Retail releases instead of Steam-types for same titles. Stronger ownership?

[yogurt_21]

No, the games are on CD/DVD. My server only has related files such as patches, serials, no-cds, etc. Currently, that only accounts for 46.7 GiB of capacity for over 300 games (and most of that comes from 500+ MiB patches for a few games). These are things that there's no sense in burning because they can often get out-dated.

All that data is redundant on the server and it gets backed up monthly to a external drive which sits in a water-proof and fire-proof safe all the time it isn't being used.



There's several games that have no patches nor DLCs like Fable III and Alpha Protocol.



Most publishers will send you a replacement disk so long as you can prove you own it and pay for S&H. It's usually $5 or less--cheaper than the montly bill for an internet connection.



I've bought dozens of games from Amazon and there was only one situation where the product was sold as new but like-new quality (never played, but seal broke). 99.0% of the time, you're getting a genuine copy of the game for under $10. Buy 3 at a time and you get them shipped to you free too. None I have recieved "didn't work." Only one I had to return because the game box itself was damaged.



Vintage being how old? I bought the 1998 StarCraft collection from Amazon not too long ago. It was sold as new and arrived factory sealed. I never buy used.

1. why bother with the discs at all? why not backup the entire game pre-patched as an iso?
2.rare is exception that proves the rule
3. oh and what shall I do when my copy of klingon academy goes bad? shall I phone interplay? lol Beyond that I dare you to try that with activision. No I think I'll keep my digital copies of my games I bought retail.
4. so you're talking games you can still get normally off of any retail shelf. Steam has things like star wars dark forces original that you're looking at a used copy not matter what if you want a physical copy
5. blizzard still produces copies of that game, again an exception that proves the rule, take star wars dark forces for instance, the only way steam has it is due to lucasarts making it available from the archives, otherwise there's no way to pull a current retail copy. And there's no way the few companies that are still around are going to bother remanufacturing those disks. It's way easier to provide the game in digital form.

Majority of the games on my wishlist on Amazon are 9/10 direct from Amazon or from a store selling a game, i.e. inetvideo, and not from another seller on the Marketplace. Usually a company compared to a third hand seller.
Sorry to disappoint but all second hand games, even new direct from Amazon, have been in very great to sealed condition. It's not a gamble if tons of the titles are directly from Amazons warehouse. Thanks for portraying me to be an idiot for buying allegedly overly scratched discs in the past when well nevermind, people simply just don't give a fuck if others prefer a factory sealed release of a game or not.

EDIT: Glad I'm being "ripped-off" for waiting for a good price for retail instead of buying it from Steam which many other suckers fall for.

your attitude in unnecessary to this discussion and I'm sorry to say takes away from the intelligence of your argument. Also in what way are we suckers? We get full access to our game, any where, anytime; We have an entire pre-patched game upon install, no extra work whatsoever; we have all serials in one place and never have to bother tracking them down; and 90% of new titles require a constant online connection anyways.

 

[erixx]

NOt so sure that steaming games is cheaper for Valve, etc. than printing and boxing them.
I mean maintaining, upgrading and running their ever growing servers isn't free, I suppose.

 

[Jstn7477]

Majority of the games on my wishlist on Amazon are 9/10 direct from Amazon or from a store selling a game, i.e. inetvideo, and not from another seller on the Marketplace. Usually a company compared to a third hand seller.
Sorry to disappoint but all second hand games, even new direct from Amazon, have been in very great to sealed condition. It's not a gamble if tons of the titles are directly from Amazons warehouse. Thanks for portraying me to be an idiot for buying allegedly overly scratched discs in the past when well nevermind, people simply just don't give a fuck if others prefer a factory sealed release of a game or not.

EDIT: Glad I'm being "ripped-off" for waiting for a good price for retail instead of buying it from Steam which many other suckers fall for.

Steam doesn't necessarily imply "sucker." Have you seen all the games that Steam offers for 50-80% or even 90% off? You just have to wait for the right time to buy.

Games that I got or were given to me on sale:
Frontlines: Fuel of War - $3.00
Plants Vs. Zombies - $3.74
Team Fortress 2 - Was $2.49 a few times and is now Free to Play as of June 23rd. I bought the Orange Box retail when it was $50.
BioShock 2 - $5
Altitude - $2.49
Dirt 2 - $5

And many more. Steam is not the Walmart of content delivery. Prices may be a little higher on some things, but:

1) Better sales
2) Steam and its services are much more useful than buying a CD and pounding at your keyboard by yourself for a few hours. Read my previous posts.
3) I'm pretty sure there isn't tax unless you live in one of those dumb states like California or a country like the UK that enforce taxes on everything.

 

[xenocide]

Thanks for portraying me to be an idiot for buying allegedly overly scratched discs in the past when well nevermind, people simply just don't give a fuck if others prefer a factory sealed release of a game or not.

EDIT: Glad I'm being "ripped-off" for waiting for a good price for retail instead of buying it from Steam which many other suckers fall for.

The irony here is palpable. You claim everyone is stupid for claimging you are buying potentially lower quality products, and then turn and make the exact same claim about them and a different option. I've noticed this trend across multiple posts and topics you have been frequenting...

 

[Ray_Rogers2109]

Steam doesn't necessarily imply "sucker." Have you seen all the games that Steam offers for 50-80% or even 90% off? You just have to wait for the right time to buy.

Games that I got or were given to me on sale:
Frontlines: Fuel of War - $3.00
Plants Vs. Zombies - $3.74
Team Fortress 2 - Was $2.49 a few times and is now Free to Play as of June 23rd. I bought the Orange Box retail when it was $50.
BioShock 2 - $5
Altitude - $2.49
Dirt 2 - $5

And many more. Steam is not the Walmart of content delivery. Prices may be a little higher on some things, but:

1) Better sales
2) Steam and its services are much more useful than buying a disc and pounding at your keyboard by yourself for a few hours. Read my previous posts.
3) I'm pretty sure there isn't tax unless you live in one of those dumb states like California or a country like the UK that enforce taxes on everything.

Sorry but I fucking hate Walmart so the analogy completely falls flat this time. Again if there's a game on Steam which there's also the retail variant, I gravitate more towards wanting to buy the retail instead of Steam. Yes my incredibly fast and pompous internet connection be damned.
Guess I'm glad for living in California though since the last two games I bought in store I only had to pay $3 and some change since I had some store credit on a gift card.
Old habits, I'm still buying retail manufactured instead of Steam for all current games. I already stated in previous posts as to what I'd buy on Steam, even a retail title which is Steampowered so I can have the case, cover, manual and of course disc(s).

The irony here is palpable. You claim everyone is stupid for claiming you are buying potentially lower quality products, and then turn and make the exact same claim about them and a different option. I've noticed this trend across multiple posts and topics you have been frequenting...

Sarcasm doesn't translate well to posting it seems. Steam is the more authorative "Here's what PC games you own and the ones sitting in your collection on your shelves don't mean utter shit to anyone else!" type of mentality anyway.
Do I need to take photos of all the retail games I own now instead of having a comparibly shit Steam list?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

1. why bother with the discs at all? why not backup the entire game pre-patched as an iso?
2.rare is exception that proves the rule
3. oh and what shall I do when my copy of klingon academy goes bad? shall I phone interplay? lol Beyond that I dare you to try that with activision. No I think I'll keep my digital copies of my games I bought retail.
4. so you're talking games you can still get normally off of any retail shelf. Steam has things like star wars dark forces original that you're looking at a used copy not matter what if you want a physical copy
5. blizzard still produces copies of that game, again an exception that proves the rule, take star wars dark forces for instance, the only way steam has it is due to lucasarts making it available from the archives, otherwise there's no way to pull a current retail copy. And there's no way the few companies that are still around are going to bother remanufacturing those disks. It's way easier to provide the game in digital form.

1. Because you trash the installer by doing that. Installers modify system registry as well as make sure DirectX, VC++ Runtimes, PhysX, etc. are all current in order to play the game. Not to mention, what are you going to do with the original disk that proves you own it? Disks save HDD space between formats too. Oh, and without the installer/registry, the game may be impossible to patch in the future because patches require that data to operate.

2. Huh? They aren't rare and it doesn't matter how you get them--they never have been patched.

3. I don't think I have ever bought anything from Activision. If you want to play it really bad, you can still buy it new for less than $15. Besides that, there's other ways to obtain images of disks to replace those that failed and burn your own replacement. The fault is on you though for not taking better care of your disks.

4. 15 new dealers available at Amazon.

5. There's several publishers (Sold-Out Software comes to mind) that buy up publishing rights for older, popular games and return it to the presses for cheap. There's only a handful of games that can't be purchased on the physical medium any more and most are actually for consoles.

 

[Ray_Rogers2109]

Well too bad I'm completely shit out of luck selling my Star Wars PC games anymore since it's available on Steam now.

EDIT: Doesn't matter since I literally own hundreds more movies on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray combined over what I own for video games.

 

[RejZoR]

The games that have added value from Steam Cloud are better on steam. But i still prefer to buy retail boxed stuff if it's a big hit title. For example i'll buy Deus Ex 3 in a boxed version because, well it's the epic franchise and as such i need the boxed stuff. Same for original Deus Ex. And few others like NFS Hot Pursuit Limited Edition, Dead Space 1 and 2 (i even have the collector's edition of the second one). Etc etc. But i buy more and more games in digital form, mostly old titles on GOG even though i already own the original (beacuse of compatibility that GOG has). And on Steam, mostly indie games that cannot be bought in retail at all.

 

[Mr McC]

Well, I prefer Steam-only for a few reasons:

3) No SecuROM-style bullshit that always needs the disc 24/7 even though the game is completely on your HDD. They're still authentication, just done through Steam online.

The majority of the points in your post are valid, but Securom and other types of third-party DRM do exist on Steam, even though a disk is not required. Moreover, whilst Steam does provide information on third-party DRM, it is not always included immediately (Crysis 2) or completely transparent (Borderlands main game is Securom-free, but certain elements within the DLC include Securom - such information is not clearly afforded to the buyer who purchases the main game and DLC as a package).

 

[twicksisted]

This issue is the same as MP3 vs CD... and if you look at how that panned out downloads will always prevail as they are more convenient.

 

[Jetster]

It is cool that you can get on another comp and play a game you have paid for with out having the game with you.

 

[twicksisted]

I reformat my machine a lot and have a very fast internet connection so steam is perfect as I can install windows, then steam and redownload the games I want to play without having to fiddle around with DVD's and serial keys.

Also it keeps them safe in one place and I can install/uninstall what I want and when I want to play it whilst being able to see the whole catalogue of owned games

 

[qubit]

I reformat my machine a lot and have a very fast internet connection so steam is perfect as I can install windows, then steam and redownload the games I want to play without having to fiddle around with DVD's and serial keys.

Also it keeps them safe in one place and I can install/uninstall what I want and when I want to play it whilst being able to see the whole catalogue of owned games

Ah, with Steam you can go one better than that. Install Steam to a separate data only drive. Then, when you need to install Windows on the system disc, just run the Steam installer and connect to your current install.

It's just a little more than 'connecting', but you know what I mean. There's an FAQ about this on the Steam help system.

Therefore, no downloading necessary. Just watch out for your game saves and settings, that's all. If it's Steam cloud, your laughing. Otherwise, grab them off your profile before you wipe Windows.

 

[twicksisted]

Ah, with Steam you can go one better than that. Install Steam to a separate data only drive. Then, when you need to install Windows on the system disc, just run the Steam installer and connect to your current install.

It's just a little more than 'connecting', but you know what I mean. There's an FAQ about this on the Steam help system.

Therefore, no downloading necessary. Just watch out for your game saves and settings, that's all. If it's Steam cloud, your laughing. Otherwise, grab them off your profile before you wipe Windows.

Nice... theres another nifty feature for those using small capacity SSD's... you can install Steam to another hardrive leaving your small OS SSD untouched:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-tdlc-0426

Its what im doing currently and it works well.

 

[Sir B. Fannybottom]

This is kinda random, but I laughed way too hard at your icon twicksisted

 

[1Kurgan1]

People need to stop being children, jesus. If you don't like Steam don't use it, don't sit here and call others stupid, and if you love Steam, continue to use it.

I like it for a few reasons, if said reasons aren't good enough for anyone else, I really don't care.

But it's less clutter for me, less junk my 2 year old can get into (he loves himself some shiny discs), and last but not least, Steam sales.

And thats last one deserves it's own paragraph. Cut costs how you want, but last year during Steams Spring Sales I purchased nearly 150 games for about $250 which included some extremely highly rated titles. I've bought so many games on Steam simply because of the discounts, I do not have time to play most of them. I could not have got these prices for any retail store, and I could maybe have got some slightly better deals if I want to have many games spread out through many sites, but it's convenient being all from Steam. I am extremely happy with their prices, I had very few PC games before using it.

 

[MilkyWay]

The topic of the thread was "Stronger ownership?", like my last post here NO you do not get stronger ownership. The license is the same on all distribution forms.

The only "stronger ownership" is possibility to trade in games in physical form if they do not require previous activation thus locking out the game to a single user.

End of thread, desist talk of pros and cons of steam (off topic).

 

[digibucc]

agreed with kurgan, but truthfully - even without the sales - Steam is simply the more convenient,
safe, all-in-one option for me. I can always re-download, auto patch, keeps track of serials.

offline mode allows you to play SP games on a second computer, while playing online on the first!

and I do not have any less ownership of my games than you do. retail discs have no more rights
than digital downloads, aside from reselling, which is a rip-off. read your EULA for once,
your disc based games are just platters, that hold the publisher's content which they allow you
to play - it doesn't matter how you get it, the end license means the same!

 

[1Kurgan1]

The topic of the thread was "Stronger ownership?", like my last post here NO you do not get stronger ownership. The license is the same on all distribution forms.

The only "stronger ownership" is possibility to trade in games in physical form if they do not require previous activation thus locking out the game to a single user.

End of thread, desist talk of pros and cons of steam (off topic).

Anything involving a middle man is not going to be a stronger relationship no matter what it involves. It's like asking if rabbits eat carrots. So there really is no point for discussion then.

But the difference isn't anything huge. Like digi said, you dont have a lot of rights in game games you own. Most MMO's you only own the time invested, you don't even own your characters.

 

[Jstn7477]

Sorry but I fucking hate Walmart so the analogy completely falls flat this time. Again if there's a game on Steam which there's also the retail variant, I gravitate more towards wanting to buy the retail instead of Steam. Yes my incredibly fast and pompous internet connection be damned.
Guess I'm glad for living in California though since the last two games I bought in store I only had to pay $3 and some change since I had some store credit on a gift card.
Old habits, I'm still buying retail manufactured instead of Steam for all current games. I already stated in previous posts as to what I'd buy on Steam, even a retail title which is Steampowered so I can have the case, cover, manual and of course disc(s).

Wow, okay, something magically doesn't exist now because you hate it. Fine, I'll keep getting my boxes of name-brand cereal for $2.50, 24 packs of name-brand soda for $6 and name-brand frozen pizzas for $5 when Publix charges $4.79, $8.99 and $7.69 for the exact same products. I don't need the guy to push my cart out to the car for me at Publix; I'm perfectly fine with getting my inexpensive food products and getting out of there.

I sure hope you don't "fucking hate" thieves because they do exist and they sawed off the catalytic converter on my 2002 Chevrolet S10 the other day and now I can't drive it. Thank God I saved all that money in daily necessities at Walmart so I can take it to Big Muffler and get my exhaust system fixed, eh?

Anyway, I disclosed in my first post that it's worth going retail for games if they have memorabilia (Fallout 3: Collector's Edition materials sit on my shelf). If you also like the cases for some reason, whatever, go do your thing. I listed the pros and cons of using Steam versus solely buying CDs, but I don't think I'll be adding any more posts to this thread because it has turned into a supposedly sarcasm-laced pissing war about whose method of playing games is better.

The majority of the points in your post are valid, but Securom and other types of third-party DRM do exist on Steam, even though a disk is not required. Moreover, whilst Steam does provide information on third-party DRM, it is not always included immediately (Crysis 2) or completely transparent (Borderlands main game is Securom-free, but certain elements within the DLC include Securom - such information is not clearly afforded to the buyer who purchases the main game and DLC as a package).

Yeah, I meant to say that they are still there in many cases, but they don't jack off with your disc for a minute or two trying to somehow prove it's a legit disc before letting you play the content. PunkBuster is still there wreaking havoc for the CoD guys on Steam, for sure.

 

[yogurt_21]

1. Because you trash the installer by doing that. Installers modify system registry as well as make sure DirectX, VC++ Runtimes, PhysX, etc. are all current in order to play the game. Not to mention, what are you going to do with the original disk that proves you own it? Disks save HDD space between formats too. Oh, and without the installer/registry, the game may be impossible to patch in the future because patches require that data to operate.

2. Huh? They aren't rare and it doesn't matter how you get them--they never have been patched.

3. I don't think I have ever bought anything from Activision. If you want to play it really bad, you can still buy it new for less than $15. Besides that, there's other ways to obtain images of disks to replace those that failed and burn your own replacement. The fault is on you though for not taking better care of your disks.

4. 15 new dealers available at Amazon.

5. There's several publishers (Sold-Out Software comes to mind) that buy up publishing rights for older, popular games and return it to the presses for cheap. There's only a handful of games that can't be purchased on the physical medium any more and most are actually for consoles.

1. dunno what you're using, but no you don't trash the installer by ding it, by evidence of my 100+ games on my server that I've done this with that work without issue. And hwat do you mean? the discs are in their cases? Why, where the f do you keep yours? Save hdd space? for what? look at my specs, game are on a 3tb raid, then I have a 2 tb usb drive as a backup and a 2tb raid 1 on my NAS. Formats? my games aren't on my windows drive, take one from the server realm, never install primary data on the os drive. Believe me you'll never go back after you try it.


2. the games that don't need patches are rare exceptions, not the one game you mentioned. lol

3. are you trying to prove my point? I have my copy both on disc and on my digital backup, if the disc dies yes I could buy it again, but because I already have it prepatched on an iso, I don't have to worry about that. Also don't be smarmy, my discs are in perfect condition and I take very good care of them, all of us do, so your and ray's comments are as relevant as a toyota in a ford factory. Thats not an argument, it's a poorly attempted attack. Take that "superior" care of your discs all you want they will eventually die. I don't have to explain why, you and ray and wiki that.

4. brilliant, from 25$ new, 9$ like new, and .01 used. So in order to get the same deal as I did with steam, which was 7.50$ for the entire dark forces series, I have to buy a used copy of the 5 games and still end up paying more than steam...for used.

5. links?

 

[Ray_Rogers2109]

Yeah it's fancier to buy the retail box with the game disc, manual, cover and case along with disc-key. I don't give a fuck about the excuse "It's hurting the environment." Look up Viva ECO-cases. I recycle those things and replace them with VIVA Elite cases. Oh wait, I still buy movies on Blu-ray disc instead of being a fucktard and downloading everything?
I'm glad for peoples mentality on here if a game or movie is listed on Amazon it must be used with a shitload of scratches and OMFG STEAM IS MUCH BETTAR! No, for games released from oh let's say 2000 to now I'd much rather own a physical release of it and yes I still find great prices for them. Doesn't even matter since I LITERALLY, proper usage of the word, own more movies combined on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray disc formats.
So far older games with barely any support for XP/Vista/7 including Digital ONLY titles are fine for me to grab from Steam. All others will be retail factory manufactured. Shelving be damned.

Why do I have this mindset when I pay for a 16mbps service when actually getting 30mbps and a 250GB download cap per month? The convenience for me is to install from a disc instead of downloading an entire game when the disc can be inserted in the drive etc. Yes I would really like it if more older games had more compatibility if they were on Steam. Even if I had unlimited downloads and 20TB HDD or larger I'd still buy retail over Steam if given the choice.
Mods, patches, NoDisc cracks for games I don't care about downloading. My other method to try out games besides demos and playing the console releases? I don't have any problem with it.
It's worth more for my money waiting for a title to get to a certain price then have it delivered to my mailbox/doorstep. Emulation is another story which would be considered "warez".

No fucking way was I going to look online to attempt to get ALIENS versus PREDATOR - Gold Edition RETAIL to work on either Vista or 7. Well look! Steam has this title which has the compatibility for XP/Vista/7 already embedded in the game! Good luck for titles such as System Shock 2 amongst others including Grim Fandango and many other non-Star Wars LucasArts titles.
If it isn't listed on Steam then I must never have owned it, especially when these titles are sitting collecting dust on my shelves.

The Lord of the Rings Online I bought the Collector's Edition for Mines of Moria for $10 plus a bit of tax. Sure I can install it from disc but I'd still need to download the updates to the game since it's been F2P. Premium member anyway. $20 is far too much for a Digital only version of an Expansion. With retail discs any company can have sales on them with pricing as they deem fit. If I ever had my dream company I wouldn't skimp out on retail releases and have all exclusives for them, never on any digital distribution service.

 

[digibucc]

"Steam is better"
"I prefer retail"

which of these is the objective fact? neither? ok.

so in other words, your opinion is right simply because
it's yours? you don't care what anybody else's reasons
are - it was just a thread about exclaiming retail is better
and you are too because you prefer retail. good to know.

 

[Ray_Rogers2109]

"Steam is better"
"I prefer retail"

Which of these is the objective fact? Neither? Ok.

So in other words, your opinion is right simply because it's yours? You don't care what anybody else's reasons are - it was just a thread about exclaiming retail is better and you are too because you prefer retail. Good to know.

Damn right.

Spoiler

Thanks for the blatant sarcasm.

I trust the last post should better explain my reasoning. Retail to be purchased for games I'd rather put on the shelf. Steam for Digital ONLY titles and titles so old the Steam release readily works on XP/Vista/7. Steampowered? Still going to be retail anyway. No IDGAF about my 16mpbs/30mpbs internet connection.
There, it isn't idiotic shitloads of paragraphs this time. I could ramble on but nobody gives a fuck but myself.

Yeah I do binders sometimes. It's another thread.

 

[AsRock]

I'd rather not have plastic boxes take up space on my shelf or being manufactured. I don't like plastic at all, bad for the environment. I do think that digitally distributed games should be a bit cheaper since there's no manufacturing costs.

Cheaper maybe but they do keep servers up 24\7 so you can download it at any time which cannot be cheap for any company like steam.