Steam holiday 2011 sales chatter

Bought:

Batman Arkham City $25
Portal 2 $7.50
Orcs Must Die! $3.74
Dawn of War II: Retribution - Last Stand Tau Commander $3.39

Total: $39.62

Gifted:

Borderlands GOTY Edition $7.50
DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue $7.50
Toki Tori $1.69
Evil Genius $2.49
OddBoxx $3.74
BEEP $2.50
Demolition, Inc. $2.49

Total: $27.91

Received:

Spaz $2.50
Rochard $5.00

Total: $7.50

EDIT: Forgot about Demolition, Inc.

Remarkably, at the end of this sale I still have about 8$ left over from the 50$ I put in before the sale started. This whole "buy only if it is less than 5$" has served me well (plus having a pile the size of Mt. Everest).

Bought:

Mafia II DLC - Jimmys Vendetta, Mafia II DLC Joe's Adventures $4.98
Bastion - $5.09
X3 Albion Prelude - $2.50
Mass Effect 2 - $12.49 (Made an exception to the rule here, even though I haven't played ME1 yet!)
HOI 3 - Semper Fi - $3.19
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, Costume Quest, Dungeons of Dredmor Pack with Realm of the Diggle Gods - $10.60
Orcs Must Die!, Orcs Must Die! - Artifacts of Power DLC, Orcs Must Die! - Lost Adventures DLC - $5.34

Total : $44.19

Gifted:

Zero (Sorry guys - I was a bit broke and a lot of wishlist games were really expensive )

I don't know....for the first time I noticed another company breathing down Steam's neck...

Amazon: BF3 ($27.50), JC2 ($2.50), Deus Ex HR ($10) = $40

Steam: Lots o' stuff, mainly games y'all have been playing for years: $75

I just wanted to thank again Demonbox, Pacodeth, Anodyne, Vega, Malor and Archangel for their generous contribution to my high blood pressure, back pains, balding head and poor eyesight, you guys rock.

For Myself = $65.13

Steam

Psychonauts $2.49
Bulletstorm $4.99
Rock of Ages $2.49
The Binding of Isaac $1.24
Space Chem $2.49
Grand Theft Auto Complete $12.49

Amazon

Tropico 4 $4.99
Dragon Age 2 $5.99
Crysis 2 $9.99
The Saboteur $4.99

Humble Indie Bundle #4 = $5.50

Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, NightSky,Gratuitous Space Battles, Cave Story+, VVVVVV, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, And Yet It Moves, and Hammerfight

Gifts received

Defense Grid: The Awakening DLC: You Monster! From Prozac
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition from Hockosi
Multiwinia from Thowky
Edge from Tomaytohead
The Ship from Sephirotic

THANK YOU

Gifts given

Swords and Soldiers HD
Plants VS Zombies
Frozen Synapse
Left 4 Dead 2
Half-Life 2
The Ship

Surprised myself with Grand Theft Auto Complete and Crysis 2 (which I have for the PS3). Thinking about taking my Amazon $5 coupon and finally getting The Witcher 2 for $14.99.

Edit

I forgot to thank Kerplunk for Far Cry 2 and DeThroned for Nimbus.

I also forgot that I picked up KOTOR ($2.49) because I have no idea where those disks are.

Edit

And Assassin's Creed 2 deluxe for $4.99.

Feeank wrote:

I just wanted to thank again Demonbox, Pacodeth, Anodyne, Vega, Malor and Archangel for their generous contribution to my high blood pressure, back pains, balding head and poor eyesight, you guys rock.

You didn't really need any help with that.

HIYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I picked up:

Limbo
Frozen Synapse
Blood Bowl
Revenge of the Titans

Received:

Portal 2 (thanks StHillary!)
Fallout: New Vegas (thanks hbi2k!)

I gifted:

Bastion
Frozen Synapse (which may need a new home, so if you need it go ahead and ask and I'll let you know.)

Wish I was able to pick up Football Manager, but it wasn't in the budget this time around. Maybe in June.

Just realized Zarkon sent me Railroad Tycoon II on the last day of the sale; this is what I get for having loads of family in town and just not paying attention. I gifted one thing and was given three; I have plenty of work to do to make up for this come the summer sale. Begin making wishlists now.

Bought:
DEFCON
Men of War
Puzzle Agent 2
EYE
Dungeon Defenders (Amazon)

Gifted
EYE x 2
Limbo X 2
The Binding of Isaac
SW: KOTOR
DoD: Source

Traded:
EYE for Lead & Gold

Received
Hamilton's Great Adventure
Renegade Ops
Orcs Must Die!
Bastion

Achievements got: 23
Items crafted: DoD:Source, TF2 Santa Hatte, Coupons

Thanks to Grumpicus, Titanis, LeapingGnome and Mixolyde for the gifts!

Bought
DE:HR - TML
Limbo

Gifted
Borderlands GOTY
DE:HR (boxed version, not Steam)
Limbo
Portal 2
Saint's Row: The Third (boxed version, not Steam)

Received (and all still in gift inventory)
Fallout NV
Machinarium
Orcs Must Die
SPAZ
The Witcher 1

What dark sacrifices are required to get invited to the GWJ group on steam?

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

What dark sacrifices are required to get invited to the GWJ group on steam? :)

**I put on my robe and wizard hat**

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

What dark sacrifices are required to get invited to the GWJ group on steam? :)

Look at the top sticky on the forum topic list; Steam Community. Go there and post your Steam info.

tanstaafl wrote:
Warriorpoet897 wrote:

What dark sacrifices are required to get invited to the GWJ group on steam? :)

Look at the top sticky on the forum topic list; Steam Community. Go there and post your Steam info.

Oops. My brain must have gotten used to filtering that out with my lack of PC. Thanks

Final damage:
IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v633/skuboi/SteamSale.jpg)
IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v633/skuboi/SteamSaleAlt.jpg)

Bought:
EYE: Divine Cybermancy (there is a lot of stuff and none of it makes any sense)
Orcs Must Die (ragdolls and dancing)
Sonic Generations (best Sonic game since Adventure, which I know isn't saying a lot but...)
Saints Row 3 (I wish there was a grappling hook)

Given:
Space Marine

Recived:
Bastion (thanks Jollyeskibro, I probably never would have played this game without you and I really enjoyed it)

Achieved:
GARSHASP THE MONSTER SLAYER (best day of my life)

Bought:
Solar Wings (On Desura, just prior to the sale. It's pretty fun, despite a bit wonky hit detection) - $1.49
Psychonauts - $2.49
Renegade Ops - $2.99
Hard Reset (RoW) - $4.99
Bastion + Soundtrack DLC - $8.48
Space Pirates and Zombies(SPAZ) - $2.49

Total - $22.93

Gifted:
Magicka: The Stars are Left - $1.49
Magicka: Vietnam - $1.24
Just Cause 2 - $4.99
Just Cause 2 - $4.99
Just Cause 2 (yup, 3 sadly, it was cheaper on Amazon later in the sale) - $4.99
EDGE *
Swords and Soldiers HD - $2.49
The Ship **
The Orange Box *
The Ship (that's 2, like everyone else) **
The Orange Box (yup, 2) *
Hoard Complete Pack - $2.86
E.Y.E Devine Cybermancy (resent since I wasn't going to be playing, see below)
Garshasp (Still hasn't been claimed yet, since Hannibal_s has been offline for 6 days) *

Total - $23.05 + many hours of achievement hunting

* = Holiday Gift Pile Achievement
** = Take one, give two!

Recieved:
Bunch of Heroes - SpaceDog
Metro 2033 - Aus_Tbird
Rock of Ages - Demonbox
The Ship - Sephirotic
Tropico Trilogy - Raging Redneck
E.Y.E Devine Cybermancy (see above, I was told to just pass it along if I wasn't going to play it. I complied) - Cymbrogi
Magicka: The Stars are Left (yup, gifted it, then later recieved it) - Shoptroll

Achieved and Kept for Myself
Limbo

I've got ... 4 copies of The Ship?

wordsmythe wrote:

I've got ... 4 copies of The Ship?

I'll give you 4 useless coupons for a copy.

I don't know what I gifted, but it didn't measure up to what I was given.

Demonic Murray gave me Shogun 2.
MyTomaytoHead gave me Just Cause 2.
Krev and "Paul" gave me Arkham Asylum. I think I kept the one from Paul.

These are all awesome people.

Swat gave me Dungeon Defenders

Received:
Cave Story+
Bastion

Sent:
Lego Batman
Hacker Evolution Duality
Shadowgrounds Survivor
Counter-Strike: Source
Half-Life
Sol Survivor
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Unsuccessfully tried to send:
Portal

Kept for self:
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Total Spent: $0

Received:

Batman: Arkham Asylum - EriktheRed (again, thanks! so much fun)

Gifted:

Bulletstorm $5
Rock of Ages $2.50
Bastion $5
Torchlight $3.75

Somehow managed to resist buying games for myself.

I guess this is as good a place to post this as any - Steam stats.

The two most significant stats (IMO):

- Year-on-year sales increased by over 100%

- Over 14.5m Steamworks games were registered

Impressive numbers all around.

Impressive, but not so unexpected after watching the concurrent users number rise like it has over the last 2 years.

But it will be nice when a real 2nd competitor comes to market. I would also like to see a unified achievement system or systems where each competitor made it so the achievement data could be pulled from the site to be compiled, making tracking something that can be done via linked accounts. I doubt anything like that will ever work, but one can dream.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

But it will be nice when a real 2nd competitor comes to market. I would also like to see a unified achievement system or systems where each competitor made it so the achievement data could be pulled from the site to be compiled, making tracking something that can be done via linked accounts. I doubt anything like that will ever work, but one can dream.

I like how after you talk about liking competition, you go straight to the achievements system, rather than anything on pricing, availability, policies, etc.

Scratched wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

But it will be nice when a real 2nd competitor comes to market. I would also like to see a unified achievement system or systems where each competitor made it so the achievement data could be pulled from the site to be compiled, making tracking something that can be done via linked accounts. I doubt anything like that will ever work, but one can dream.

I like how after you talk about liking competition, you go straight to the achievements system, rather than anything on pricing, availability, policies, etc.

Well, because I don't have any ideas about pricing and such and all that's been talked about, and that's kinda implied in 'a real 2nd competitor.' I have the idea about the achievement thing as right now, it's hard to care about steam achievements because there's no real binding system to them and when a real competitor emerges, it will just make it a bigger mess. Plus, if Steam started tracking some other data, like non-steam game times and such, it would nice. Also, I'd like to see individual session times recorded as well. That's the one thing the Wii does that I haven't seen anywhere else.

I wish Steam would unify their own achievements, at least.

gregrampage wrote:

I wish Steam would unify their own achievements, at least.

How so? Maybe I'm not getting this whole "unify" thing.

As this thread showed, Amazon has been running promotions that rival Steam's deep discounts. So I think on that front everything is good. However, Steam has a significant advantage by being one of the first solutions to hit the market (and it was definitely crappy back in 2005 and it got a lot better starting around 2007). Everyone else is playing catch-up. Similar to how iTunes is still a juggernaut in the music download space since they were one of the first solutions. First to market = unchallenged = large established user base who is comfortable and not looking for an alternative. Or something like that. We're sheep consumers.

As for achievements... I dunno. I think it would be wonderful if Steamworks could be decoupled from the storefront, but until we get a global achievement system on PC I don't think there's any desire for every storefront to make their own achievements system. For starters, that means devs have to create unique builds for each distributor which is a support nightmare for them. A true competitor would be like Gamespy minus the suck but you ultimately need a business plan for such a venture and I don't know how you'd monetize achievements, community features and matchmaking short of charging developers a fee.

However, I personally don't have an issue with Steamworks since Valve gives the developers a lot of features (I think for free?) and it doesn't lock them out of selling their game in other stores. Yes, you ultimately have to register it on Steam, but there's nothing stopping me from getting games off Amazon, D2D, etc. if they have a better price. But, if you want to get all your achievements in one spot, I think there's services out there that already do that for you. Stuff like GamerDNA and Raptr will aggregate your achievements from different services and display them if you want. I assume there's some APIs provided by MS, Valve and Sony which allow them to do this pretty easily.

We probably will never see a universal achievement system on PC since there's really no platform holder. Well, there's Microsoft but GFWL is a joke and never caught on which is why Steamworks is currently (or becoming) the de facto system. Or in the case of the iPhone, Game Center arrived after achievement systems like OpenFeint were created and you have a big goobly mess where a number of games have to support multiple achievement reporting systems.

EDIT: Also, I'm totally with you about Steam tracking more stats for your collection. I find it a lot of fun to look at the metrics for my games, or get some rudimentary telemetry data by looking at the global achievements for games. Tracking non-Steam games would be nice, but you can already do that with something like XFire (maybe Raptr too?). Really, all their stats pages could user an overhaul. A shame they stopped updating the TF2 heatmaps and didn't do anything like that for L4D or Portal. That stuff is downright fascinating.