Weekend digital PC deals: Bulletstorm, You Don't Know Jack

Bulletstorm, You Don't Know Jack, Serious Sam HD, Crysis 2, and more fine PC games are on sale at digital distributors this weekend.

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Can you picture Steam's owner, Ian Steam, turfed out into the streets, destitute, trying to ply his trade on street corners? It could happen to anyone. Along with Ian Direct2Drive, Ian GOG and all the other digital distribution magnates, he could be out there in filthy sodden rags, desperately trying to earn a living the only way he knows. Unable to afford Internet access with the pennies they dig out of the gutter, they'll scrawl thousands of pages of binary on old newspapers, then come knocking on your door to sell them. Do you want that to happen? All they want is a cup of coffee and a warm bed for the night. You have the power to change this. Unsheath your Visa Black Card and buy some cheap PC games this weekend. Here's our selection of this weeks deals:

Steam

You Don't Know Jack

Direct2Drive

Bulletstorm

Electronic Arts

Buy two of more games from this selection of 92, and you'll get 50% off your whole order. You've got your Dead Spaces in there, your Mass Effects, your Battlefields, your Dragon Ages, your Sims, your Crysesesesi, and loads of others.

Dead Space 2

Impulse

50% off all Gothic games (minus the first one), plus these deals:

Civ IV's expansion Warlords

Green Man Gaming

Total War: Shogun 2

GamersGate

Pathologic

Good Old Games

Arcanum

Get Games

Machinarium

Beamdog

Trapped Dead

From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 13, 2011 5:00 PM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Weekend digital PC deals: Bulletstorm, You Don't Know Jack.

    Bulletstorm, You Don't Know Jack, Serious Sam HD, Crysis 2, and more fine PC games are on sale at digital distributors this weekend.

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      May 13, 2011 5:52 PM

      The Witcher 1 is also $4.99 on GOG.com for a limited time.

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      May 13, 2011 5:58 PM

      these sales have to be made with tax returns in mind

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      May 13, 2011 6:01 PM

      Wish Steam price matched, lots of stuff on there I'd buy if it was that price on Steam. I know that's dumb and I probably deserve to be mocked for it, but I'm just spoiled by Steam now. I don't want to have to remember other services or passwords or end up with games downloaded from multiple places that I have to track down if I want to reinstall them.

      God I sound like an lazy cranky old man, "Too much trouble to remember things and do stuff! I'll just go without it!"

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        May 13, 2011 6:08 PM

        I know it sounds weird, but I feel the exact same way. Part of digital distribution is about convenience. And guess what? It's just more convenient to have everything in one spot, especially one that's proven, stable, secure and trusted.

        If Steam did price matching, how do you think this would effect these other services?

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          May 13, 2011 6:24 PM

          It never ceases to amaze me how consumers actively seek out monopolies. Always saying "Oh, they wouldn't abuse their position" to wave away naysayers. Well guess what? Valve is a company. Companies exist to turn a profit. As big of a profit as they possibly can. They're no more trustworthy than any other company.

          This isn't a hit against Valve though, the same applies to every other digital distributor out there. They're all in it to make money. Which is exactly why you DON'T want one to have control over ALL of your games. There are enough horror stories out there of Valve locking accounts and players losing their entire game catalogs.

          Don't take short-term conveience at the expense of long-term choice. Even if you love a company, you don't want them to be the only player in their market. It takes away the incentive to improve, and it takes away the resistence to screw with customers.

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            May 13, 2011 6:36 PM

            This is true, and I've been critical of Steam in the past, but there's an additional aspect here - Steam has the best survival potential of the bunch. If you buy from a DD service that uses DRM and they go under, you're screwed. If you buy from a place that doesn't use DRM but you lose your backup, or never did one, you're screwed. Best case scenario - Steam stays around forever and all your games are safely there.

            Mussolini was a fascist dictator, but he made the trains run on time. Steam is a closed off walled garden, but the view is really nice so no one minds.

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            May 13, 2011 6:39 PM

            [deleted]

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            May 13, 2011 7:06 PM

            These other digital distributors may sell games like Steam does, but in my experience their platforms suck, which is something that needs improvement if they want me to consider them competitors to Steam.

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          May 13, 2011 7:16 PM

          TL;DR Steam would crush the others if they started price matching and the retail market for most items and services is self correcting over the long term.

          Long version:

          I think if Steam started price matching it would probably put the others out of business pretty fast, or at least crush their profit margins so badly that they wouldn't be able to afford quality support and then as issues came up and took too long to fix their reps would go down and the end result would be the same.

          I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that a lot of the publishers make Steam agree to not price match. I know in the world of retail that when Wal-Mart started price matching some big name manufacturers tried to make them agree to a clause that they wouldn't (to prevent Wal-Mart from taking over) but it was too late, Wal-Mart already controlled so much of the retail space that the companies lost too much money when they stopped selling to Wal-Mart for refusing the contract,

          As for the other folks doom and gloom scenarios, I agree that generally competition is good for the market but I also believe the market is mostly self-correcting. If Steam became the sole digital distributor it would be because they were the best at pricing, convenience, and service. If they then stopped offering good service or good prices or made things less convenient competitors would re-appear. This has happened many times in many industries and retail markets.

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            May 15, 2011 6:26 PM

            The idea that if Steam drove everyone else out of business then turned evil, that everyone would leave for some new alternative isn't very realistic.

            From everything anyone who runs a download service of any kind says, building something like Steam is expensive. In time, effort and money. If it became just a Steam market, it would take a new company putting in a boatload of money and tons of developers and a lot of time to build a new service. It's not like these just get setup overnight.

            That's one of the big problems with monopolies. Once established, it becomes nearly impossible for a new company to break into the space as the monopolist has so much control, has such a mature and established system that becoming competitive is cost prohibitive. Not to mention at any time, the monopolist can just price you out of the market.

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        May 14, 2011 8:08 AM

        It's true though. Having 5 different apps to install, launch and manage is a huge pain. Picking 1 digital distribution outlet and sticking with it is the obvious path of choice for the huge majority of on-line shoppers.

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      May 13, 2011 6:34 PM

      Do not get You Don't Know Jack for the PC. Get it for the console instead. The PC version has no online play and only supports two players.

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        May 13, 2011 6:42 PM

        ^^^^ Important safety tip from Egon.

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        May 13, 2011 6:47 PM

        You literally just saved me money.

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        May 13, 2011 7:23 PM

        what a disgrace

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        May 13, 2011 9:12 PM

        wtf. thats terrible. there's no reason why I shouldnt be able to play this online or at least with several people with controllers or sharing a keyboard.

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        May 14, 2011 12:51 AM

        [deleted]

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        May 14, 2011 8:48 AM

        Yep. Burnt.

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        May 14, 2011 9:06 AM

        holy shit wow. i was seriously considering going to pick up 3 more xbox controllers for my pc so we could do 4 player since i don't have a 360. fuck. that is really disappointing.

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        May 14, 2011 9:13 AM

        Thanks man, was wondering why there wasn't any PC demo for this already hehe =P

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        May 14, 2011 9:37 AM

        unless you have friends to play with on live, it'll just be playing against people with the answers memorized :P

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        May 14, 2011 9:58 AM

        +inf

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      May 13, 2011 7:19 PM

      Machinarium was such a cool game. Highly recommended.

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      May 14, 2011 8:53 AM

      Dammit, why isn't Serious Sam 2 on Steam?

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      May 14, 2011 9:15 AM

      I wish 1C would flesh out their catalog on Steam to match their catalog on GamersGate :(

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      May 14, 2011 9:54 AM

      Can you buy something on Direct2Drive and put the key in steam?

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