# Winter Holiday Digital Distribution Sales **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 19, 2015, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844 "2015-12-19T10:45:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/41 "2015-12-25T23:32:40Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Having said that, a game called ‘[Chivalry: Medieval Warfare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNmSdjuHejU)’ is only $2.49 today. Anyone played it, or what did you think of it? It’s the best, most visceral melee combat game there has ever been. It’s somehow horrifyingly brutal and funny at the same time. It has some surprisingly deep combat, but I mostly post the stupid/goofy stuff to my youtube. ie: [first time with black knight mod](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBoX0uWstCM) [maul highlights (warning: drunk bloodlusted loud girlfriend)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkI6jzeXRdY) Definitely recommended. We still pull out the game once or twice a month in the SDMB gaming group, so let me know on steam you’re interested and I’ll invite. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/42 "2015-12-26T00:22:06Z")
> [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](#): > > Cite? I don’t disbelieve you, I just want to see this with my own eyes! It was in one of the discussion threads on the Steam Community site…there’ve been so many of them, finding the specific one with that again would be difficult, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/43 "2015-12-26T02:07:12Z")
There’s another day and a half on origin’s sales. I’m going to recommend [Battlefield 4 premium for $20](https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/battlefield-4/pc-download/base-game/premium-edition). It had a shakey launch but they’ve added a ton of content since then (both DLC and free content), it still has lots of players, and it’s fixed up and polished now. It’s a very complete game and I was hoping some people would get back into it with me so we could run squads. Contact me if you’re interested. ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/44 "2015-12-26T04:24:14Z")
I got Fallout 3 for $7 since I’ve never played it. Picked up Grand Ages: Rome, and have been playing it to death. Just a few dollars. That was a couple of weeks ago though, come to think of it. This sale I got the Shadowrun series on Steam. Haven’t played it yet. Mark Antony needs a butt kicking… ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/45 "2015-12-26T04:51:28Z")
Now that the Steam Store has started working again, I’ve gotten HuniePop, Morrowind, and To Be or Not To Be? I also bought FFVI, but couldn’t get it running, so now I’m waiting on the refund from that to finish being processed. Total of $20 spent, once I get the money from FFVI back. (When it does, I’ll probably get Life is Strange and Borderlands 2, assuming it finishes going through before the sale ends.) Holiday sales are awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/46 "2015-12-26T15:33:47Z")
> [@BrianJ](#): > > Picked up Grand Ages: Rome, and have been playing it to death. Just a few dollars. That was a couple of weeks ago though, come to think of it. I just checked, that is still 75% off. The game is $2.49 but the game + expansion pack is $3.74. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/47 "2015-12-26T20:48:45Z")
Orcs must die 1 & 2 are both 75% off. That is one of the games I actually play, and for the price it is well worth it. Right now they are $3-4 each, but the GOTY editions are $3 and $6 respectively. I would highly recommend them. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/48 "2015-12-27T17:42:14Z")
My computer is a generation behind, but for about 25$ I got Bioshock Infinite: Season Pass Spore Age of Empires 2 Portal 2 (2 pack) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/49 "2015-12-27T22:05:54Z")
[Cities: Skylines](http://www.dlgamer.us/download-cities_skylines-pc_games-p-27901.html) is $9 from DLGamer which is the cheapest its been. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/50 "2015-12-28T03:55:36Z")
Anyone played The Stanley Parable? Sounds interesting, but I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/51 "2015-12-28T04:41:11Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Anyone played The Stanley Parable? Sounds interesting, but I don’t know. Yeah there was a thread on it awhile back. Its not really a game, more of an interactive humorous and bizarre story. Definitely worth buying for me, I thought it was hilarious and I enjoyed finding new ways to get the narrator to yell at me. I am celebrating my new comp with a full on Steam Spree \ GTA 5 Shadows of Mordor Ori and the Blind Forest Transistor Pillars of Eternity Invisible, Inc. Death Skid Marks (a car combat game, not underwear related) The Fall Capsized I am not really upset about the format of this steam sale. Yes its exciting to find super limited time deals, but with my hours and schedule its very difficult to keep an eye on what I want. I prefer having flat pricing through the sale so that whenever I do get the money to spend I don’t have to worry that I missed the super deal. I know they did the redux sales at the end, but I don’t have the patience to wait. So I may be in the minority but I do like the new format. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/52 "2015-12-28T06:56:01Z")
You’re not gaining anything by there being a lack of good deals. You could’ve always bought the game at any time in the previous sales at the base sale price if you didn’t want to bother with the unbearable burden of checking once a day. What we have now is essentially that base sale price without the hope of additional discount. I usually buy 10-15 $3-7.50 games this year, mostly $5 games, but there’s a dearth of those this year. Most of the games I’m interested which would normally have a $5 daily sale are now $10-20, so I’m hardly buying anything. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/53 "2015-12-28T08:41:10Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > Yeah there was a thread on it awhile back. Its not really a game, more of an interactive humorous and bizarre story. Definitely worth buying for me, I thought it was hilarious and I enjoyed finding new ways to get the narrator to yell at me. I don’t really want to get involved in the thorny ontological debate of “what is a game”, but I will just disagree and say that it **is** a game. It is a game in the getting-probably-too-large genre of “video games about video games”. The entire thing just fails to work without interactivity, and definitely doesn’t work if you’re not familiar with (esp. first-person) game tropes. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/54 "2015-12-28T14:29:15Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I usually buy 10-15 $3-7.50 games this year, mostly $5 games, but there’s a dearth of those this year. Most of the games I’m interested which would normally have a $5 daily sale are now $10-20, so I’m hardly buying anything. I’m seeing a lot of decent games in the $5-10 range. The only problem is that they are the same games that go on sale during every holiday sale, and I already own a decent amount of them. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/55 "2015-12-28T15:30:14Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I usually buy 10-15 $3-7.50 games this year, mostly $5 games, but there’s a dearth of those this year. Most of the games I’m interested which would normally have a $5 daily sale are now $10-20 > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I’m seeing a lot of decent games in the $5-10 range. Sure, you take a $20 game and put it on sale for 50% off and it’s $10. Normally, that game would get a Daily Deal slot and jump to 75% off and be $5 for a day. But no one wants to keep the Daily price for ten days so it stays at $10. _Maybe_ they split the difference and make it 60% off so it’s $8 instead for the week. The cost for “I only have to look once” is everyone paying higher prices. Plus, as you said, the stuff that does get a bigger discount is stuff that always goes on sale. Tomb Raider 2013 was a nice price at $3 except nearly everyone owns it by now. If you’re the rare person who doesn’t then it’s a nice catch but the store page informs me that 72 of my friends own the game (and zero friends have it wishlisted). And, actually, “I only have to look once” isn’t even accurate. Last year, Ubisoft games went on sale late. This year, Fallout 4 went on sale late. Both sales were unannounced and the format would make you think that the price on Day One was the best price you could get. At least with the Dailies and Flash deals you knew exactly what the story was and when new deals would appear. Now, anyone who said “Guess I’ll buy FO4 for this price since it’s the best it will get” got screwed out of 17% unless they were lucky enough to play it less than two hours before seeing the new sale price and claiming a refund. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/56 "2015-12-28T18:42:29Z")
Oh okay. I was seeing some 70-80% discounts, so I assumed that since they took the flash/daily deals out the normal deals were lower as a result. I don’t really track what the prices of specific games are over multiple sales. Yes, I have reached Steam saturation myself -just not this sale, because I bought a lot of things the old comp wouldn’t run. SS is not necessarily a horrible thing, it just means my backlog is, for once, no longer expanding exponentially. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/57 "2015-12-28T22:48:07Z")
I have a pretty good feel for the discounts. While some are at their historical lows, and a few are at the prices you’d expect to see in a daily sale, most aren’t. There are a lot of games that aren’t even at the same price they were during last year’s Christmas sale even though they’re a year older. On average, the prices are a lot closer to the old base sale price, not the flash/daily price. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/58 "2015-12-29T00:12:04Z")
I haven’t pulled the trigger but I see the Mad Max open world game is only $20.99, normally $60. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/59 "2015-12-29T15:18:27Z")
Mount & Blade games are cheap Anyone played shadow warrior, that is only $3 right now. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844/60 "2015-12-29T15:23:04Z")
It’s $4. But yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a throwback to old style run and gun FPS games. It has fun combat with a rating system every fight that gives you bonuses for killing things in creative and varied ways. Definitely worth 4 bucks. Does anyone have any opinions on the best of the billions of early access survival/crafting/etc games? I’ve thought about Ark, which seems really popular, and 7 days to die and stranded deep also looked interesting. I’m not sure I’m going to go with any of them, but what are the strengths of the various games? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winter-holiday-digital-distribution-sales/740844.md?page=4)