Madman wrote:I always buy retail box games, so that I don't have to worry about servers going online.
Uh, as you noticed yourself with Bioshock, that strategy is now FAIL. You
still have to worry about that.
Madman wrote:1st: Amazon.com -> 35$ for US residents only, oh snap...
2nd: Amazon.co.uk -> 48$ and long shipping times
3rd: Steam -> 70$ ... holy batman...
Steam is to blame for the fact that Amazon.com only sells to US customers, the UK isn't close to Latvia and the fact that your Latvian ISP sucks?
Uh, what?
Madman wrote:Everything works... for 70$... so far.
70 USD when converted from what currency?
Madman wrote:The bottom line is: Cloud computing sucks, it's overpriced and you don't own a physical copy of anything you buy.
I think you are conflating DRM with the "cloud," which is unsurprising since the metaphor for the concept was
very aptly namely.
Madman wrote:The only way I'd support cloud is if publishers like Amazon would sell you boxed copies, and to amortize the delivery time, allow a download location where you could already download the game and install it with your CD/DVD key, while the boxed copy is still being delivered to you via DHL/FedEx.
You are seriously strange, and the real problem you seem to be having here has
absolutely nothing to do with steam. Sunburn74 wrote: If gas at one gas station was $20 a gallon and at another gas station it was $3 a gallon, wouldn't you stop to ask wtf is going on? Maybe the 3 dollar gas station has pumps that mislead you about the amount of gas you are actually getting and thus people are being cheated (this does happen)? Maybe the $20 gas is part of a price-gouging scheme in collusion with other gas stations? You'd at least ask such simple qustions
I'd buy gas at the $3 dollar station. Who wouldn't? What's the problem here?
Sunburn74 wrote:1)A sale is when something that is at market value, if lowered to below market value.
And this definition helps us ... how?
Or can you tell me what the "market value" is?
Sunburn74 wrote:2)Steam's backup system is overrated as many of us already perform this service with the majority of our files
Ooooohhh, you've got a real winner with the point that "not all features are valuable to all users!"
Sunburn74 wrote:3) Steam prices are rarely at market value
Uh-huh. Which people in this thread are evidently determining by comparing the price of the product offered in a different country, in a different currency,
that they can't actually buy.Or the product in a different country that they can buy, but don't want to wait weeks for.
Or the product in store that they evidently don't even want to drive to.
Sunburn74 wrote:and instead are persistently inflated.
According to what? Fevered imaginations in which all currencies are at nominal
and purchasing power parity and things like regulations, VATs, import taxes and administrative oversight don't exist?
Sunburn74 wrote:Why then do people defend the service as the best thing since sliced bread?
Because, to use your own analogy,
why does it matter if one station offers gas at $20 and another offers it at $3? Buy the $3 gas! If the $20 gas is slightly different in a way that
you don't even care about,
why do you care?If someone does care enough about the difference to buy the $20 gas instead of the $3, why can't they?