News Downloads account for 48 percent of PC game sales

When I was a poor student, I used to pirate games all the time. Now I work, I never pirate games (100% true)

Now, I almost exclusively buy my games on Steam.

 

Since i got a steam account i haven't pirated a game, as it is slower and game on steam work perfectly and can be had for 5 euro n sale

 

This is me to 95%, tho I have been known to, ahem, "create my own demo" if none exists for games I'm really not sure of, then purchase. Though even that is going down because the odd games (Mirror's Edge for example) usually end up for 5.99 specials on Steam within a year. Don't feel so bad about possibly wasting that if I don't like it.

 

considering its the NPD Group, I expect that these numbers are off (low). Valve doesn't release download data so the NPD Group's estimates are based off Valve's top sellers charts???

 

I don't generally tend to buy games on Steam these days because its more expensive (bizarely) than online retailers, or even real shops!

UK pricing is a bit of a joke unless the game is pretty old and their doing a special promotion.

 

one problem i have with this servey

it says it collects reciepts from stores
what about websites like amazon which deliver the phisical medium?

usually its cheaper online so i dont see how it is 48%
30% maybe but i dont htink that half the market download the games because most new games now are dual layer dvd's or 9gb per disk

 

I hardly ever used to download games because of awful download speed, but Steam's summer sale a few weeks back was just too good to resist and I ended up buying about 8 games. GTA 4 took about 3 days to download but at £5 it was worth it.

 

If you have a decent download speed Steam is by far the most convenient and reliable place to get games, usually some great deals going on as well.

Can't remember the last time I actually bought a game in a real store, many years ago now. Went from buying them in store to buying online from places such as Amazon. Buying from places such as Steam is simply the logical progression from that.

I'm actually downloading a supposedly fun (and free) game from Steam right now called Alien Swarm.

Will probably take me about 30 mins or so at worst.

Just can't go wrong with it.

 

It's an excellent game

 

Alien Swarm is not bad but I think Alien breed is a better game cos of the better control handling as well as graphics.Steam is cool but has anyone try GOG(good old games ) for old DOS games?Wish their pricing(GOG) was better thought.

 

The thing with GOG is that the games will run on newer OS's, you could probably buy a physical disc a little cheaper but i doubt it would run, without some form of crack/hack or maybe not work at all.
So the pricing isnt too bad when you get a game that will just work imo.

 

It's going by units sold, not the money involved. Prices fluctuate far too often to use them as a scale.

I really don't understand why this is a concern. It's not like Steam is exorbitantly dear, in fact I'm pretty sure their sales etc are the only reason they're currently at the top. Why is it such a bad thing that people are actually using a useful, well-run, sensible service?

 

It's only recently that my brother and I have had internet access at home, before then I had the hassle of taking his computer into work to activate games. That's gripe no. 1.

Gripe no. 2 is that you 'can't' re-sell a game when you've finished with it.

Like with my music, I like to have a physical product, so having no game disc doesn't appeal to me.

 

Games for Windows marketplace U FAIL!! Mwahahaha