Gamers Turn to Downloads During Recession

Steam must be pretty busy with their servers...

I made a recent decision to buy whatever games I can off of steam. Just cuz i'm sick of going through all the installing and patching and finding the disc to play. steam is much easier. For me, it really has nothing to do with steam.

ipods a joke to real gamers. seriously. Waiting for tegra handheld gaming devices.

OOPS, ^ I meant for me it really has nothing to do with the recession..

Steam is just so damn convenient. And the iPhone games are a joke, Michael Pachter must be drinking the apple kool-aid.

Most of the cheap downloads are old games that suck now compared to new ones like Fallout 3, the download sites are milking the last bit of cash they can from them. Call me old fashioned but I still like my brick and mortar games and having a real disk in my possession though I do purchase many games from Amazon because of their huge PC library and great prices.

I also strongly prefer having the physical data around. But I will admit I recently purchased several games digitally (both Bioshock and Assassin's Creed when D2D had them for $5, and the Unreal collection thing on Steam when it was dirt cheap). Honestly, those all count as impulse buys. If I'm paying $50 or $60 for a game, I want that disc and manual.

even though STEAM are leading in the digital content for PC, they often have discounts on their games, i mean in the past two weeks, its been nuts... I'm here trying to save my money, and they're not making it easy

Nothing better than getting wasted at home and buying a new game and playing it in the same night... But sadly in this recession most of my "new" games are free to play games as often as possible. I'd lo\/e to dump 50 bucks a week into gaming... but it just doesn't work out so hot considering that's about 200 a month and 2400 a year...

Yea Most of my most recent PC gamer purchases were through steam.

I would buy more Games with an actual disc and such but living in california on unemployment sucks ass.

Yep, I've been downloading more than buying. It is greener (no packaging) and Steam updates your game for you. Digital downloads don't run out of stock either

Don't forget once you buy your game on Steam you can create a backup and copy that to CD or DVD so you still can have that media if you really want it.

I actually prefer buying the games via online download because then I don't have to worry about losing the game, the disc being scratched, loosing the serial key or paper work etc and the box taking up space in my tiny apartment.

until bandwidth caps are reasonable from my ISP, imma gonna stick to brick-and-mortar stores.

I collect games, so downloaded versions are unacceptable for me. Even if a game is only $5 to download, I'd rather pay for the box, disc, manual, etc. Even better are the good collector's editions (the one's that actually have stuff like t-shirts, maps, medallions, tins, art books, novels, etc.)

Steam will not give you a refund or any type of credit if the game doesn't work on your system but the store will.
I have many steam games but they lost my buisness for not giving me a $30 refund for a broken game.
It has cost them much since then! Stupid buisness practice.

I prefer to buy from Steam, just because I never have to worry about losing the media, If I visit a friends I can if I want install the game there too, the number of times I have formatted my computer of the years, just to clear all the bloatware then having to search for the games and the serial numbers, now I just reinstall steam and they are all there ready to access.

I just find it more convenient and not have to search for a bloody CD to put in every time I want to play the game is HUGE plus to me

As if it has anything to do with the recession.

If game devs would come up with quality games, then the gaming population would not mind spending the extra bucks.

Problem is, most games that were published between today and 2005 were and are complete and utter cow-dung.

Due to the lengthy gap between true quality games, the consumer is losing faith in the game industry in terms of quality.

However in order to sort of defend the recession theory, it is true that gamers would normally buy more games because they would have more money, so with the money being scarce gamers tend to try before they buy. (but this is also tied in with the quality issues)

i've think this article is stupid ,


1. new games cost teh same on download and in store
2. only total noobs play games on phones NOT REAL GAMERS
3. gamers arn't bitting cos we are getting tired of "remixed" games , sure it is fun to see an old game redone ( such as doom 3 or the new turok ) but for the most part we want something new , not something old, repackaged.

on that note , this re-packaging of old games with new graphics , is making teh industry look less and less talented and less creative, sure I know ther are vbery creative poeple int eh buisness , but how are consummers supposed to realize this when all you churn out is a remake of the same game all the time? we need NEW IP , original ip that deosnt have a "been there done that " feel , even if it uses an old genre.

P.S.

reason 4 why this article is dumb

there is not anew big game every week, try every 6-8 months ther are about 1-3 big games but there certainly isnt a new big title game every week


P.P.S. last game i got was was Saints row 2 over steam (they had a sale for one day it was 7.50) but well i can see why it was on sale, the game was poorly poorly optimized for pc ... hell feels like it wasn't optimized at all actually i got a bunch of games that look and run waaaayy better than it looks or runs.