Samhain
Junior Member
So, Summer is that time of year I only look forward to for a couple of reasons. Aside from chicks in bikinis walking the streets of Southern California, it's mostly the Steam Summer Sale. However, now that we're into Day 4, I have to say I'm somewhat underwhelmed by the choices this year. Maybe it's just because I own all the games worth buying already. But the other thing is that Valve has made a business decision for the first time since the launch of Steam that I wholeheartedly disagree with.
When Steam first launched I was skeptical about it, but as time went on I began to understand how awesome it was and, more importantly, how awesome it could be as a catalyst for independent game development. I love everything about Steam. Greenlight is a program that has shown some huge success and a lot of what gets made out of it is high quality. And Early Access development has also been a pretty big success too, and is serving to fund projects that might never see the light of day under the big gaming studios. But with that comes a price, and that price has been all too apparent during this years summer sale. Where are the new releases? There are a ton of early access games "on sale" during the summer sale, taking the place of slots that could be filled with actual, developed games. And the games I would like to gain Early Access to are either not on sale or vastly overpriced. For example, Wasteland 2 has been on my Wishlist since I first saw it was in development on Steam. I watched the trailers and immediately grew excited at the prospect of a true Fallout successor (though I won't say that I was entirely disappointed with Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas was easily one of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing, but neither felt like the true Fallout experience that I thought they should be). That excitement grew into trepidation as I read the reviews of the Early Access. Clearly the game isn't finished yet, but I also want to support the development effort, but $60 is just too much of a price to pay for a game that is barely in beta stages. So, naturally, when Steam's Summer Sale came along I thought maybe it would pop up. It did, at a whopping 33% off, bringing the total price down to $40.19. Now, don't get me wrong, 33% is a decent enough drop, but the question is should developers be charging full price for a game that hasn't even been developed to begin with? You're essentially reserving a product, in the hopes that, at some future point, it will be good, even though you know it's not good right now.
On top of that, other games that have been out for a bit aren't showing much sign of budging their price tags either. South Park: The Stick of Truth was something I was looking hard at since I'm a fan of the cartoons and RPGs (and apparently the RPG element is done well, and the development of the game in general is sound), but the price drop is the same for it as it is for Wasteland 2, $40.19. One game that I wouldn't mind getting Early Access for is DayZ, but it still remains at a stubborn $29.99.
The Summer Sales of the past usually involved me spending hundreds of dollars on various titles, some of which I still haven't even touched, but many which I played and enjoyed, but this year is looking like a lot of the same games from either last years Summer Sale or last years Winter Sale. So, is there some sort of existential crisis within the gaming development community that I'm unaware of where they haven't made as many titles in the past year or so? Or is this simply the case of Steam's Summer Sale not living up to expectations based upon previous performances? Because, as of now I have bought a couple of titles, but I feel like my bill for the end of this Summer Sale may remain in the double digits this year because I simply cannot justify paying full price for any game any more unless I'm committed to the franchise (i.e. Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series or BioWare's Mass Effect, etc.). Anyone else feeling underwhelmed this year as well?
When Steam first launched I was skeptical about it, but as time went on I began to understand how awesome it was and, more importantly, how awesome it could be as a catalyst for independent game development. I love everything about Steam. Greenlight is a program that has shown some huge success and a lot of what gets made out of it is high quality. And Early Access development has also been a pretty big success too, and is serving to fund projects that might never see the light of day under the big gaming studios. But with that comes a price, and that price has been all too apparent during this years summer sale. Where are the new releases? There are a ton of early access games "on sale" during the summer sale, taking the place of slots that could be filled with actual, developed games. And the games I would like to gain Early Access to are either not on sale or vastly overpriced. For example, Wasteland 2 has been on my Wishlist since I first saw it was in development on Steam. I watched the trailers and immediately grew excited at the prospect of a true Fallout successor (though I won't say that I was entirely disappointed with Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas was easily one of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing, but neither felt like the true Fallout experience that I thought they should be). That excitement grew into trepidation as I read the reviews of the Early Access. Clearly the game isn't finished yet, but I also want to support the development effort, but $60 is just too much of a price to pay for a game that is barely in beta stages. So, naturally, when Steam's Summer Sale came along I thought maybe it would pop up. It did, at a whopping 33% off, bringing the total price down to $40.19. Now, don't get me wrong, 33% is a decent enough drop, but the question is should developers be charging full price for a game that hasn't even been developed to begin with? You're essentially reserving a product, in the hopes that, at some future point, it will be good, even though you know it's not good right now.
On top of that, other games that have been out for a bit aren't showing much sign of budging their price tags either. South Park: The Stick of Truth was something I was looking hard at since I'm a fan of the cartoons and RPGs (and apparently the RPG element is done well, and the development of the game in general is sound), but the price drop is the same for it as it is for Wasteland 2, $40.19. One game that I wouldn't mind getting Early Access for is DayZ, but it still remains at a stubborn $29.99.
The Summer Sales of the past usually involved me spending hundreds of dollars on various titles, some of which I still haven't even touched, but many which I played and enjoyed, but this year is looking like a lot of the same games from either last years Summer Sale or last years Winter Sale. So, is there some sort of existential crisis within the gaming development community that I'm unaware of where they haven't made as many titles in the past year or so? Or is this simply the case of Steam's Summer Sale not living up to expectations based upon previous performances? Because, as of now I have bought a couple of titles, but I feel like my bill for the end of this Summer Sale may remain in the double digits this year because I simply cannot justify paying full price for any game any more unless I'm committed to the franchise (i.e. Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series or BioWare's Mass Effect, etc.). Anyone else feeling underwhelmed this year as well?
