The Steam Deal Thread V6. We're all pumped for CAG 3.0!

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Welcome to the Steam Deal Thread V6! You can find link to past threads at the bottom of this post. Read post #2 of this thread for Steam FAQs and more.

With the V6 Thread, we're trying a slight formatting change. We used to list every possible Steam deal in the OP, but they change too frequently for anyone to keep up with (even in the Wiki format). So now, we'll leave regular minor sales out of the OP. This post will keep track of major sales (Winter sale, etc.), Steam deals available through other sellers (like Amazon), Preorder deals, and Group Buys.

I would still greatly appreciate help from you folks at home in keeping this smaller-scale OP up-to-date. This is a Wiki post so anyone can contribute. Wiki instructions:
Thanks for your help! If you notice a sale has ended, feel free to delete its line from the sale list. Of course, if you see something does need to be added, then kindly add it to the list.

Make sure your changes match the thread's format! For example, every game that's on sale is part of an unordered list. When adding a game to the list, copy an existing line and update the link, title, and prices. That way, the format stays correct. Do not list percentages off! We list the original price and the sale price here. If you have any suggestions for major changes to the post/thread, PM me (EastX) about them.

Steam Sales - Updated 1/22


CAG Threads Featuring Steam Games on Sale Elsewhere - Updated 1/9


Preorder Deals - Updated 1/10
Group Buy Deals - Updated 1/9/13
Several multiplayer Steam games are available in 2-packs or 4-packs. These packs offer a discount over buying multiple copies of a game separately. We also maintain group buy trade threads for several games, so please use those threads if you're interested in setting up a group buy.


Free Stuff - List needs updating with F2P games!
There are several free games and mods on Steam. These are a few choice ones; you can find a full list here. Note that free games are not permanently attached to your Steam account like actual purchases would be. You'll need to manually download a game again from the website if you uninstall it.


Steam around CAG

If you are interested in joining the Steam CAG Community or participating in a trade or group buy with fellow Cheap Ass Gamers, please do so in the dedicated threads and not in the deal discussion thread. In the dedicated threads you will find CAGers with the same specialized interest who will be much quicker (and happier) to respond than in the Deals thread.

Past Special Sales

Visit www.steamgamesales.com to check previous sale prices on Steam games. We do keep track of some older sales here though:

Steam Retail Key List

What is a CD key and where can I find it?

Steam's explanation and list of Steam-activatable keys

The CD Key is a serial number with a combination of 13, 18, or 25 letters and numbers - it can be found on a sticker inside your game's case or printed on the game's quick reference card. The CD Key acts as your proof of purchase for the game - Steam Support may ask for it if you need to establish your ownership of an account. It is recommended that you keep your CD Key in a safe place to ensure the security of your account.

Other Keys that can be redeemed on Steam (CAG tested & verified)
11.gif

  • The Ball (bought @D2D, tested by voken)
  • Supreme Commander Forged Alliance (gives both FA and original, bought @amazon, tested by vism)

Indie Bundles thread on Steam forums (link)

Past CAG Steam Deal Threads
 
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I'm sure this comment will be disagreed with vehemently, but I think always online DRM doesn't have that big of a practical effect for PC gamers during the lifespan of the game. I think it's overblown and a silly complaint once you get past launch-window issues.

Look at it this way, would you be willing to suffer online-always DRM in exchange for a $10 discount at launch? I would. In theory, keeping pirates out means more profit for them, so they should be able to discount the game.

The problem is that EA is asking $60, gonna whore DLC, it's always-online DRM, and poorly executed (server issues, etc.).
 
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I was thinking, it's been too long since I've seen a shift code... here are two new one, 5 keys each
KJWJ3-SCBFK-S5F3J-JBBB3-BHCJ3
K35JT-B3FXC-ZCFJB-BTTBB-CFHRT
 
[quote name='asheskitty']I was thinking, it's been too long since I've seen a shift code... here are two new one, 5 keys each
KJWJ3-SCBFK-S5F3J-JBBB3-BHCJ3
K35JT-B3FXC-ZCFJB-BTTBB-CFHRT[/QUOTE]

Thank you for posting these. I haven't even played BL2 in at least 2-3 months, but I keep redeeming these keys. It'll be super nice when I get around to playing again.
 
[quote name='Eldredpe']I've solved that problem by responding with "I like to drink and play computer games."[/QUOTE]
I tell them "I get drunk off my ass and go to cat shows". The disgust evens out to computer game playing levels.
 
[quote name='Syntax Error']I tell them "I get drunk off my ass and go to cat shows". The disgust evens out to computer game playing levels.[/QUOTE]

Pfft. I get my cat drunk off his ass and take him to the titty bars
 
[quote name='BigSpoonyBard']Pfft. I get my cat drunk off his ass and take him to the titty bars[/QUOTE]

Cat-with-Beer.jpg


It's random things like this that make me love this thread.
 
[quote name='Motoki']So my two cents on Sim City 2013 is that I agree with you on the more casual nature of it. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing but I don't know that it's necessarily Sim City either.

I do, however, somewhat resent the trying to almost force people into the social features and really what almost feels like a Facebookization at times. I mean the whole 'visit your neighbor's city' is very Farmville.

I think the nerdrage is somewhat justified because all of this social and hence the always online nature of the game (and the not being able to play the game the some have experienced because of it) could have, and in my opinion, should have been made optional. I don't care if it's there but let people play the game however they want. No good can come from trying to force people to play a way they don't want to play.

I feel like it's arrogance. This is how our game is and this is how you should play it. Why? It reminds me of Johnathan Blow in Indie Game: The Movie going on and on about how people were not getting his artistic vision and how they were 'doing it wrong'. Or maybe they just got enjoyment out of playing his game in a different way than he intended and maybe that's not a bad thing.

I know people who play The Sims and never actually created a single Sim. They just build houses and basically use it as an architectural simulator. It's not wrong, it's just different. If they get enjoyment out of playing that way who cares? Would it help those players if you arbitrarily tried to force them to make sim families and advance in careers in order to get to the building part? No, it will just piss those people off and drive them away, and those are people who want to like the game.

I feel like they are doing this with Sim City 2013. These issues came up time and time again in interviews prior to the game and they refuse to listen. I never have read a good reason for the forced integration of the social features and always online DRM that comes hand and hand with that. The arguments always read to me like 'Because we want it that way'.

I can also say that I first hand experienced EA's servers glitching out in the past and not letting me play a game that I paid for because of their connection scheme that failed (Dragon Age: Origins) and it sucks and does piss people off.

But back to this whole social/always online Sim City business, if it's an EA thing because they think is will cut down on piracy and Blizzard got away with it and/or they still think social gaming is hot shit and PC gaming needs more of it to attract the masses and issued some mandate then call a spade a spade. But if it's just the people who made the game trying to force everyone to play it their way then they are being asses as far as I'm concerned.

/soapbox.[/QUOTE]

Not attacking you Motoki as we are all CAGs here, but so why did you buy it then? Knowing pre-launch that this was going to be the case. Vote with your dollars, man! You've certainly convinced me to hold off at least until they remove the always-online DRM.

[quote name='asheskitty']Blah, exactly when did computer games become all social and socially acceptable?

It kinda makes me miss the days when the answer to the question, "So do you have any hobbies?" of "I like to play computer games." was only slightly more acceptable than "I like to drink." but at the same time less socially acceptable than "I go to cat shows every weekend."[/QUOTE]

If I wanted to be social I'd go outside!
 
[quote name='annihilator']Not attacking you Motoki as we are all CAGs here, but so why did you buy it then? Knowing pre-launch that this was going to be the case. Vote with your dollars, man! You've certainly convinced me to hold off at least until they remove the always-online DRM.

If I wanted to be social I'd go outside![/QUOTE]

I didn't buy it, I played the private invite only beta a few weeks back.

I was going to clarify that but the reply was already getting TL;DR'y.

I should also state that I didn't absolutely loathe the game and it does have some fun aspects, but that forced social/always online business really lowers the value for me so I'm mentally filing it in my $10 or GTFO drawer.
 
New Groupee Digital Games Factory Bundle
http://groupees.com/dgf


Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (Steam & DRM free)
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty (Steam & DRM free)
Commanods 2: men of Courage (Steam & DRM Free)
Commandos 3: Destination Berlin (Steam & DRM free)
Broken sword Director's Cut (Steam)
Broken Sword 2 (Steam)
Imperial Glory (DRM free)
Preadtorians (DRM Free)
 
[quote name='iSerra']New Groupee Digital Games Factory Bundle
http://groupees.com/dgf


Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (Steam & DRM free)
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty (Steam & DRM free)
Commanods 2: men of Courage (Steam & DRM Free)
Commandos 3: Destination Berlin (Steam & DRM free)
Broken sword Director's Cut (Steam)
Broken Sword 2 (Steam)
Imperial Glory (DRM free)
Preadtorians (DRM Free)[/QUOTE]

Eesh. Those are all repeats, mostly from Gala.
 
[quote name='BigSpoonyBard']Pfft. I get my cat drunk off his ass and take him to the titty bars[/QUOTE]

Surely you mean "kitty" bars. . . . (EDIT: naturally everyone beat me to that! :) )

[quote name='Eldredpe']Uh, what exactly is the issue you're having with being unable to get games to save?

Have you created a virtual memory card in the Playstation One save utility area on the XMB?[/QUOTE]

It's been a while since I even attempted to mess with this. I bought Syphon Filter a couple of years ago when I got my system, played for a while, tried to save, failed because I didn't have this virtual memory card. At that point I tried to set it up, tried playing SF again, went to save and was told that no place to save existed. That was when I quit fooling with it.


[quote name='MysterD']If people are buying the game and having issues w/ downloading; activating; and staying connected (and the problem's obviously on EA's end and not yours); and losing saved-game progress - then yes, it's a problem.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with this; any game that's built around having always-on functionality should have stable servers, et cetera at launch. History suggests that this never happens (I'm looking at you, Diablo III and Assassins Creed II), but it should.

[quote name='travathian']Your assumption is that everyone who purchased it somehow kept up with every developing story and tidbit on the game, and knows the full impact of shitty DRM. [/QUOTE]

Um, no, it's not. My assumption is that people who paid $60 for a game read at least one article about it; otherwise I would be forced to conclude that they aren't all that concerned about how they spend their money and therefore shouldn't have gods-wroth-worthy ragefits about such matters.
 
[quote name='fignutz32']Www.livenudecats.com :hot:[/QUOTE]

Wait what? That's a thing? I'm at work so not clicking through in case the 'cats' part is alluding to a synonym...

Also kinda Hopes Deleted on the Groupees bundle but I guess it's nice for people who may have missed some of those past Gala bundles.
 
[quote name='dfg']Eesh. Those are all repeats, mostly from Gala.[/QUOTE]

It even has an annoying BTA/non-BTA split - the first Broken Sword game and Commandos 3 are in the $4 bracket, while the other games from those series are in the $1 bracket.

If they'd put Commandos 2 & 3 in the $1 tier, I'd have bought it for sake of completion, but as-is I don't think that it's worth the extra $3 for Commandos 3.
 
[quote name='warreni']Um, no, it's not. My assumption is that people who paid $60 for a game read at least one article about it; otherwise I would be forced to conclude that they aren't all that concerned about how they spend their money and therefore shouldn't have gods-wroth-worthy ragefits about such matters.[/QUOTE]


If it was a new game I would give you that but I think when you slap a big well known title on a game you're going to get a certain segment of people who will buy the game based on positive experience with a past version of that title alone and EA knows this.

The Dragon Age 2 uproar definitely points to this. A lot of people were expecting, you know, Dragon Age 1 Part II which I don't think is that unreasonable.

There were lots and lots of lots of arguments (hey this is the internet) back and forth over whether or not people should be expected to research a game before they buy it, but I'm still sticking my opinion that putting an established name on a game is intentionally marketing to fans of the past iterations some of whom will come into it not entirely unreasonably expecting the new product to live up to their experience with that franchise.

I think we live in a bit of a connected in on all the lastest gaming news micrcosm, but I could totally see a much more casual player, like my sister for instance, thinking 'Oh I remember Sim City!' and buying the game based on that and being surprised at some of the changes and new requirements.

Also if I game is not an MMO then I don't think it's all that unreasonable to expect that it won't require a constant internet connection because 99% of non-MMO PC games don't. Hell even Ubisoft has reversed themselves in that regard lately.

Anyway, tired argument is tired. I think we can all agree that an informed consumer is a better consumer but I also think the reality is that a lot of consumers aren't going to be that well informed, particularly when they see a name they are familiar with and have positive past experience with, and I think EA is even counting on this.
 
Psh. Who cares about always online DRM? Aren't your mom's basements wired for internet? ISPs never have issues and once a server goes online it's permanent with no downtime. Crybabies.

This message brought to you by publishers everywhere in the next 10 years.
 
[quote name='Motoki']
Anyway, tired argument is tired. I think we can all agree that an informed consumer is a better consumer but I also think the reality is that a lot of consumers aren't going to be that well informed, particularly when they see a name they are familiar with and have positive past experience with, and I think EA is even counting on this.[/QUOTE]

Fair enough.
 
[quote name='Detruire']It even has an annoying BTA/non-BTA split - the first Broken Sword game and Commandos 3 are in the $4 bracket, while the other games from those series are in the $1 bracket.

If they'd put Commandos 2 & 3 in the $1 tier, I'd have bought it for sake of completion, but as-is I don't think that it's worth the extra $3 for Commandos 3.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose.

I think most folks have at least some permutation of these titles if not all of them from previous bundles. I might be inclined to toss in a buck if Mob Rule were unlocked as a bonus, but otherwise it's a pass.
 
I figured by now all this would be old news. Devs are moving towards more control, more online requirements, etc. Despite all the issues I still expect Sim City to sell craploads of copies and I still expect EA to keep moving in that direction. I also expect other devs to follow suit and "integrate social media" into their games to mask DRM.
 
[quote name='Motoki']Wait what? That's a thing? I'm at work so not clicking through in case the 'cats' part is alluding to a synonym...[/QUOTE]

It's actually even worse than that. It's actually a book that's being sold on Amazon, B&N, and...Borders? You can tell the site hasn't been updated in a while. That's another joke that was taken too far; it's okay as a website, but when you put it in print...

Also, asheskitty didn't respond to the website talk...maybe we uncovered some dirt from her past? ;)

Back when she was young and impurrsionable:

lol_chargeextra.jpg
 
[quote name='asheskitty']Clogged streets: SimCity launch plagued by server problems
Download problems, hanging loads, and queues to enter games greet new players.


Wow, login queues for a single player game... it's Diablo III all over again.[/QUOTE]

What a bummer. Every time someone counters complaints of this with, "so? I'm always online," you have to remind them that EA is not. I'm always online too, although SimCity, unlike something like Assassins Creed, would make a good airplane game. You can experience that game without taking advantage of the online features, but you can't do it if a connection or capacity issue stands between you and the EA servers. That sucks and shouldn't be there.

Some like to argue that Steam is always online DRM. While it's true that the offline mode isn't great and could stand some work, I don't lose access to my library because my cable goes out or because Steam's servers go offline for maintenance. Last night when I went to download Tropico I couldn't connect to Steam for 5-10 minutes so I scrolled up to Proteus and played that for a bit until I could download the game. Now that it's downloaded I can disconnect and play all I want.
 
[quote name='louiedog']What a bummer. Every time someone counters complaints of this with, "so? I'm always online," you have to remind them that EA is not. I'm always online too, although SimCity, unlike something like Assassins Creed, would make a good airplane game. You can experience that game without taking advantage of the online features, but you can't do it if a connection or capacity issue stands between you and the EA servers. That sucks and shouldn't be there.

Some like to argue that Steam is always online DRM. While it's true that the offline mode isn't great and could stand some work, I don't lose access to my library because my cable goes out or because Steam's servers go offline for maintenance. Last night when I went to download Tropico I couldn't connect to Steam for 5-10 minutes so I scrolled up to Proteus and played that for a bit until I could download the game. Now that it's downloaded I can disconnect and play all I want.[/QUOTE]

But you still didn't have access to the game you wanted to play. You had to play something else. That and we're getting closer to phones on planes so the lack of internet is really not going to be a big factor for most people.
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']But you still didn't have access to the game you wanted to play. You had to play something else. That and we're getting closer to phones on planes so the lack of internet is really not going to be a big factor for most people.[/QUOTE]

Right, because the distribution method was down for 5-10 minutes. 10 years ago I'd have to wait for an online vendor to ship it to me or spend 40 minutes going to the store. And that's only because it happened to be during that store's operating hours. If it'd happened at 10:30 I'd have had no options.

Maybe I should also elaborate some more. I don't really care about it being always online. I care that it's working against a lot of people right now. I care that there are lines to play a game by yourself (PS Home? Is that you?) and server disconnects that have resulted in people losing progress of up to a few hours.

Online game distribution seems to be a balancing act of convenience, features, stability, etc. Valve had issues with Steam at HL2's launch but they got it together. EA is having that problem now, 9 years later, but even worse in the way it seems to be impacting people. Their balance is way off and is more bad than good. Steam, which set the standard awhile ago, doesn't have those issues. EA, and maybe the Internet, is not ready at this stage of what they're trying to do, and what it is that they're trying to do is more for their benefit than the consumer's. It's not about convenience or features for their customers.
 
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[quote name='iSerra']New Groupee Digital Games Factory Bundle
http://groupees.com/dgf[/QUOTE]

Nice bundle if you've never bought an Indiegala. Otherwise it's completely made up of duplicates. The first bonus, however, is Commandos 4, and that would be something new.

[quote name='Blade']It's actually even worse than that. It's actually a book that's being sold on Amazon, B&N, and...Borders? You can tell the site hasn't been updated in a while. That's another joke that was taken too far; it's okay as a website, but when you put it in print...[/quote]

...you can put it on a coffee table. Or give it as a gag gift. Makes plenty of sense.
 
[quote name='louiedog']Right, because the distribution method was down for 5-10 minutes. 10 years ago I'd have to wait for an online vendor to ship it to me or spend 40 minutes going to the store. And that's only because it happened to be during that store's operating hours. If it'd happened at 10:30 I'd have had no options.

Maybe I should also elaborate some more. I don't really care about it being always online. I care that it's working against a lot of people right now. I care that there are lines to play a game by yourself (PS Home? Is that you?) and server disconnects that have resulted in people losing progress of up to a few hours.

Online game distribution seems to be a balancing act of convenience, features, stability, etc. Valve had issues with Steam at HL2's launch but they got it together. EA is having that problem now, 9 years later, but even worse in the way it seems to be impacting people. Their balance is way off and is more bad than good. Steam, which set the standard awhile ago, doesn't have those issues. EA, and maybe the Internet, is not ready at this stage of what they're trying to do, and what it is that they're trying to do is more for their benefit than the consumer's. It's not about convenience or features for their customers.[/QUOTE]

I think the real problem with SimCity has to be the fact that SimCity was a singleplayer game throughout it's life cycle (minus network edition), and well now people are annoyed that they can't play the game offline in a singleplayer type mode (instead facing this crashing, not saving, not being able to play at all, etc, problems). I am sure EA wouldn't be facing so much backlash if they allowed users an offline gameplay mode. I don't care that it's always online. I do care however that I can't even play a region by myself because my game keeps crashing because of server errors.
 
What I don't understand is why the game can't save locally, then simply push it to the cloud when a connection is found? The whole communities thing doesn't truly prevent that, and it is baffling that no one at EA bothered to think of having a backup mechanism for saving progress. Cloud saves are cool and all, but they should be in addition to local saves, not a replacement for them.
 
[quote name='louiedog']Right, because the distribution method was down for 5-10 minutes. 10 years ago I'd have to wait for an online vendor to ship it to me or spend 40 minutes going to the store. And that's only because it happened to be during that store's operating hours. If it'd happened at 10:30 I'd have had no options.

Maybe I should also elaborate some more. I don't really care about it being always online. I care that it's working against a lot of people right now. I care that there are lines to play a game by yourself (PS Home? Is that you?) and server disconnects that have resulted in people losing progress of up to a few hours.

Online game distribution seems to be a balancing act of convenience, features, stability, etc. Valve had issues with Steam at HL2's launch but they got it together. EA is having that problem now, 9 years later, but even worse in the way it seems to be impacting people. Their balance is way off and is more bad than good. Steam, which set the standard awhile ago, doesn't have those issues. EA, and maybe the Internet, is not ready at this stage of what they're trying to do, and what it is that they're trying to do is more for their benefit than the consumer's. It's not about convenience or features for their customers.[/QUOTE]

I think that's a bit overblown. Origin is years behind Steam in formation, etc. If Steam is allowed their growing pains, Origin shouldn't be held to a higher standard because another company went through it.

Sim City is likely taxing their servers in a way they didn't anticipate and they are sorting through it. If it becomes a regular occurrence with big game launches then there is a concern, but if they just underestimated the demand for Sim City then no big deal. Learn from it and move on.

Whether it be a line you have to wait in to DL or the fact your DL speeds are horrible when everyone is DLing during the Steam sales, it's really the same difference to me. You take the good and the bad with digital distribution. Ideally we'll reach a point where it's all good and no bad, but until then it is what it is. Tomb Raider apparently had plenty of hiccups for some people, but Squeenix isn't the big bad monster EA is so the torches and pitchforks aren't out.
 
[quote name='gilby']...you can put it on a coffee table. Or give it as a gag gift. Makes plenty of sense.[/QUOTE]

It makes sense to sell nude pictures of cats as a book if you're the author--I doubt it costs much to produce, and people who are easily amused would love it for the first week. But it's in very poor taste to own a book like that, or to give it as a gift. "Cat porn" ranks up there with disgusting pictures of people from Wal-Mart in terms of print-worthiness. The Onion Book of Known Knowledge would be a much more tasteful alternative.
 
Crytek: Closed Single-Player Must Go
Crytek is seemingly out promoting is social network for games, Gface.

"I’m not saying that there will be no single-player experiences," he told IGN in an interview. "It could be it’s called Connected Single-Player or Online Single-Player instead."
Click to expand...


Management is drinking the Kool-Aide again. One thing I suspect there may be consensus on, is that there isn't room in the marketplace for a bazillion social networks.
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']I think that's a bit overblown. Origin is years behind Steam in formation, etc. If Steam is allowed their growing pains, Origin shouldn't be held to a higher standard because another company went through it.

Sim City is likely taxing their servers in a way they didn't anticipate and they are sorting through it. If it becomes a regular occurrence with big game launches then there is a concern, but if they just underestimated the demand for Sim City then no big deal. Learn from it and move on.

Whether it be a line you have to wait in to DL or the fact your DL speeds are horrible when everyone is DLing during the Steam sales, it's really the same difference to me. You take the good and the bad with digital distribution. Ideally we'll reach a point where it's all good and no bad, but until then it is what it is. Tomb Raider apparently had plenty of hiccups for some people, but Squeenix isn't the big bad monster EA is so the torches and pitchforks aren't out.[/QUOTE]

Yes, it's difficult, if not impossible to service the number of people trying to connect, especially when their server load will probably be 1/4 of what it is now within a month after launch. That doesn't excuse it. If people can't even install the game from a disc that they bought because the server is having issues, they shouldn't have built it that way. Like I said, EA, and maybe the internet infrastructure as a whole, isn't quite ready to tackle games operating like this. They shouldn't do it until they can do it properly. Right now they can't.

5 years ago streaming live events was crappy and barely worked. You'd be lucky to see the entire show without it dropping out or an almost unwatchable bitrate for part of it. Now streams from events like E3 are HD throughout. Of course those were free. We'll get to a point where EA can build games like this and people won't care because it'll work and not intrude. Until we're there, they shouldn't be selling $60 products that don't work at launch.

Steam's issues are a distribution problem. EA's are a more fundamental problem with the game itself. I think there's a big difference between, "it's going to take me longer to download this," and, "I have this installed and can't play it by myself," or, "I lost 2 hours of progress because the server crashed."

I'm not making EA out to be some boogeyman. I'm not that guy. I've praised them multiple times on these very forums for things like being quick to drop console games to reasonable prices. They have (or had, haven't checked lately) the best selection of $20 games on Xbox Live's GoD service which is plagued by ridiculous prices on old games from other publishers. They've put out some of my favorite games in the past few years. I don't vilify them for who they are, but when they provide customers with a terrible experience for reasons that were easily avoidable (there are plenty of games with lots of online features that don't behave this way) they need to be called on it.
 
My main issue with that is you don't know what is possible/needed until you try it. There are going to be issues, but you won't know all the issues until you try. There is no controlled environment for them to run through every scenario and be ready. Massive sites like Amazon still get overloaded and crash during major sales. I really dislike the idea of "don't try something until your ready" because it advocates stifling creativity or different things for fear of failure or hiccups that will get resolved.
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']My main issue with that is you don't know what is possible/needed until you try it. There are going to be issues, but you won't know all the issues until you try. There is no controlled environment for them to run through every scenario and be ready. Massive sites like Amazon still get overloaded and crash during major sales. I really dislike the idea of "don't try something until your ready" because it advocates stifling creativity or different things for fear of failure or hiccups that will get resolved.[/QUOTE]

If SimCity had an offline mode that people could fall back to when the stuff they're doing failed it wouldn't be the big deal that it is. If they'd made a free-to-play SimCity where this same exact stuff happened it wouldn't be the big deal that it is.
 
[quote name='louiedog']If SimCity had an offline mode that people could fall back to when the stuff they're doing failed it wouldn't be the big deal that it is. If they'd made a free-to-play SimCity where this same exact stuff happened it wouldn't be the big deal that it is.[/QUOTE]


But then you'd have complaints of "OMG I CAN'T EXPERIENCE THE FULL GAME WITHOUT GOING ONLINE OR BEING SOCIAL THIS SUCKS" or "OMG EVERYTHING IS GOING FREEMIUM/P2W AND I WISH THEY WOULD JUST MAKE A REGULAR GAME"

I think this as simple as EA wanted their game experienced online/socially and made it so that you had to do that. I think it's a game maker's right to have it so that you experience a game the way they feel it was meant to be played.
 
[quote name='BigSpoonyBard']Pfft. I get my cat drunk off his ass and take him to the titty bars[/QUOTE]

On weekends I like to drink antifreeze, then force close friends to drive me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped.

Also, I bring my cat.

For support.

And he's a drunk.

[quote name='iSerra']This is like the week where it is battle of the indie bundles, so which bundle takes the crown?[/QUOTE]

None of them. They're all pretty weak.
 
i had read a good article this Fall that analyzed if it made sense for Blizz to add more servers to handle the Diablo III launch surge (before things drop to normal/typical player activity levels in a month or two). I can't find it atm, but it concluded: No it didn't make sense for Blizz to add servers. I found this interesting and disappointing, as Blizz should have learned a lot from it's years running WoW servers daily and with Expansion-launch overload.

I think the solution to such overloaded-server based woes (excluding shoddy software here) is to make the servers more flexible so that they can utilize services like Amazon's EC2 to handle player surges (e.g. Launch, Expansions, Special in-game events.)
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']But then you'd have complaints of "OMG I CAN'T EXPERIENCE THE FULL GAME WITHOUT GOING ONLINE OR BEING SOCIAL THIS SUCKS" or "OMG EVERYTHING IS GOING FREEMIUM/P2W AND I WISH THEY WOULD JUST MAKE A REGULAR GAME"

I think this as simple as EA wanted their game experienced online/socially and made it so that you had to do that. I think it's a game maker's right to have it so that you experience a game the way they feel it was meant to be played.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. I'd much rather see a company make the game they want to make than bow to pressure about what they think the player wants. I support that, whether that's what they were going for here or not. But, and I'm going to keep going back to this, only if you can make it work. If this is what they needed to do for the game to work it should have been a rolling launch for those who pre-ordered or by lottery or something. You'd still have complaints, because it's the internet, but you wouldn't be taking money from people and then saying, "sorry, you can't play, but thanks for buying!"
 
[quote name='CheapLikeAFox']Tomb Raider apparently had plenty of hiccups for some people, but Squeenix isn't the big bad monster EA is so the torches and pitchforks aren't out.[/QUOTE]

I think the difference is that Square Enix didn't make a conscious decision about the way their game worked that bungled the PC launch of Tomb Raider, it was just plain ineptitude (they didn't get their final build to ATI/Nvidia in time to get drivers out to smooth out the graphical bugs). I'm sure because it's not EA that did that they got cut more slack, but the Tomb Raider issues should be fixed completely in the next few days with a gfx card driver update, whereas the issues SimCity have are inherent to the design of the game, even if those issues will also be likely unnoticeable after launch week server load issues go away.

Not really making a larger point there.

Just felt left out and wanted to argue a little.

[quote name='asheskitty']
I think the solution to such overloaded-server based woes (excluding shoddy software here) is to make the servers more flexible so that they can utilize services like Amazon's EC2 to handle player surges (e.g. Launch, Expansions, Special in-game events.)[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

Right now I assume that companies like EA have weighed the costs versus the PR issues they get from upset players and concluded that launching with the server power needed for their launch week to go smoothly isn't worthwhile when they need to scale back immediately afterwards, and that's why things like this continue to happen. It's a shame, but it's hard to blame them as a business.
 
[quote name='louiedog']Absolutely. I'd much rather see a company make the game they want to make than bow to pressure about what they think the player wants. I support that, whether that's what they were going for here or not. But, and I'm going to keep going back to this, only if you can make it work. If this is what they needed to do for the game to work it should have been a rolling launch for those who pre-ordered or by lottery or something. You'd still have complaints, because it's the internet, but you wouldn't be taking money from people and then saying, "sorry, you can't play, but thanks for buying!"[/QUOTE]


Possibly deviating from the point you're trying to make, but, that's why I kickstarted games from a few old developer teams. I'd gotten a bit dismayed at the amount of backer-feedback Fargo and crew were soliciting. I backed them to help them make the game they wanted to make, like the old days. I'm overblowing this a little, but it does veer in the direction of design-by-committee.

In contrast the Carmageddon Reincarnation kickstarter has been more one-way communication, e.g. look at these latest renders. (Though Carmageddon Reincarnation was different in that it was already under development before it took the kickstarter plunge. So for it was my first chance to "pre-order", and at $15 to boot, and perhaps help them with a larger development budget.)


Edit: Regarding a rolling launch. I think it's a solid idea, but I'm sure that EA wants to lock in pre-order/launch revenue before the chance for bad/user reviews. I'm not sure if tiered pre-order pricing would work, e.g. pay more to get it in week 1.
 
[quote name='louiedog']
Some like to argue that Steam is always online DRM. While it's true that the offline mode isn't great and could stand some work, I don't lose access to my library because my cable goes out or because Steam's servers go offline for maintenance. Last night when I went to download Tropico I couldn't connect to Steam for 5-10 minutes so I scrolled up to Proteus and played that for a bit until I could download the game. Now that it's downloaded I can disconnect and play all I want.[/QUOTE]


FWIW, I used to have issues with the Steam offline mode not working but they patched I want to say about 6 months or so ago and since then I and others I've read comments from have not had problems.

I still don't love that you have to know in advance to put yourself into offline mode or else if say the internet randomly conks out on you and you don't already have Steam running and try to launch it you won't be able to.

UPlay I think in this regard actually works much better since they have a 'default to offline' mode and then it's really easy to then go online after you start the client without having to restart.

I guess with Steam you can switch to offline mode every time you are done with it, wait for it to restart in offline mode then shut it down, then the next time you start it up in offline mode switch to online mode and wait for it to restart in online mode etc, but that's a pain. Ain't Nobody Got Time Fo' That.

[quote name='gilby']Nice bundle if you've never bought an Indiegala. Otherwise it's completely made up of duplicates. The first bonus, however, is Commandos 4, and that would be something new.
[/QUOTE]


According to Steamgamesales.com the Commands Collection fairly regularly goes to $2.99 so even if you don't have them seems like you are not missing much if you miss out on this Groupees bundle.

Commandos 4 Strike Force isn't on Steam which is a bummer, however it's curiously listed on a list that someone compiled of games that were on Steam but removed.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2833199
 
RE: Origin and SimCity

I believe the fundamental problem is that EA was trying hard to maximize their profits with SimCity. As others have suggested, they built a city simulation game with crazy DRM and social features, slapped a popular title on it, and will make a bajillion dollars from people who don't know any better. Sure, a small number of those people will be angry that there is an "always online" DRM and a smattering of social features, but in the end it doesn't matter: once EA has your money, they've won. It worked.

Personally, I would have preferred that they made a new Sim City game that didn't have the social features, didn't have the online DRM, and didn't require Origin. But they didn't. My only response to this is simply not purchasing the game.

Sadly, games with mass appeal to the "casual" market like this one are ripe for EA's exploitation. And because that means the most amount of money for them, that's exactly what they've done.

/rant
 
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