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This only gave grief

3 (6.1%)

Grakelin is not stupid

6 (12.2%)

Are you happier now?

1 (2%)

------ Haiku, the encore -----

17 (34.7%)

Disagreeing, Fine

0 (0%)

Why you make a fuzz 'bout it?

3 (6.1%)

Lets just be happy

19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 48

[sproingie]

Why even have a credit card at all then?  You think the waiter at Chevy's is more trustworthy?

[Micro102]

thats what 100$ bills are for 

[Cthulhu]

I don't know about you, but there's no way I'm walking into a restaurant called "Chevy's" carrying a handful of hundred dollar bills.

Okay, I just googled it, and apparently it's not as shady as I was thinking, but I still don't want to run around with hundred dollar bills.

Debit cards are fun like that.  They're small, you can't spend beyond your means like with a credit card, and if some punk mugs you, you can just call and have the card cancelled.  Punk ain't get no bank.

[Draco18s]

Steam saaales.

That's different, really.  If its as a game is coming out (eg. pre-release sale or just-post-release sale) its to drum up interest and catch a few folks who go "well, if it was a little cheaper..." (Valve has this habit of giving everyone the game for free for a weekend and at the same time offer it for less-than-retail to hook people, then give them a steal-of-a-deal if they find they do like it*).  If the game has been out for a while then its really just finding old gems and going, "hey!  This game is good!  And right now its only $5!" and essentially drawing out the life of the product.

*If you think about it, this is how pirates say they--and other pirates--operate.  Play for free, pay if its good.  Only here, its legal, but the same principle of marketing.

[Nilocy]

Micro, Steam is extremely trust worthy, follow Cthulhu advice about getting a debit card. A lot safer and they usually come with some form of insurance to cover some unscrupulous person if they steal your card.

As for the reeling you in sales on steam, I for one like it. Its a win win, I get to play a game for free and if I like it I can pay, if not then I don't bother with it. More companies really really should do this, try before you buy is possibly the best way to not get screwed over when it comes to buying things.

[Draco18s]

As for the reeling you in sales on steam, I for one like it. Its a win win

I bought Gish and Darwinia/Multiwinia through their one-day sale over Christmas week.  Was like $12 for the three of them.  Been meaning to buy both of them for ages.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Micro, Steam is extremely trust worthy, follow Cthulhu advice about getting a debit card. A lot safer and they usually come with some form of insurance to cover some unscrupulous person if they steal your card.

As for the reeling you in sales on steam, I for one like it. Its a win win, I get to play a game for free and if I like it I can pay, if not then I don't bother with it. More companies really really should do this, try before you buy is possibly the best way to not get screwed over when it comes to buying things.

Most companies don't care about screwing you over.  All they want is for you to pay as much as possible for whatever they're hawking, enjoy it enough to buy another one and then do so in a few months.  If you don't enjoy the game, at least they got your money and chances are you're the type who'll force yourself to find "the good parts" so you'll end up giving them another chance, and another chance, and another chance, to screw you over and then convince yourself they didn't.

[sproingie]

All I can say is if you use a debit card, open two bank accounts and put the bulk of your spare cash in the account you don't use a debit card on.  Reg E gives you the same liability protections as a credit card, but it's cold comfort when your account is drained while they figure it out.

Steam is like digital crack for me.  I've got a pile of games I bought on sale that I haven't even played yet.

[Draco18s]

All I can say is if you use a debit card, open two bank accounts and put the bulk of your spare cash in the account you don't use a debit card on.  Reg E gives you the same liability protections as a credit card, but it's cold comfort when your account is drained while they figure it out.

Steam is like digital crack for me.  I've got a pile of games I bought on sale that I haven't even played yet.

I know what you mean.  I bough Gish and Dwarwinia and played 2 levels of each (and 2 levels of Impossible Creatures, which I got from a friend).

Now if I could only get Startopia and System Shock 2 to run...

[Sowelu]

Also, I have a question for anyone that might be knowledgeable in the topic: What purpose does region coding serve?

Region coding exists so a product sold in one market(North America), cannot be exported to a second market (Europe). This is to allow companies to stagger releases. I'm not sure why they would do such a thing, but I'm fairly certain its so they can eventually go back to openly owning slaves like they have for 99.9% of world history.

I can give a little more info here, too.  Different markets pay different amounts for different goods.  Look at Region 5 for example...that's Russia, India, Africa, basically all the places that really don't have $20 to drop on a game.

Publishers have the right to charge what the market will bear.  In the US it might be $20, in Russia it might be $2.  Hey, there's still money to be made.  In any case they charge a reasonable price in the US to recoup their costs, and then they have a secondary market too.  Cool!  If they charged the same amount across the globe, it would either be high enough that Russia could never buy it, or so low that they couldn't make back all the costs of development.

And...if it wasn't for region codes, some jackass in Russia would buy a thousand copies for $2 each, sell them to a buddy in the USA for $7 each, who would then put 'em on the shelves for $15, generating a huge profit from the primary market for the middle-man but very little for the actual publisher/developer.

In short, region codes are what ALLOW publishers to sell in cheap markets.  They reduce piracy in secondary markets by the simple virtue of allowing people to buy the product at all.  And then, they reduce piracy in primary markets because there's less spill-over from piracy in the secondary market!

Sure, people devoted enough to know how to change their drive's region code won't be stopped, but face it, someone that smart who wants your product for free is going to get it for free no matter what you do.

I think the region code system is an altogether good thing...except that Australia should have been moved to either region 1 or 2.  As it stands now, Australia gets the same region code as Mexico, which sucks for Australia because their region gets products pretty late.  But there's nothing sinister going on, and region codes are GOOD for consumers in secondary markets.

[fenrif]

If a company is selling games for 20 quid in one market, and 2 quid in another, they arent selling it cheaply in the second out of good will, or because they want people to have the chance to buy their games. Its because its profitable. Sure they might not make as much as when they sell it in market 1 for 20, but they still make money.

Being able to buy something cheaply in one market and sell it in another is pretty much one of the foundations of capitalism. Thats how trade works. Do you think an american game company only uses american manufacturing, american programs, and american dvd presses? No, they go where its cheaper, same as any company. But they dont want the consumer doing the same thing.

Whats more, often times all the region locking means is that there will be some games you will not be able to play, because the publisher will decide your region wont like it, so sucks to be you. If you wanna play it you've gotta import a different version of the console you allready own, just to play a few games. This is even stupider nowadays, since the only games that even have region locking seem to be the wierd japanese titles that they'll never sell to europe (culdcept saga, operation darkness, etc)

Publishers have the right to charge whatever they want, and customers are the ones who decide if its too much. Region locking is just another way for the publishers to control the market to their own ends. Depriving the customer of a choice.

[Soulwynd]

Profit in anything media related for the publisher (or independent dev) is not per-unit. It's past-threshold profit. Once a game is made it's only a matter of copying it. Making a box set wont cost more than 1 or 2 dollars for the most fancy box. Once they made enough money to cover what they paid the developers, the rest is profit.

So, if the 20 bucks game already gets past the sale threshold in the US, any 2 bucks they sell in russia or whatever is profit.

[JoshuaFH]

I KNEW it had a name, thanks for jogging my memory Soulwynd.

Also, thanks a bunch for explaining that for me Fenrif, that makes more sense. Although I wish that the publishers weren't so hasty in deciding who gets what.

[The Architect]

It's all a little silly in some ways. There are all kinds of laws and hoops you have to jump through to get something published in many countries. That is why publishers in Japan hesitate to bother investing in making something extremely Japanese-y available to foreigners. As I understand it, it's also a little bit of a marketting gimic in Japanese media markets if something is exclusive to Japan.

[Micro102]

I have a debit card, and it was stolen, and i lost 500 dollars, only 300 were returned. There is no insurance, just the bank arguing that shops didn't ask for a signature or pin...which doesn't always get your money back.

But yeah steam is a little too good to not get. They accept paypal right?