Portal 2

[1v0ry_k1ng]

There was a billboard (portal 2 ad) on the road in the cow town of a town where I preside. I found it strange that video games have become an industry to invest in advertising as such.

why? cod releases probably make more than most movies nowadays

[Cheesecan]

The high dollar price is just a result of the US dollar being so weak now.
If you look at international prices they are similar to what you pay for most games, although Portal 2 is of course very short and not worth even that much.

[Machete234]

Steam prices are always rip off compared to retail prices.
At least in euros.

Retail of portal 2 on amzon is 14% cheaper here.

[Cheesecan]

Well steam has instant-delivery, install-anywhere functionality. Plus it's like that with anything, if you buy nike shoes from the nike store it's gonna be more expensive than if you buy the same pair of shoes in the small shoe store down the street.

[SwiftSpear]

Steam prices are always a deal here in Canada.

I'll point out that part of the purchase cost of Portal 2 is the coop campaign. It's equally as substantial as the single player.

[Jazcash]

Just finished it. I'll be reciting Portal 2 quotes for many years to come. Epic game.

[Regret]

No open talk of piracy please. It's against forum rules.

No it is not.

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6693

Only thing concerning this matter that is against forum rules is posting illegal files for download (felony 8). There is nothing limiting open talk of piracy.

How come you are not aware of this?

Any more complaints about it and it'll be bans not warnings.

Again it is clearly stated in forum rules that we are allowed to disagree without disrespect (felony 6). Why threaten to warn for it?

With the above in mind:

I didn't buy the game yet recently finished it. If I had such money to spend I would buy it, it is well worth it. It introduces many new puzzle elements and builds upon what Portal 1 started. Immersion of the story it tells is quite stunning.

[Jazcash]

It introduces many new puzzle elements

Was still too easy for me. I like a good puzzle I can sink my teeth in to, but when there's only two or three slightly challenging puzzles, it's over too soon.

[Regret]

Was still too easy for me. I like a good puzzle I can sink my teeth in to, but when there's only two or three slightly challenging puzzles, it's over too soon.

Yes it's not rocket science to solve puzzles in it, but it's fun.

[SinbadEV]

Was still too easy for me. I like a good puzzle I can sink my teeth in to, but when there's only two or three slightly challenging puzzles, it's over too soon.

Yes it's not rocket science to solve puzzles in it, but it's fun.

Beat single player, was playing on PS3 so am missing out on co-op campaign due to wife with poor contextual abstract spacial orientation and depth interpolation skills, the PlaystationNetwork being down and not having a decent enough computer to handle it.

I think them not including a "challenge" mode like they released a few months later for Portal(1) was a mistake as that added a number of hours to the replay value in single player (portal, time, and distance travelled "pars" for those who didn't play the challenge mode)... I've heard that they are likely to add it in down the line but it would have been relatively trivial to add and would have extended the "value" of the product greatly.

If they release this type of thing for the PS3 I will be pleasantly surprised... but I'm not expecting it.

[Machete234]

Well steam has instant-delivery, install-anywhere functionality.

Is it a delivery if you have to fetch your post from the post office every time?
I guess not and in steam I always have to wait for an hour until the game is downloaded and in that time the internet is not fully usable.

And they dont need to press a dvd,package, print a manual and ship the game, actually I should pay a little less than retail then.

The warez version has the same data volume and its for free, thats what happens when you rip people off.
Like selling mp3s for money and other "smart" ideas.

[Cheesecan]

• But the download takes long because your internet is slow.
• Who cares about DVD, manual anymore? I know I don't.
• You can sometimes find a bargain deals on steam.
• Maybe for someone who is stranded out in nowhere over a weekend, downloading from steam is a nice deal.
• Or maybe the game is being sold with dubbed voices in your country.

There are plenty of scenarios where people would find it appealing to buy a game over steam.

[SinbadEV]

You can back up your "steam games" directory (whatever it's called) and then when you go to install that game on a new computer it will validate these files prior to downloading and skip unneeded ones... I'm not sure how to do it right now but I did it a few system rebuilds ago... so you can burn your own DVDs

I think the biggest problem with steam is that only "one person" is allowed to play it... but this is becoming true for almost all games, even many console games need a "online unlock" tied to a specific live or psn account... so saying this is a problem with steam specifically is unfair... I couldn't even get the "online features" for the copy of Spore I borrowed (could play local) because the key was tied to the game's owner's EA account.

[Regret]

I prefer to play pirated versions of games I bought because they offer superior user experience* to official versions. It's really sad in such situations that you are punished by needless hassle just because you bought a game and didn't pirate it.

*as in no DRM

[SinbadEV]

I prefer to play pirated versions of games I bought because they offer superior user experience* to official versions. It's really sad in such situations that you are punished by needless hassle just because you bought a game and didn't pirate it.

*as in no DRM

I'm about to start a Rant that makes little sense... TL;DR games would cost less if the game companies could make more money by selling them for less.

START INARTICULATE RANT:

I think the real problem is that the prices we are seeing (and the DRM associated with the products) are related to a "gap" between customer expectations and the product that companies seem to think they are selling... I will rarely buy any video games, but if there is a new game and I want it I will buy it for my home console so I'm not really part of the "system" but I think I can see a solution...

DRM is fine, it's just too invasive and it protects games from being used in a way that would be considered "fair" by the average consumer...

For example, when I buy a movie I expect the following to be reasonably expected functionality:

To watch the movie whenever I want, on the screen of my choice and as many times as I want.
To be able to watch this movie with friends and family and loan out my copy to friends and family.
When I no longer want to watch my movie to be able to sell my copy to someone else.

With a steam game I:
can play it myself on whatever computer it can be played on.

So why is a DVD $30 and a videogame $60 despite the fact that it (A) Cannot be "shared" and (B) it's Non Transferable... with my $30 DVD I can sell it a week later for about 70% of it's street value so I'm really only paying 9 bucks for the movie, and if I watch it with 2 other people I'm only paying 3... with a steam game I'm paying $60 which I'll never be able to recover... so like 20 times as much... so unless there is "20 times as much fun" in a video game... I'm getting ripped off... no my personal value of video games puts them higher then movies so I'm still going to buy games... but a reasonable price (to me) for a steam copy of a video game is (deployment-cost/expected-number-of-customers)*2 or something like that...

Let's play around with numbers... there are currently 3 Million people listed as online on steam... if all of these people own Portal 2 then steam made 180 Million dollars... top end development costs for "big budget" games are around 60 Million Dollars, so this tells me that valve is charging about 40% too much for the game... $40 would be a reasonable price... but the truth is that companies (all companies) charge what they think they can make, and unless there are 3 million people out there pirating Portal 2 that would buy it if it was $20 cheaper... they are not going to start launching games like it at a lower price point.

In an ideal world people would be payed a fair wage for their work and everyone would be able to benefit from it... but that's Communism and it doesn't work... since we're stuck with capitalism we need to figure out a way to make it worth it to the video game companies to sell us games at the price we want to pay.

[Regret]

but that's Communism and it doesn't work... since we're stuck

There was no true communist nation to this date, only renamed capitalistic totalitarian regimes seeking to eternally empower the ruling party and spread/enforce their own ideological view of the world.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

can I just say, that really fucking annoying helper guy with various 'comedy' abrasive accents was 100% put into the game to appease the american market, who must be fucking idiots because he is terrible

[SinbadEV]

but that's Communism and it doesn't work... since we're stuck

There was no true communist nation to this date, only renamed capitalistic totalitarian regimes seeking to eternally empower the ruling party.

I have yet to see evidence that a "True Communist" nation could exist... a democratic or republican nation could administer itself in a way that follows communist principles and the "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability" type economic principles... but a true communism would naturally result in a few people gaining incumbency in whatever tier of the bureaucracy they have dominion over and the whole thing would naturally devolve back into totalitarianism, imperialism or dictatorship...

I think that a socialist parliamentary democracy that borrowed communist principles where they are compatible would work well enough for a while... but you'd have to get the entire voting population to support the right party to get it to work right... this comes out with north Korea style communism where everyone is basically forced to vote for the ruling party... communism requires bureaucracy, bureaucracy require management, management
requires leadership, and leadership grants power and influence which leads to unequal treatment which invariably breaks down to either a meritocratic republic, dictatorship or other form of government that isn't communism anymore.

I had an idea where the nation would be broken up into groups of 300 people, each of these 300 people would elect a representative every year whose job it would be to act as the group's representation at the next level of government, so you'd get 33 million people electing community leaders, 110000 community leaders electing municipal leaders, 366 regional leaders electing 2 federal leaders who would need the approval of 50%+1 of the regional leaders to change certain aspects of the law but would otherwise have unilateral power.

then, each group of 300 people would, within it's own confines, act as a communism, but engage in capitalistic trade with other groups. for the majority of things the community would have authority over itself... crimes committed against other communities would be at the next level of jurisdiction etc...

Each community could be organized along familial, interest or geographic lines and it would have to have an lower and upper limit, perhaps a community would need a minimum of 200 adults coming together and agreeing to be a community while a group over 300 people would still only be allowed one representative... groups approaching 400 would naturally be expected to split into two groups.

the bureaucratic needs of the system would be diminished by each group being nominally self sufficient... traditional employment and ownership would still allowed but communities would be expected to pool their resources and take care of their own. People unable to contribute to their community would be taken care of eliminating the need for most social programs while people unwilling to contribute would have a hard time tricking the 299 other people who they are in a community with as well as people unfairly taking advantage of existing social programs... there would still need to be taxes to take care of projects that would be outside of the scope of single communities... like highways and waterworks etc... and there might be a need for certain "redistribution" methods where poor communities would need supplementary funds to have their needs met... but ideally this would be worked out by the economy... with communities unable to take care of themselves being absorbed into more productive communities.

[Wombat]

clicked this thread to see if Portal 2 is worth it (vids on pootube were not that convincing) and then i see new topic about communists.

<3

[KDR_11k]

Steam prices are always rip off compared to retail prices.
At least in euros.

Retail of portal 2 on amzon is 14% cheaper here.

I got it for 30% less at retail.

Steam prices are high because Steam is not allowed to be better than retail for big name games (can't release earlier or cheaper than MSRP) because otherwise the retailers will throw a hissyfit and boycott the game which is very unhealthy for the game's developer. For indie games it's a completely different matter though, most of those cost like 2x as much at retail as what they do on Steam.