Originally Posted by Idiotekque Yup, I'm pretty sure it was $15. Came with most of the older GTA games (not IV, I don't think) and also had Midnight Club 2. Not sure if it had anything else (other than Bully). I'm sure it'll be cheaper next time around.

It was GTA Vice City, GTA San Adreas, Midnight Club 2, Bully, and Max Payne 2 for $15. All Steam codes.

It allowed me to play Midnight Club 2 while waiting for the mildly disappointing Steam summer sales.

Originally Posted by nategator I would think any sales rep worth his salt wouldn't mind feedback. It's an opportunity to address concerns head-on and possibly turn a current/future lost sale into a sale. If you believe in your product or service.

Yes and no. It's good unless it turns your presence into a focal point for tons of negativity (usually from a select minority) which drives people away from your service because all they see is a river of bitching. Then it's having the opposite of the intended effect. Face it, some people just aren't reasonable and no amount of sane customer service will make them so, especially when they know they have a public forum and the captive ear of a company scapegoat.

I'm not at all implying that's what's happening here. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.

I feel a little bad that I can't contribute to Tony's data gathering by using his coupon but my backlog is just too large right now, even for $22.50 Sleeping Dogs. It hurts my soul a little just to say that but I need to stay strong for a bit and play some of these games. If it makes you feel better, Tony, Amazon got all my cash on the front end

Originally Posted by Amazon DVG Deals Upcoming Deals Everyone! Deal of the Week: 10/7-10/13 Fear Pack: $9.99 Fear 1 Fear 2 Fear 3 Batman Pack: $9.99 Batman Arkham City Batman Arkham Asylum Both WB Packs activate on Steam. Vessel: $4.99 - DRM Free Battlefield 3: $9.99 - Saturday, 10/6 Only Cheers, Tony

Tony, is there any chance that the Batman pack can be altered so it contains the Harley Quinn's Revenge too? Or a separate deal for it? I already have Batman: AC on Steam, but he DLC is not available in my region. I would love if I had a chance to grab a Steam redeemable copy from Amazon

Mmm... Amazon is attacking my wallet again. Great deals Tony.

Tony,

Any chance of matching the THQ Steam weekend deal on Darksiders II?

Originally Posted by jshackles Tony, Any chance of matching the THQ Steam weekend deal on Darksiders II?

And the new DLCs too? A bundle deal with all the DLC would be great!

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Question for you folks has Darksiders (the original) ever been below 10 dollars? Wondering if I should wait or not on that.

Originally Posted by gomikeoh Question for you folks has Darksiders (the original) ever been below 10 dollars? Wondering if I should wait or not on that.

Yes. The original hits $5 consistently and might have even been cheaper in a bundle I think. In fact I have an extra steam key you could have for $2.50 if you want.

Yes. $5 repeatedly, and Gamestop gave away 10,000 Steam codes. Wait for $5 or a THQ bundle on Amazon.

Originally Posted by Fozbot And the new DLCs too? A bundle deal with all the DLC would be great!

Yeah, I would only need the DLCs though

I will never pre-order THQ games again, they always get at least 50% off very soon. Hell even Darksiders 2 was 50% off on THQ store for pre-order last November !

Originally Posted by HisDivineShadow As long as you are paying what you feel is a great price at the time, you shouldn't do anything with future sales for the same game digitally except learn perhaps from the sales pattern with said publisher and/or said franchise and wait longer next time. If you can wait. Never underestimate how much having that game an extra month can be worth to some people. That's the reason many people pay $60 for a game when I will NEVER pay $60 for a game. Not ever.

That's the heart of the issue, right there. Buying a game isn't just about the price of the game when you buy it; it's about the price of the game relative to future anticipated price drops. If you think you're going to get enjoyment from a game between now and the next price drop, you'll buy it now. If you have a huge backlog, and you know you're not actually going to play a game before its next sale, you'll hold off.

Unless you only buy games that are 90% off, there's always a chance that you're buying something today that could be available cheaper tomorrow.

Originally Posted by walkonshadows I looked at that too, fortunately all the dlc can be purchased directly through Steam, I thought it might be only theough Games for Windows Live Marketplace (looking at you Bioshock 2), but even at this price it's a steal, and you could wait for the winter sale for the DLC. Still waiting to see if securom is included though.

Rocksteady has yet to remove SecuROM from either Batman title. Until they do, I won't buy the games at any price. (I know that Amazon has a policy of giving out fresh keys when the limited activations expire, but I'm pretty sure the second key would have to be non-Steam; and buying a game shackled by SecuROM is giving tacit encouragement to the developer to keep adding that crap to future games.)

Originally Posted by Mac the Geek Rocksteady has yet to remove SecuROM from either Batman title. Until they do, I won't buy the games at any price. (I know that Amazon has a policy of giving out fresh keys when the limited activations expire, but I'm pretty sure the second key would have to be non-Steam; and buying a game shackled by SecuROM is giving tacit encouragement to the developer to keep adding that crap to future games.)

Interesting argument. I applaud you fighting for the rest of us by holding off buying a product you want. I only wish I shared your discipline. Alas, the Amazon activation key solution is good enough for me.

Tony please say you'll be matching the THQ sale. I want the Darksiders 2 season pass and would love to use the coupon too

I'm fine with a month between price drops. Price drops don't annoy me unless they happen in a very short period of time. For example, Trendy putting DD on sale right before the summer sale and the Jade Empire fiasco.

One suggestion. If you're going to start doing the coupon thing more frequently, then please give the coupon out on Sunday. I imagine there may be some folks who bought one of your current bundles early and is now irked that it's $2.50 cheaper 3 days later.

Originally Posted by Amazon DVG Deals Again, just curious what you think the time frame between promotions should be? Or if you're suggesting that we don't test out pricing to see what works? I'm happy to alleviate customer frustration, and strive to do so regularly. Understand that feedback like this will absolutely result in fewer bundle deals getting re-run at better prices though.

I firmly believe that from a business POV, it's better for you to ignore cries of "ahhhhh this was three cents cheaper on the third of November 1991!" as 90% of your customers don't know/care. You could do some form of survey/poll to get a more reliable number, but customers tend to be annoyed by those.
There is nothing wrong with some form of 'sale' being, for example, not a good deal as the one before/after -- unless Amazon prevents one from buying at a set sale price (happened to me once when I bought three or four copies of DoW2R and apparently did this with so much enthusiasm that Amazon cancelled all my orders and didn't let me buy again until after the sale). Of course it could be in bad taste to promote a 50% sale of a recent product very strongly and then have a 75% off sale just two weeks later - but there what needs more improvement is the email sale communication. Amazon should know what games I might want and tell me about sales the moment they go on sale. It's useless to me if I get an email about it after the sale ended or as it's about to end, and it's unhelpful if I only get an email a week in advance, as few people are going to be so excited over a game sale that they write it into their schedule or set a phone alarm or what do I know. And by tuning the emails, you can also tune how heavily you promote a sale, and then all you need to do is just use common sense to not over-hype a sale that you'll massively undercut a few days later..

(What CAGers need to accept in this context is that there can't be a new 99% off Skyrim deal every week, $10 for 2x Batman or $10 for 3x FEAR is still pretty damn acceptable.)

P.S.: You can sure pander to people here via "we might have this even cheaper in a month!", but.. I guess you don't always know that, and I don't know if you'd always want to reveal it.

Originally Posted by Mac the Geek Rocksteady has yet to remove SecuROM from either Batman title. Until they do, I won't buy the games at any price. (I know that Amazon has a policy of giving out fresh keys when the limited activations expire, but I'm pretty sure the second key would have to be non-Steam; and buying a game shackled by SecuROM is giving tacit encouragement to the developer to keep adding that crap to future games.)

Agreed, even if Amazon gave you a new key it would have to be a non-Steam one to work. If the Securom DRM locks you out the Steam DRM won't know this. It just knows that according to Steam you own the game, so it won't let you register another key. You already own it.

In theory I suppose you might be able to get Valve to remove your original key so you can re-register a new one from Amazon but A) Good luck explaining that to a Valve CSR and getting them to understand and go a long and B) Who wants to go through all that headache?

Basically even with Amazon's policy, if Securom locks you out of a Steam game you are pretty much locked out of having it on Steam for good.

Originally Posted by MysterD I don't know, but does anyone know if FIFA 12 and FIFA 13 require Origin to run to actually play?

If you want to have a meaningful multiplayer experience, Origin's definitely required, and playing against the AI gets very .. formulaic very quickly. They're of course still infinitely better than any game KONAMI have came up with in the last half-decade. At least 13 requires it to launch; if this really helps you I can see what happens when I kill it while the game is running?

Originally Posted by Daykain Also there is no other DD site I can think of that has price drops and will credit accounts for the difference. It is up to you as the consumer to decide at what price point you buy at. Just my 2 cents.

Well, when GMG offered different preorder prices for a game and reduced it after I ordered, I yelled at them to have the difference thrown onto my account there. But yeah, for non-preorder cases, yes .

Originally Posted by Greyghost In theory I suppose you might be able to get Valve to remove your original key so you can re-register a new one from Amazon but A) Good luck explaining that to a Valve CSR and getting them to understand and go a long and B) Who wants to go through all that headache?

Getting Steam support to remove a subscription from your account is super-easy.

Originally Posted by Greyghost Agreed, even if Amazon gave you a new key it would have to be a non-Steam one to work. If the Securom DRM locks you out the Steam DRM won't know this. It just knows that according to Steam you own the game, so it won't let you register another key. You already own it. In theory I suppose you might be able to get Valve to remove your original key so you can re-register a new one from Amazon but A) Good luck explaining that to a Valve CSR and getting them to understand and go a long and B) Who wants to go through all that headache? Basically even with Amazon's policy, if Securom locks you out of a Steam game you are pretty much locked out of having it on Steam for good.

Let's look at exactly what we're talking about:

• Batman: Arkham Asylum;
  • Non-GotY Edition: 4 activations per month. A revoke tool is available in your Steam Tools section.
  • GotY Edition: 4 machine limit. Revoke using /revoke parameter.
• Batman: Arkham City; 5 machine limit, 10 activations per machine

http://steamdrm.flibitijibibo.com/in...e_Big_DRM_List


So, in order to run into a Steam issue, you would need to either be the type of person that needs to activate their game more than 4 times per month for AA or want to activate more than 5 machines or more than 10 activations per machine. And even if you do that, you still get a new code free from Amazon. How many CAGers readers of this thread would you estimate that would run into an activation limit during their normal gaming life? My guess is 0, but just in case for the random odd person that does run into a problem -- Amazon has your back too by providing a solution. It may not be a perfect solution in all situations, but my guess is that if I am installing the same game on 5 different machines and still want to play it, I can live with playing a non-Steam version.

I think you are more likely to run into an OS issue (Batman AC not being compatible with Windows 13) than an activation limit, unless you are professionally testing games for publication.



Some activation limits are draconian and a reason for not making a purchase (for example, some past Ubisoft DRM before they went to Uplay). These games do not fall into that category.

And whoops on my confusion between Rockstar and Rocksteady.

Re: time between promotions. Welcome to the world of digital download promotions. No one can complain about things going on sale for cheaper at a later date -- it is the nature of the beast. Hell, this is true in pretty much all walks of life. Set a price in your head of what you're willing to pay for something and stick to it.

Originally Posted by Luckz I Getting Steam support to remove a subscription from your account is super-easy.

Really? I certainly had no luck doing so.