Why i can see some completely non-malicious post being down voted? Because they don't share the same philosophy and opinion as you (whoever down voted them)?

Let's get some tacos.

Funny, I have a boxed version of Dark Messiah, and it actually works fine without having to ask Steam for leave to install or play it.

How can a country have it's own pricing? Does the government decide the price of things?

Usually in regional pricing you talk about difference in fixed expenses like shipping or differences in taxes (VAT) or differences in standard of living and general price level.

But then in digital games there are not much differences in costs and there is a global market (at least in principle), So even if you are happen to live in a rich country you could just order from the location of a poor country. In a global market there aren't any borders.

Therefore I would say that worldwide equally prices before taxes and automatic conversion to your currency (like GOG is doing it, when you pay per credit card or paypal) is the most convenient thing for everybody in a global world. That's just my opinion.

Yes, you could install singleplayer offline, I know this, no need to correct me. I was referring to the multiplayer and patching system, it pushed Steam before Steamworks was a thing. Also someone else "corrected" this on page one.

One thing I dislike about the internet is you have to explain every point in exhausting detail to prevent someone coming along and "correcting" you.

And then constantly updating said post because people will read that and rush off to tell you something you've already replied to!

I don't understand the irrational like/dislike of a software program - don't like, don't use - like, use it ?

yes having to run the client is a pain, but we all new that before we installed it.

This line cracked me up because I always make posts and then think " somebody is going to try to correct me here" and then I have to throw something else in to try to avoid that. Most of my posts have edits in them because of this

Edit-see I had to edit this one

All of your complaints are totally valid and I've experienced the same things.

The forums are a bit Nazi ran so I don't visit them very often unless trying to get some information on a new game release.

And not only does Steam Tech Support love to try and push you off on the publisher but it appears they're doing so with Cleverbot.

I also have a pirated copy of Toki Tori which works perfectly where as my legitimately purchased Steam copy crashes on the menu screen (however my legitimate Dark Messiah worked previously so I'm not sure what's going on there unless they did an update and I'm screwed now too).

Big AAA games are also sold for $100 to us New Zealanders if sold to us at all.

BUT

If you take advantage of the sales (and there are many) you'll have many more success stories than failures and that is what PC gaming is about - there's so many reasons that a title might not work on someone's system - it's not like a console where we all have the same model and are abiding the same regional restrictions and environmental situations so there is a good chance that:

1. You will find a lot of games that don't work on your current setup
2. You will find a lot of games that don't work without a crack
3. You will find a few scams
4. You will find some games still sold that were dependent on a server but
the server is now down.

And this is referring to online game buying in general - Steam actually has filtered a lot of this out more so than some other shops.

I don't mind stumbling upon three $5 bummers on Steam when, on the same day, they sold me five games normally prices at $20 each for $5 and all five of those games work splendidly.

It's just matter of rolling with the punches to reap the opportunities and keep the punches baby soft by not spending anymore than $5 on a game that you're not sure of and can't demo or, better yet, wait till that game turns up in an indie bundle.

Just wanted to correct you on this... the word you're looking for is 'pedants'.


LOL. :P

I think that's because to prove somebody else wrong is common thing in the internet today. Not sure about that many years ago.

I go back to about 1995 where all we had were Bulletin Board Services which were direct peer to peer connects to some kid (in your neighborhood) and only one person could be on with an hour time limit.

..it was even worse back then. Recent years have demonstrated a massive clean up of racial slurs and death threats.

If you want to play some games you cannot avoid it, even if you know it before. So what does it help to know it before when you cannot change a thing provided not playing these games at all?

I agree u can't avoid it, I have the same frustration with D3 when Blizz's servers are knackered - but at the end of the day, its a game - I don't have an answer to your question truthfully, but I do get concerned when people get so wound up, over something that is not that important, in the grand scheme of things. I can only blame Blizzard when their servers go down, but if its my internet that is going down, that is not their fault. That is the same with Steam.

Ha ha, and you know what would happen if MILLIONS of "common people" users go on that site and start spamming the channels with stupid requests ? (I assume there is an in-browser embedded IRC client, otherwise that kind of support is far from being better than Steam)

The IRC support will be limited to some users, then will rapidly disappear because of the flood of stupid requests. It happened before, it will happen in the future.

Just because a niche community can do something doesn't mean any community can do that. I am (and have been) in hundreds of "niche" community and I perfectly know that getting "big" means losing a LOT of possibilities.

I used to help people regarding their hardware/software issues regarding gaming in various forums (both in french and english). I had to give up a few years ago, when it became unbearable : as more "common people" started playing video games, invading forums, the % of dedicated gamers suddenly dropped and they got diluted in the ocean of "players".

People no longer listened, nor tried to understand, nor tried to learn, nor tried to remember, nor tried to help one another. What was a pleasant and challenging task became a stressful tiring hopeless chore.

=> The % of "common people" had reach a critical mass, preventing the passionate gamers from forming a core group. The gaming Internet, as we knew it, was over.

Steam, Steam forums and Steam Support are made for these "common people". GoG.com is made for passionate gamers.

Hopefully, Steam is still run by passionate persons, this is why they don't charge for a Premium Steam account nor feature ads, this why they don't ban your Steam account for insults on the forum. Instead, they work on making the Steam Community better and advocate for Steam sales.

That's the biggest difference with Origin, who is run by 100%-commercial employees who could easily be selling carpets or insurances next month without a problem.

To sum it up:
Gog.com: by passionate persons, for passionate gamers.
Steam: by passionate persons, for video game players.
Origin: by video game sellers, for video game players.

edit: apparently there's no multi-quotes feature on GOG forums yet :P

+1, the price difference on the digital distribution platform is inherited from retail distribution (because publishers don't want to lower the prices, even if it would boost sales and overall profits), because at that time (retail only) there was an extra-cost to ship the cd/dvd cases to Australia and there wasn't much competition on the distribution market (= higher prices).