Steam is crazy

[Whistler777]

You live in America. And you are crying about Steam?

Wolfenstein on Steam costs 60 EUR in Europe. No, I am not kidding. It's only about 30 EUR in UK or 33 EUR in America, if you convert the prices to one currency.

A crying shame, considering the fact that the game is only worth $30 (15 EUR? I dunno the conversion rate). If it had been sold at that price to begin with, I'd feel a little less cheated.

But anyway, I like Steam just fine, as I only use it to buy Valve games.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Brick-and-mortar stores will sometimes attempt to dump excess physical inventory by cutting prices ahead of the curve. Steam, not dealing in physical inventory, doesn't need to resort to this tactic.

Because of this there's a prevailing opinion among publishers (can't remember where i read this) that being a digital download it's value never depreciates, because its not taking up any physical space.

For example COD4 is still full retail price of £29.99 two years after its release and at one point i recall it costing £49.99 or so, this is probably where the current retail price hike is coming from, the people who bought it for that price on steam.

You're probably right. I note that FEAR 2 is still full-price on Steam (aside from a brief period when it was on sale) at $50 almost 8 months after release. I can't imagine it being still so popular that a price drop is unthinkable, so I believe that the publisher simply doesn't feel incentive to lower the price because there's no "excess inventory" to get out of the way in digital shopfronts.