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2013 Steam Summer Sale! DEAD

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How is XCOM? It looks like a lot of fun.

If you like rogue games with a turn based tactic combat like Company of Heroes, this game will be something up your alley. Some of the missions do get rather repetitive, but it's offset by the constant fear of losing valuable members of your team. Last time I played, there were some frustrating bugs from FoV and cover that would randomly let your squad mate lose all defensive benefits or something. Aliens would also pop out of Fog of War in the middle of an advancing squad...

But it's damn addicting. Every upgrade feels so rewarding because of the possibility of losing it. I just wished there was more randomness in the 'choose your poison' missions. It just felt a bit stale that there would be 3 missions to choose every time there was a possibility of a non story-line fight. Oh and I wished there was more components to upgrading the homebase.

But overall very fun game. I got it at nearly full price and have no regrets.
 
I agree it's not super exciting but I do think these two are good/solid deals for quality games compared to their price history and expected pricing future.

I think the original Torchlight was 3.74 and Torchlight 2 was 4.99 yesterday (same as today), but I could be mistaken. Here's the Steamgamesales link for Torchlight 2: http://www.steamgamesales.com/d6g8c/torchlight-ii, which says 4.99 is the cheapest it's been. So if you missed it the other day (like I did) it's not a bad time to jump on it.

I also think the COD games usually take a long time to drop below $19.95 and this is a first for MW3, as shown on that Steamgamesales link: http://www.steamgamesales.com/bZ8le/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3. I think the 17.49 from last summer didn't really happen. Whatever you think about the COD series, they are very popular and while I don't like to pay full price for them, I don't like to miss them either.

So, ultimately, I'm pretty sure this is the lowest price ever for both of those games on Steam and I think it will be a while before they get much cheaper, so I think I'm actually going to purchase both of those games today. Torchlight 2 might drop lower at the winter sale, but I really enjoyed the original Torchlight and 4.99 is a very reasonable price for such a deep game.

I may be mistaken on TLII...could have sworn it was $3.74 yesterday, but maybe that was Torchlight. I watched my kid play TLII last night and it looks good but......it also looks like more of the same. The big feature you're getting with TLII is the ability to play coop mode. I don't do coop, so for me it looks like TLII is nothing more than DLC for the first game. At $4.99, I'll wait.

The thing that pisses me off about CoD is that I own CoD and CoD United Offensive. I want CoD2, CoD3, CoD4, etc.....but 7 years later CoD2 is STILL $19.99 and the most it goes on sale for is 25% off. I just can't see paying $15 for a 7 year old game. The others are the same way.
 
The thing that pisses me off about CoD is that I own CoD and CoD United Offensive. I want CoD2, CoD3, CoD4, etc.....but 7 years later CoD2 is STILL $19.99 and the most it goes on sale for is 25% off. I just can't see paying $15 for a 7 year old game. The others are the same way.

You've already played a CoD game? Then you've also played all other CoD games.
 
The thing that pisses me off about CoD is that I own CoD and CoD United Offensive. I want CoD2, CoD3, CoD4, etc.....but 7 years later CoD2 is STILL $19.99 and the most it goes on sale for is 25% off. I just can't see paying $15 for a 7 year old game. The others are the same way.

Just like Blizzard games.

Wait... Activision-Blizzard... whoa!
 
I may be mistaken on TLII...could have sworn it was $3.74 yesterday, but maybe that was Torchlight. I watched my kid play TLII last night and it looks good but......it also looks like more of the same. The big feature you're getting with TLII is the ability to play coop mode. I don't do coop, so for me it looks like TLII is nothing more than DLC for the first game. At $4.99, I'll wait.

The thing that pisses me off about CoD is that I own CoD and CoD United Offensive. I want CoD2, CoD3, CoD4, etc.....but 7 years later CoD2 is STILL $19.99 and the most it goes on sale for is 25% off. I just can't see paying $15 for a 7 year old game. The others are the same way.

I think that's a good point about TLII. I still have a large backlog of games (honestly it's an embarrassing amount). I got TL1 for 2.99, so it seems like the company is comfortable with that price point and it might even get there during the winter.

The lack of additional discounting on the COD series is exactly why I'm leaning toward simply buying MW3 now. It's 'only' 1.5 years old now and will likely not get cheaper for 2-3 years, and even then probably only another 5 bucks or so. I could vote with my wallet by not buying it at all, but I'd rather not miss the game fully. Perfectly understandable to not want to support that way of doing business, or even not enjoying the 'on rails' experience.
 
Just like Blizzard games.

Wait... Activision-Blizzard... whoa!

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BUTTHEADS!

Risen 2 got piss poor reviews compared to the other two, on top of which they look more interesting anyways.

I don't mind it winning. Less known RPG.



Am hoping Grid 2 goes on sale. The core game is too darn expensive plus they want 5 bucks a pop for a buttload of add-ons which you know damn well should have been in the core game anyways. Rats.

It was last flash. Grid 3, and other Grid.
 
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I think that's a good point about TLII. I still have a large backlog of games (honestly it's an embarrassing amount). I got TL1 for 2.99, so it seems like the company is comfortable with that price point and it might even get there during the winter.

The lack of additional discounting on the COD series is exactly why I'm leaning toward simply buying MW3 now. It's 'only' 1.5 years old now and will likely not get cheaper for 2-3 years, and even then probably only another 5 bucks or so. I could vote with my wallet by not buying it at all, but I'd rather not miss the game fully. Perfectly understandable to not want to support that way of doing business, or even not enjoying the 'on rails' experience.

I wanted to play it but didn't want to buy it, so I rented it on ps3. Done and done. Yes, I much prefer PC gaming, and yes, especially for FPS. But the price isn't going down, and there's no replay value for me. Was worth the $5 rental to beat it over a weekend though.
 
Valve doesn't buy licenses. When they sell a game, they get a 30% cut from the sale. There have been only a few times where if you bought a bundle you would get the extra game you already owned. Valve does this with their own bundle, but when they have had special indie event it has happened a couple of times as well. It is a decision up to the publisher/dev not Valve.

Then why/how do they have a finite number of keys? There have been a number of instances in the past where Steam has simply exhausted their supply of licenses for a game with people buying it and being unable to play it as a result. It seems awfully convoluted for that to be done on an individual/realtime basis rather than in bulk. I don't think they have free reign to simply sell (or perhaps more accurately, provide access to) a game to any given point. If they did, I don't see how the aforementioned would be possible.
 
I may be mistaken on TLII...could have sworn it was $3.74 yesterday, but maybe that was Torchlight. I watched my kid play TLII last night and it looks good but......it also looks like more of the same. The big feature you're getting with TLII is the ability to play coop mode. I don't do coop, so for me it looks like TLII is nothing more than DLC for the first game. At $4.99, I'll wait.

The one nice thing about Torchlight II is it seems to have an easier mod capability. The original Torchlight certainly had quite a few mods, but you really had to use TorchLeech to keep everything up to date and ensure mod load order. All of that is either built into Steam or Torchlight II itself.

Also, Torchlight II is a far better game when it comes to the levels. You no longer just get an ever-increasing dungeon like the original (you just kept going down). The difference between the two reminds me a lot of the transition from Diablo to Diablo II.

Am hoping Grid 2 goes on sale. The core game is too darn expensive plus they want 5 bucks a pop for a buttload of add-ons which you know damn well should have been in the core game anyways. Rats.

If you really want it for a good price and don't mind a little gray area buying, just buy an Intel code off eBay. Intel is giving away GRID 2 with every Haswell purchase; that's how I got it! I haven't played it yet though. :$

It was last flash. Grid 3, and other Grid.

You mean DIRT 3?
 
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Then why/how do they have a finite number of keys? There have been a number of instances in the past where Steam has simply exhausted their supply of licenses for a game with people buying it and being unable to play it as a result. It seems awfully convoluted for that to be done on an individual/realtime basis rather than in bulk. I don't think they have free reign to simply sell (or perhaps more accurately, provide access to) a game to any given point. If they did, I don't see how the aforementioned would be possible.


If it is a Steamworks game (requires Steam regardless of where it is bought from) Steam provides the keys for them (meaning square has to go to valve for keys for Tomb Raider so they can then give those keys to other retailers for sale). For all else they simply get a huge amount from publisher/dev that will cover whatever they forecast and when they sell a copy the publisher/dev gets paid for that key. They don't buy the keys upfront, because if they did, then Steam can set the prices to whatever they want too instead of the pub/dev having the final say on what they want their game sold at.

Games that sold out in the past (this only happened 2 times I think? and both were quite some time ago) out sold what they were projected too. In the case of Prey for example, they never received anymore keys because the game pretty much went up into limbo and was removed from the store.

That is how it works on the digital side though, pub/dev send a big batch of keys to the digital retailers, those retailers put the keys into their system that assigns a key to a person when it is purchased. When that purchase happens, the retailer receives a 30% cut from the sale with the rest going to the pub/dev.
 
Then why/how do they have a finite number of keys? There have been a number of instances in the past where Steam has simply exhausted their supply of licenses for a game with people buying it and being unable to play it as a result. It seems awfully convoluted for that to be done on an individual/realtime basis rather than in bulk. I don't think they have free reign to simply sell (or perhaps more accurately, provide access to) a game to any given point. If they did, I don't see how the aforementioned would be possible.

While there's technically an infinite amount of copies they can sell of a game, it's still the developer/publisher's responsibility to provide enough keys to Valve so they can distribute them to their users. Then when they run out of keys, stuff like that happens.

I mean... that's my best guess. I still would fault the developer/publisher for making their game require a serial key in the first place, even for the Steam version. Honestly I think the concept of requiring activation keys is kind of old and dated at this point. Most major PC games I play nowadays are all integrated into Steam's system and don't require any extra steps for activation.

Edit: In response to KaOTiK's post above, we should probably clarify that there are two different kinds of "keys" being talked about here. For Steamworks games, or games that require Steam to run, Valve generates the keys themselves and it's all built right into Steam. However, for other, usually slightly-older games that came out before Steamworks integration was a thing, they still required activation keys that had to be entered in-game to activate a 3rd-party DRM method that's completely unrelated to Steam... these keys are generated by the publisher/dev, and not Valve.

In cases where Steam "sold out" of games a few years ago because they ran out of keys, it was always the latter: The developer/publisher wasn't on the ball and they didn't give Steam the proper amount of 3rd-party activation keys.
 
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What kind of retard pays money for these cards? I have sold all of mine for about .20 each.

Kudos to valve for figuring out a way to get people to give them money for garbage.

That's about how I feel about the stock market though
 
I'm tempted to get Euro Truck Sim 2, I can get it for $8 hmmmm

HAHA, I know, all the talk about it even has me looking twice at it.

I can already see this game as a FTP MMO. All you do is just drive around making deliveries and it's funded/paid for by in game advertisements everywhere based on the things you are delivering (you know big advertisements right on the sides of the trailers). Billboards, gas stations etc. OMG..I might have to publish this. I see $$. 😛 Who's with me? 😀
 
HAHA, I know, all the talk about it even has me looking twice at it.

I can already see this game as a FTP MMO. All you do is just drive around making deliveries and it's funded/paid for by in game advertisements everywhere based on the things you are delivering (you know big advertisements right on the sides of the trailers). Billboards, gas stations etc. OMG..I might have to publish this. I see $$. 😛 Who's with me? 😀

You could probably even make it like an online version of Shipping Wars where you try and outbid other people for jobs. 😛
 
HAHA, I know, all the talk about it even has me looking twice at it.

I can already see this game as a FTP MMO. All you do is just drive around making deliveries and it's funded/paid for by in game advertisements everywhere based on the things you are delivering (you know big advertisements right on the sides of the trailers). Billboards, gas stations etc. OMG..I might have to publish this. I see $$. 😛 Who's with me? 😀

You could probably even make it like an online version of Shipping Wars where you try and outbid other people for jobs. 😛

It already looks like an advertisement for Scania, Man, Mercedes, and the handful of other EU truck makers. But it really does look like an excellent sim. But how long are the runs? If it's a relatively true sim, you're going to be driving on long hauls...like, several hours. And what about when you have fragile cargo and you have to go slow? Anyone played it and know if the missions are cropped or just short in general?
 
Can you pick up hookers? That is an important part of a truck drivers life when they are out on the road for long stretches and alone all the time.
 
Can you pick up hookers? That is an important part of a truck drivers life when they are out on the road for long stretches and alone all the time.

So THAT'S why the thread is tagged the way it is. Sadly, KaOTiK, I doubt there are nude mods for this one 😀
 
That's some bullshit right there. You paid for something, but you don't get it? What if I buy a game I already have without a bundle? They just take my money and give me nothing? I know they wouldn't, just making a point. They should fix the bundle issue. And of course, I recognize that complaining about it here does nothing, but if anyone here has experienced this you should raise hell with Valve, on their forums or directly with their customer service.

Edit: As Dankk pointed out, it's likely based on what the publishers want, not Valve, so never mind that last bit.
Maybe I'm missing something, but can't you just buy the whole package as a gift, and then give yourself the individual games?
 
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