Why I Don’t Buy Full Priced Steam Games Anymore

Hint: It’s not only because of Steam’s amazing sales.

Steam is a godsend for the PC gaming industry and even the video gaming industry in general. Since I’ve moved to digital downloads, I even haven’t bought a physical boxed copy of a game. The only time I might consider a boxed copy is for special collectors editions of my favourite franchise. Still, I don’t buy that many collector’s editions as I used to.

Now, I can go on and on about the advantages of Steam and PC gaming. Features such as steam in home streaming, which is free to everyone who downloads Steam, which itself is free, and works with third party games not sold by Steam.

But that is not the point of this post. The games that are bought on Steam are digital copies. There are no physical costs such as manufacturing the game disc and the box, and no warehousing, transportation, or insurance costs. This is one of the reasons why Steam can offer lower prices compared to physical copies of games. But how do you know if you can trust these guys with your money? Well, Steam has been around for over a decade and has established itself as a reputable platform for buying digital games. There are no additional costs associated with selling an extra copy of a digital item, which saves bandwidth costs. Even then, I’d argue those are very low. So, you can feel confident in your purchase when buying games on Steam.

So, why should we have to pay full price for digital copies of games that cost the same as their physical counterpart? I’ll tell you why. It is because of retailers like Gamestop who demand that video game publishers and developers set the same pricing everywhere. That is why you get absurdities such as a new release costing $90 in Australia but $50 in the States. And I simply can’t stand that.

Plus, Steam has these amazing sales where if you wait patiently for a couple of months you can get the game for very cheap. The added benefit is that waiting for a while gives the developers time to iron out the bugs and further polish the gameplay. So, it’s a win-win for everyone. The only downside is that you have to wait a bit longer to play your favourite titles.

And I’m fine with that. I already have a backlog of amazing Steam games that I need to go through and other facts of life means that I simply don’t have that much time to invest in video gaming.

Occasionally, I’ll buy full priced for something I simply can’t wait for. I’m looking at you Witcher 3 and Dragon Age 3. 🙂 But for everything else, I’ll wait for it to drop in price. The only titles I pay full price are indie titles that are priced way cheaper than big budget games and aren’t sold in stores. Plus, they could use the money and support in my opinion.

In a future article, I’ll tell you how to get Steam games for really cheap, even brand new releases that are not on sale. So, stay tuned for that.