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Star Wars Rebellion.
Still a great little game, and it'll see me through the weeks until Civ V. Small issue is the 3d space battle engine which doesn't work in Vista. Long shot question: is anyone familiar with the game, the problem and *fingers crossed* a solution?
If only 125 million Americans were male, then the male to female ratio would have been around 0.7:1.0. :bulb: It's 0.97:1. We have about 150 million men. The median age for men is 35.5, which means 50% of those 150 million men are over 35.5.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
But Solitaire is a purer depiction of real life. You can play the game well, and still lose. :noob:Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Gee, many thanks to Rand and Loki for entering the Viagra game! Walking down the street, for every man you see, X will be taking Viagra. 1/3, 1/6, 1/10. Fiddle with the stats any way you like, there's a lot of men taking an erectile enhancement medication. :p
Anyone want to play this game?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39060280
Do bookies run sheets on the Wall Street gang vs pensioners or retail investors? :hmm:
Am about to download my first ever game exclusively from a game store rather than purchasing it on DVD.
Once it's downloaded, is there any way to burn it then to DVD to have my own copy?
I...I think that depends on the store and the format they ship it in :confused:
I'm not even sure why I want to burn it to DVD. Just slightly old-fashioned or something.
And paranoid about HD failure, but I guess once you've paid for it, it must be downloadable again, with a code or similar?
~
EDIT: heh, just checked, Game store is selling it £10 cheaper than Steam.
Steam rips non-US people off pretty shamelessly, but then again, US people have to live in the US, so I think we come out on top in the end
Since this place rolls up the streets after midnight, and I can't sleep, it's time to play the Cable Roulette Game again! It goes like this: flip the channels around and see what's on. Land on a commercial advert and denote the category. Keep flipping until you find a show or movie and denote the category. Then try to find the similarities in categories. It's kinda creepy, actually.
#1 Improve yourself (because you smell, have bad hair, bad skin, and need to lose weight)
#1 (a) Movies about transformation, mostly chick flicks about kissing toads or finding the prince who sees your inner princess.
#1 (b) Ads for acne wash, face cream, Axe, shampoos, erectile dysfunction meds, diet food in the mail, diet food in the store, exercise tools and DVDs
#2 Save the World (because it's always armageddon, but you can make a difference)
#2 (a) Fantasy movies with awesome heroism, guns and tanks or space ships, James Bond on steroids.
#2 (b) Ads to adopt a child in a third world, sponsor a child. Adopt a pet, send a donation. Adopt conservation, don't watch QVC. Join the Army/Air Force, Be All You Can Be.
#3
I got stuck on #3. Roll the dice. Is it about escapism in humor with cartoons or reality shows, with funny adverts for car insurance, or would that be ironic schadenfreude? Like watching the Roadrunner and the Coyote with Acme mistakes, followed by ads for the Aflac duck, the Geico gecko, or the Allstate mayhem man? The Three Stooges doesn't come on until 5am here.....
Wow, I forgot the tear jerker movies! Women who are abused or get cancer (the Lifetime kind of thing), followed by the ads for Tae Kwan Do or Cancer Centers of America! Families who lose their dad to a stroke or heart attack and have to overcome, followed by ads for Lipitor or eating Cheerios! It's all very subtle, you wouldn't pick up on it if it wasn't a Game....
Another edit! :D It's come to my attention that this Game is more about time zones and time slots. For some reason the Ad Men (M)ad Men on M(ad)ison Ave think everyone watching cable at this time needs penis enhancement, better teeth (Snap on Smiles, white strips or denture fixatives), hair plugs, antacids, a better mattress, arthritis creams, diet foods, internet match-making, or phone sex. With Cheerios or Mac and Cheese thrown in for good measure, plus some ads for dog treats that look like bacon!
edit 3,000: also the ads from attorneys for class action medical injury law suits (mesothelioma, tardive dyskonesia, PID, infertility, DEATH), anything from asbestos to Reglan to Yaz/Yasmin
:haha: :eek: This Game would be hard to turn into a board player thing......
Has anyone played Paradox Plaza's Elven Legacy? I keep being tempted to get it when I go to Game
There's a demo out that I've tried before. I wasn't really that impressed. Paradox isn't the developer for that game, it's just the publisher.
Downloaded, and installed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
Came down in the format of one Setup.exe type file ~1.1MB, and 3 large .bin files ~2GB each.
Will go onto a DVD no worries. :)
I know Impluse, Steam, GOG, and Direct2Drive, Big Fish Games, all allow unlimited downloads.
I almost want to say Atari's Digital River is the only one douche enough to only allow one download / download window (that I've seen).
The problem is Steam at least is a total rip-off. I've never seen Steam offer a game I want for less than I can get it in a store or online physically.
Take that Eleven Legacy I'm considering getting, Elven Legacy Collection (game + 3 expansion packs) is £19.99 in-store at Game, £17.99 at Play.com and £16.99 at Amazon.co.uk, but Elven Legacy (game, no expansions) is £25 on Steam. WTF? That's the same with any I've seen.
Steam pretty much just replaces the $ with either € or £ on their price-tags
Hence the existance of the 1€!=1$ group.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
And to think that they even told people in the beginning: "We expect prices to come down since we don't have to deal with physical media!"
Its more than that. Aussie's pay almost double the price. Most groups that follow Steam sales have to grid out the prices because its far more complicated than a simple symbol switch.
That being said, I love how Steam is able to more actively adjust the price of a game based on demand. Something that retails for $60, you can find on Steam for $25-$30 during a weekend sale a few months down the road. Developers, espicially the indies, commonly drop their prices way below B&M in order to drive up interest in a game. I think my steam account is "worth" just under a grand, but I'm willing to bet I've spent around $100 on it over the past 4-5 years. Their weekend and holiday sales give me such a backlog of games, I never catch up before the next sale begins.
Only place that compares in quality to the prices I'm willing to pay is Target's clearance racks.
OMG, a new game falls in price when it's no longer new. What a concept :rolleyes:
You would think, but B&M stores are horrible at this. Especially with games that come out on multiple platforms. They won't stock a computer game thats selling for $15-$20 if the 360/PS3 version is still at $60.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Best PC folks get is the hope that the game goes platinum or best seller on a console so the price can drop for the other platforms.
Take Just Cause 2 for example. Walmart is selling it for $40 - $50 based on platform, but Steam had it on sale a few weeks ago for under $25.
B&M stores have to show all their products have value. Braid, World of Goo, Trine, Torchlight, they all commonly get listed for $20 at places like Target and Walmart. Because their $10 games are all complete shit, or AoM old. Yet you can find all those games on digital distribution sites for $5 and $10.
Its why consoles like the Wii cost $250 at launch. Nintendo wanted a sub $200 price point, but the stores pushed back because it would undermine the other products, so Nintendo caved on the price, but threw in a "free" game collection.
No idea what B&M stands for, but any real shop here does exactly what you're saying - except consistently cheaper than Steam.
Brick and Mortar.
The US has laws and agreements that retrist how far stores can deviate from MSRP (suckage). I've never seen anyone, who follows both markets regularly, even be able to compare the frequency or price cuts that Steam gives its US customers to what a B&M offers.
Then again, the best B&M we have is Gamestop. Our physical media warehouse businesses like NewEgg and GoGamer do their own comparable 48 hour type sales.
Laws? Any agreements to restrict prices would be illegal in the EU, a company can charge what it damn well pleases.
It may be quicker to cut prices in the US but not here, Steam is a rip-off here. I can almost always buy something cheaper from Play.com than I could download it from Steam, and frequently its cheaper in Game stores. Especially older games. My little brother, against my advice, signed up for Steam a while back for spending his pockey money on. He bought a game - Mount & Blade - on Steam for £20. I'd coincidentally bought it in a "2 for £15" (or £9.99 each) offer with a different game at Game the same week. :rolleyes:
It's not unusual at game to see the PS3 version of a game selling for £39.99 while the PC version is already stickered "2 for £25" (or £15 each). I buy most of my PC games from the 2 for £15 or 2 for £25 selections at Game, while steam typically charges the same price for just the 1.
What we have here doesn't restrict the price the item can sell for, but what the price can be advertised at. For B&M thats deadly, but for online stores its a tag that says "add to cart to see discounted price".Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Two totally different concepts that create 2 totally different results for B&M and digital stores.
An article for how this affects video cards.
For digital distribution its a different story anyway. Publishers and Developers have a much stronger say on the price of a digital product. If they want to sell something at 50% off, thats their thing. Its a loss they take because its been shown to drive up demand, even after the price returns to normal, or higher. Due to the diversity of B&M stores, it would simply be a pain in the ass to coordinate something like that for physical media, mush less deal with the stores who don't want to take an immediate loss on item.
This extends beyond video games as well. Amazon's Kindle sale titles and prices are decided by the publisher, not by Amazon.
This is another concept that Steam has created thats foreign to a lot of gamers. You pay for the game when its at the price you feel its worthwhile at. New releases go for $60, wait a few weeks and you can get it for $30-$40. Put it off till Christmas and you can pick up the year's blockbusters for under $10.Quote:
It may be quicker to cut prices in the US but not here, Steam is a rip-off here. I can almost always buy something cheaper from Play.com than I could download it from Steam, and frequently its cheaper in Game stores. Especially older games. My little brother, against my advice, signed up for Steam a while back for spending his pockey money on. He bought a game - Mount & Blade - on Steam for £20. I'd coincidentally bought it in a "2 for £15" (or £9.99 each) at Game the same week. :rolleyes:
Steam just had a sale for Mount and Blade a little while ago, $7.50; Warband for $10.
Which is another trend I see on Steam alot. Preorders and big game purchases come with an older game from the developer. Just cause 2 gave you acces to the original while you waited for the street date, as did preordering BioShock 2.
Why is that deadly? Most 'bargain' games aren't the ones the bricks and mortar stores are even advertising anyway. Heck, I can't recall the last time I saw an advert for Game, they're just in every shopping centre in the country. On their window will be the new releases, not the older games, but go to the racks and they'll have rack after rack of bargain games with stickers on for the prices and deals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Minimum pricing levels here are illegal under cartel rules, that was confirmed years ago in a lawsuit Nintendo lost for one of their consoles.
Foreign to a lot of gamers? That's been the case since I was knee high to a grasshopper and I've never seen it done differently anywhere ...Quote:
This is another concept that Steam has created thats foreign to a lot of gamers. You pay for the game when its at the price you feel its worthwhile at. New releases go for $60, wait a few weeks and you can get it for $30-$40. Put it off till Christmas and you can pick up the year's blockbusters for under $10.
Steam just had a sale for Mount and Blade a little while ago, $7.50; Warband for $10.
Like when I bought Guitar Hero 5 from Amazon and it came with a free copy of Guitar Hero World Tour? Yeah, another original Steam idea that ...Quote:
Which is another trend I see on Steam alot. Preorders and big game purchases come with an older game from the developer. Just cause 2 gave you acces to the original while you waited for the street date, as did preordering BioShock 2.
When did the conversation start restricting to bargain games only? :bulb: I'd hardly consider games that are less than 6 months old bargain games, and some games that have been out for years still haven't reached bargain prices.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Its deadly because advertising, even window advertising, brings business in. Companies aren't going to slash prices in a way they can't advertise if its not going to bring in new business.
You're confusing this with shelf space and how stores have to price products to order to get them to move for newer products. Which is different from short sales that are intended to drum up interest and sales over a longer period.
Which is another area DD goes in handy for. Finding those older games that B&M doesn't stock because their sale pace isn't up to par with other titles. GoG is a great place for stuff like that.
As I said early, true control on price of physical print media is out of the reach of both publishers and customers. Again, especially with games that also appear on consoles. Its why everything after a certain install size has a $60 launch price, or why DLC for games on the 360 so rarely are allowed to be offered for free.Quote:
Foreign to a lot of gamers? That's been the case since I was knee high to a grasshopper and I've never seen it done differently anywhere ...
Its this "acceptance" that digital distribution in the US is starting to finally shake up.
You're doing it again, trying to direct the conversation in your own direction by creating or inserting your own facts.Quote:
Yeah, another original Steam idea that ...
No one claimed this was an original idea. Hell, my copy of Quake 4 from GameStop came with Quake II. I was mentioning how often Steam does it compared to B&M (which Amazon is not), and how when Steam does it, you get the offered extra immediately, unlike most preorder bonuses from elsewhere.
Developers have come forward previously to talk about how stuff like this makes a huge impact on the prelease pirate attempts.
No, I'm not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Firstly you seem to be confused as to what you're referring to as a "bargain". From $60 to $40 may be considered a bargain but its not a 'bargain bin' style of bargain.
Secondly any large game retailer I know permanently has a large supply of older games, for cheaper, which is not to clear stock. They'll replenish what they sell and continue to sell it cheaper, only this months or twos newest games are full price.
Game don't need to advertise to me the fact they'll have cheap PC games, I know they will. They always do. They'll have the latest and greatest in a chart section at full price and other non-chart full price ones near, then rack after rack of reduced price games, in intermediate steps. Typical for a PC game seems to be £29.99 at lauch, £25 after about a month or two, within 3-5 months it can already be 2 for £25 and then within a year of launch it can be 2 for £15. They do have a 'bargain bin' style (3 for £10) but I don't touch those.
I have no problem with DD. The problem is that Steam in particular is a rip-off in this country and tries to charge insanely ridiculously high prices.Quote:
Which is another area DD goes in handy for. Finding those older games that B&M doesn't stock because their sale pace isn't up to par with other titles. GoG is a great place for stuff like that.
Games here may typically have a standard new-release price give or take: £29.99 for a PC game or £34.99 to £39.99 for a console game are common launch prices, but it does vary. It also doesn't typically stay at that price for long at all.Quote:
As I said early, true control on price of physical print media is out of the reach of both publishers and customers. Again, especially with games that also appear on consoles. Its why everything after a certain install size has a $60 launch price, or why DLC for games on the 360 so rarely are allowed to be offered for free.
Its this "acceptance" that digital distribution in the US is starting to finally shake up.
This can be taken 2 different ways the way you typed it.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
1) The same older games are being replenished. Which B&M stores do not have control over. Sure they can order more, but the publisher has to continue publishing it on physical media. Take for example Test Drive. Your Game website isn't offering any physical copies (of any release, on any format), but they do have DD links.
2) Its a rotating stock, meaning that games get cheaper the longer they sit, meaning its an issue of shelf space.
Everything else was you rehashing the same points that were already addressed :(
1) While interestingly since you picked that title, Steam are not offering it either
But it is purchasble in a DD flavor, which is what I'm trying to get at, even through you keep trying to lump it into a Steam is DD is Steam idea.
I could have easily gone with Star Trek Online, which Steam does have, but physically Game does not, or The Chronicles of Riddick if you want to keep it multiplatform.
Thats just keeping it to recentish Atari titles.
notice the theme yet?
Maybe Steam charges what it does because of licensing agreements, or a lack of organized DD services overseas. Over here we have GoG, Impluse, Direct2Drive; but I know a lot of their titles are region locked.
Even Atari couldn't sell Test Drive Unlimited digitally in certain regions thanks to InfoGrames :bulb:
EDIT:
Holy shit, I'm reading PCGamer right now, and they completely shredded Singularity. Yet they closed out the review with this line "If (or rather when) it drops to a pittance on Steam, it's worth your time.
I didn't know Game did Downloads, might be tempted one day to use that.
Just looking at the Strategy genre since that's what I'm interested in, select that and one of the first two advertised with a big banner is "Settlers 7" for "only £29.99" on Steam. Game have it for £12.99 on disc or £12.99 for downlaod, but Steam want £29.99 WTF?
EDIT: I don't see them saying "(or rather when)" in that quote.
http://www.gamersgate.com/all?q=eaweek&aff=ggnews
Hey Wraithy - wasn't Mass Effect on the list of games I might like?
Yeah, you might like it. I'm not sure though. It's shootery, but it's also RPGy.
The second is significantly better than the first, but the second's also significantly better if you've played the first.
Thats what I get for linking the digital attempt of a print publication. Here is a blurry shot of the magazine article. I'd scan the page, but a hobo broke that keyboard last night :(Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Spoiler:
Fair enough. If only the company would stop acting like idiots when it comes to pricing in the rest of the world then.
That's not true, at least in the Netherlands new (Dutch) books have a minimum price, and last time I checked we were part of the EU. I'm not really sure what the purpose of this price is, but it's definitely there.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The minimum price is set by the publisher (part of their contract with the retailers), because they get a portion of the proceeds. It's not set by law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
It is set by law (in this country). No shop is allowed to sell under a minimum price set by the publisher (some exceptions for study books). I'm not making this up :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The entire law sounds pretty retarded to me, and I've heard writers complain about it, too. Yet somehow it is still in place..
That surprises me indeed, do you have a source?
EDIT: In English
Surely they can't sell under a minimum price set by the publisher because that's part of their contract with the publisher? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Edit: http://www.tekstadventure.nl/branko/...he-netherlands
:bulb:
Well, I was right anyway that before that law was passed having minimum pricing by cartel is illegal :bulb:
Loki: I don't think a publisher can put that in a contract here. That was the issue in a case a while back between Nintendo and a retailer.