Buyer's Remorse: Steam Summer Sale Kicks off

"City 17 has a KFC, right?"

Valve's yearly assault on PC gamer's wallets kicked off in spectacular style a few days ago, with obscene bargains to be had left, right and center. So far I've purchased Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition, for nostalgia's sake and the fact it comes with a few expansions I never played the first time around, spaceship management sim FTL because I'm a huge sci-fi and strategy buff, and 2D/3D hybrid platformer FEZ primarily off the back of friend's recommendations. Just a second ago I also parted with the princely sum of £1.74 for System Shock 2, the critically acclaimed 'Bioshock in space' that was the subject of another post a while back.

David DeMartini, head of EA's competing Origin service has in the past decried Steam sales, saying that they cheapen intellectual property. I'm loathe to admit that I see his point; the simple fact is that I feel far, far less inclined to invest time playing through tedious opening sequences and tutorials trying to grow to like a game that doesn't grab me immediately if it was bought for less than the price of a coffee at Starbucks than I would if it were purchased at full price. Of course Bioware and EA don't care that I only played Dragon Age: Origins for a couple of hours before getting bored after picking it up for less than £5, for example, but they might start to become concerned if I and others like me begin dismissing full price sequels off hand as a result. Such a mindset probably isn't fair to content creators, especially the smaller, independent ones that can least afford consumer fatigue towards their franchises.

All that said, I'll still be logging into Steam at 6:00pm when tomorrow's offers go live to see what's available, and I'd encourage you to. Yes, I'm being more than a little hypocritical, but in the age of digital downloads, omnipresent DRM and mandatory subscription to a sea of third party services, I feel like gamers are more than entitled to catch a break and pick up some cheap games, principles be damned.