Dear Valve Software,
Please stop saving me money on games.
Seriously. Stop it.
It's weird really, because when Steam was first released, it was difficult to find someone who was more opposed to the entire concept than me. I liked having the physical copies of my games, I thought that having to download games was bothersome and took way too long, and I hated the fact that I had to be online to play my offline single-player games.
Man, how times have changed.
These days, if it's a PC game and it's not on Steam, I probably won't buy it. All of the old physical copies of games that I loved so much are now backed up on my hard drive. The physical disks gather dust in my closet. I believe that the last boxed PC game that I bought from a store was Fallout 3 (more than two years ago), and I have no idea what the last one before that was. The time spent downloading is still annoying, but for big releases, I'm able to preload the game in order to play it the second it's released. And I don't even have to leave my house! Being online to play my games is no longer an issue for two reasons: first, I am almost never without an internet connection, and second, if I am without an internet connection, Steam has a fully functional offline mode. Steam is wonderful, Steam is simple, and Steam saves me money on games.
Stop it.
I do not need to be spending $90 for a pack that contains every Star Wars game since 1995. Deus Ex: Invisible War was not that good. I do not need to spend $10 on a digital copy just in case I ever want to play it again. I do not need a $5 copy of every new innovative indie game (of which there seem to be hundreds). And for God's sake, I do not have the reserve capital to keep up with your ridiculous sales.
How do you people make money? Honestly. Today on Steam, you can get Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a game with a Metacritic score of 93%, which cost a full $50 when it was released in 2003, and is to this day one of the finest RPGs ever made, for a meager $2.49. That's ten gumballs from a gumball machine. That's less than half the price of a ticket to a movie. A Big Mac from McDonald's costs more than one of the best games ever. Of course I'm going to buy it.
You can't pass up on deals like that. It's almost unethical to pass up a deal like that. But that's where I get into trouble. Because all of those $2, $5, and $10 purchases add up. I frequently find myself not being able to afford the big blockbuster games because I couldn't pass up the deal on the Space Quest collection. In addition, I don't buy a lot of the big blockbuster games when they come out because I know they'll go on sale at some point. I'm pretty sure I'm the only gamer I know that hasn't played Call of Duty: Black Ops yet because it's still $60 on Steam.
It's relentless too. Just two weeks ago, Steam had a great deal called The Great Steam Treasure Hunt. Every two days there were four new challenges that could be completed through Steam. One usually had to do with something within the program itself, (like have ten friends in the Steam community), one was usually for a blockbuster game (like recruit a companion in Fallout: New Vegas), and the other two were usually for indie games (like get a score of at least 3,770,488 in Beat Hazard). All of the games associated with the challenges were on sale, and every time you completed a challenge, you got one more entry in the raffle. Every two days, Steam gave away five games (the top five games on their wishlists) to twenty people. This went on for two weeks, so a 140 people got five free games. Not terrible odds.
It was fun too. I went in knowing I probably wasn't going to win anything (I didn't), but still did my best to complete as many challenges I could. Of the 28 challenges, I completed 16, and tried out a bunch of great games in the process, some of which I otherwise never would have tried (except Just Cause 2. I did not like that game. It was not worth the $7.50 I paid for it). In the end, I played quite a few new games for the price of one. Not too shabby.
The day the Great Steam Treasure Hunt ended, a new Steam sale started. This time, every day there were thirteen new deals, and for the whole month most of the publisher game bundles were anywhere from 55% to 88% off. The Square Enix/Eidos Complete Pack contains 35 games plus DLC worth a little over $700. Usually, the pack on Steam costs $606. Until January 2, you can get the The Square Enix/Eidos Complete Pack for $75. Again, you can't pass that up. In addition, there's also the eleven indie packs each for $5 that contain 5 games. That's a dollar per game. Right now, you could be playing VVVVVV (which I highly recommend) for the same price as a taco from Taco Bell.
And when you think about it that way, sure. Go ahead. Buy it. Heck, buy all eleven packs, but oops! Now you've spend $55 on 55 indie games that you're never going to play, and you still haven't played Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Argh!
Valve, you have proven to me that you are the master and I am your slave. You do not need to prove it any longer. Please release me from this agony. Please don't make me do stupid things like buy Neverwinter Nights 2 for $10. Please stop saving me money on games.
Sincerely,
Alex Ingraham
P.S. The money that you have made off of me alone should be enough for a new Half-Life game. I'm still waiting, you know.
