. I picked up the complete edition for around $15.

The first point is so very true. Return on investment and revenue per copy sold are more important. The videogame industry is bringing in record revenue, but many publishers (EA, Take Two, THQ) are bleeding money due to mismanagement and growing development costs. I think Frogboy once said that each digital sale of Sins gives Stardock/Ironclad 2x as much money compared to a retail sale. So if you moved 500,000 units at retail, you'd "only" need 250,000 digital sales to bri

I live in S.F. but I'll be getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. X____X Would much, much rather hang around GDC and catch Brad's presentation.

Right, if people are willing to buy your game for $50, why not sell it for $50? I agree that digital pricing can be more flexible and responsive. I don't think Gabe said that $50 is overpriced, but that discounts at the right time can bring in big bucks. Everyone jumped on the L4D deal because its perceived value is $50. People are attracted to limited-time deals, even if they won't play the game very often. So instead of sticking $50 on your game, ignoring it, and lett

[quote who="Xan" reply="3" id="2074032"]In the future when Steam conquers all booting up your PC will mean having to first log in to your computer and then having to log in to Steam. Gee what fun.[/quote] That's not the future. That's now. Some of the most popular online games in the world require that Steam be active.

www.bluesnews.com www.rockpapershotgun.com Both of them focus mostly on PC games.

So bandwidth, office space, and employee paychecks are not fixed costs? :D

I only pay full price for PC games if I really want to support the developers. Otherwise the industry gives me no reason to pay more than $10 for a game. If I wait a few years, I can buy a fully-patched deluxe version for a fraction of the cost. I pay less and get a superior product. These days, PC games cannot be resold (Impulse, Steamworks). If they don't work, I can't return or exchange them. Both of these factors decrease the value of the game. Why pay $50

Amazon.com was selling it for $10 the other day. I'm guessing that's where all the sales came from.

[quote]Empire: Total War[/quote] Empire Total War uses Steamworks so it'll never be on Impulse. Relic and THQ like Steamworks (DoW II uses it) so I wouldn't be surprised if Tales of Valor used it, too. Steam has 16+ million users. The advent of Steamworks (and its general acceptance) makes it like a sub-platform on the PC. I fully expect more third-party titles to use Steamworks DRM in the coming years. If your games are tied to a Steam account, you have to stick with St

Please don't get the government involved. Vote with your wallets instead.

[quote who="kyogre12" reply="11" id="2059513"]I'm going to agree with Annatar about Halo Wars. Compared to a real RTS, its simplistic and dumbed down. Plus, many of the fans of it (not all, mind you, but enough) treat other RTS like dirt, and think that Halo Wars will revolutionize the genre. I was reading a preview for it in a gaming magazine (don't remember which one) where they called all of us PC RTS fans a bunch of "RTS snobs" If they're going to insult me, I definetly don't want to buy

The good news: creating a DD platform is easy compared to designing and producing a console. So if Valve screwed up, you'd see a half-dozen players fill the void. Impulse, Amazon, Micrsoft, Activision-Blizzard. (Blizz is like Valve in that their games are amazingly popular and played online. They could easily follow Valve's DD strategy of expanding outward from your base.) The bad news: You still have lots of money invested in the Steam platform. Anyway, I would love to

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="21" id="2056840"]Refering to what you comment, i'm not sure about how the offline mode works exactly because i haven't tried it but I have heard it requires you to be online first. Doesn't sound quite right as somehow it defeats the purpose of installing/playing a game without internet connection in the machine, so maybe I heard some wrong information about it.[/quote] From Valve's support site: [quote]Please note that you must co

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="17" id="2055734"]But I passionately believe we need at least 2 or 3 of them.[/quote] Is there a reason why they have to be clients? Are publishers not comfortable with a website where you can download simple .exe files? Websites don't need IE or .Net or a client running in the background. I could access my games from IE, Firefox, Opera, etc. As I said in an earlier post, you could send emails notifying customers when their games are updated. Stea

Six or seven years ago, would PC gamers have guessed that PC gaming would have sub-platforms, each with exclusive titles? Sounds like consoles in a way, ya? Impulse has GalCiv2 , Sins , Demigod , Elemental ...Steam has CS , L4D , TF2 , HL , and a number of AAA third-party titles. Which brings me to my next point: Valve and Stardock promote their respective platforms through exclusive titles. If Stardock sold Sins<

[quote]that's the kind of expression that leads to monopolies. Internet Explorer has already won the browser war. I wish Firefox would go away. I don't want to have two web browsers on my computer.[/quote] [quote]I don't want 6 different clients cluttering up my machine. This is a big concern I have about Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2: are they only going to be available in digital form from some blizzard app, or are they going to publish them on Steam or Impulse or Direct2Driv

Do you think that Impulse will ever go client-free like Gamersgate? Put another way: people are reluctant to use another client, even one that's unobtrusive like Impulse, because they've already got Steam. That's the general vibe I get when I discuss Impulse on other forums (assuming they know it exists). So maybe Steam's already won the client war and the best way to compete is through a simple website that offers .exe downloads? Maybe even send an email when a game in your account is update

Hopefully Impulse and Gamersgate (now client free) will force Steam to fix its pitiful offline mode. Gamersgate and Impulse should target the European market (lots of PC gamers there) since Valve decided to screw them over with the euro = dollar pricing scheme. I agree: competition is good for the consumer. Steamworks is just a way of distributing a storefront to millions of PCs, which kinda sucks. I liked it better when Steam was a choice (except for Valve games). But e

Microsoft focuses on the Xbox because they own the platform and get a cut of every transaction made (DLC, game royalties, etc.) In fact I'd argue that games aren't really the point of the XBox. Microsoft is using gamers to get a computer entertainment center in livingrooms around the world in hopes of selling you movies, TV shows, etc. (Bill Gates half-jokingly said that he wants people to order pizza from the Xbox.) Once a PC gamer buys a Windows license, MS doesn't see

Wow, I really like the game's art direction. And it's only going to get better? Yay.

What's most important in an CRPG: good dialog, memorable characters, lots of player choices (put the R in RPG :D ). If you hit those three, then the setting doesn't matter so much to me, but steampunk is still awesome.

We need another steampunk RPG, provided it doesn't hit you over the head with the whole TECHNOLOGY VS. MAGIC aspect. Arcanum is the only steampunk CRPG I remember.

If they're any good and have the ability to be modded, PC games last for a very long time. Fallout 1 and 2 still have an active community. Simtropolis.com has practically made SimCity 5 by themselves by adding tons of awesome content to SimCity 4. Every FPS game of note from the last decade still has people playing it. That's why I