• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Which PC game digital distribution services have you used in the last 12 months?

Which PC game digital distribution services have you used in the last 12 months?

Results are only viewable after voting.
Status
Not open for further replies.
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
We don't have much in terms of hard data on these services, so polls have become important in gauging the market and I'm curious as to where we stand. Please answer truthfully to the best of your recollection, and check all options that apply to you.

Feel free to discuss.
 
T

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Mostly Steam and a few days ago Amazon. I am curious to try out more as time passes even though I can understand why people want to stick to one for unifying features. Still strange that this seems more important than the price of the actual game for most people though.
 
C

Corto

Member
Steam in the special sales time, GOG for the oldies, Impulse for Stardock goodness, direct2drive for the man of war crazy campaign sale, and gamersgate for King's Bounty.
 
A

arstal

Whine Whine FADC Troll
I answered:
Steam: Warband (which I then promptly put off of Steam)
Impulse: Elemental , Din's, many other indie Games
Gamersgate: Recettear, EUIII expansions
GOG: temple of elemental evil
 
J

John

Member
steam, gog, gamersgate, d2d

i haven't touched impulse since i got it with Sins a while back. i get sales information emails from them and i check them every once in a while, but they never have anything i'm interested in at a great price.
 
G

gregor7777

Banned
Steam gets about 95% of my purchases as I typically buy games on their sales. They also get most of my new game purchases, though those are few and far between (~2-4 games p/year).

Gamersgate is good for a purchase or two, typically 1C games.

I bought Sins of a Solar Empire on sale from Impulse this year too.
 
C

clip

Member
Mainly Steam. But if I can buy a game directly from the developer, like Telltale, or Frictional games, I'll do that instead.
 
D

Dragmire

Member
I've organized my PC games into one Library in windows, divided into folders (indie, AGS games, regular games, etc), so it's much more convenient and less cumbersome than Steam. Since then, I've gotten far fewer games on Steam and just find the service less appealing. I started using Gamersgate a lot, which has a lot of great sales for lower key or indie games. Steam does too, but I've mostly bought from Gamersgate lately. I'm also a Telltale whore and own most of their games through their store and a few on Wii.
 
H

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
Steam because AusGaf has a large community that revolves around the use of steam, plus I've never heard of the others or am not aware if they offer services to Australians.

I've never really been a big PC gamer, SC2 came out and that change that alot, i now barely touch consoles and I spend most of my gaming money on Steam games of various qualities (some games bought in the last few weeks include the penny arcade games, magic the gathering, and then outside of steam games, WoW and Minecraft, and both of these were because of the AusGaf steam community chatting about and discussing the games heavily)

Do these other services offer such a community structure? from what I've attempted of D2D and it didn't like me.. it's just website based?
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
I'm part of the problem I guess. Steam and only Steam. I appreciate that others keep the competitors in business though.
 
R

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
I am a light PC gamer. Mouse + KB don't go well with me :lol

Still, I own like 25 Steam games, used Impulse one and bought Street Fighter IV off D2D
 
C

coopolon

Member
Nowadays a lot of the publisher stores are becoming alright. I've bought several games from the EA store just because their prices were significantly better than Steam. I remember the THQ store also had some pretty awesome sales earlier this year.
 
A

Askani

Member
Everything I have is Steam, except for a copy of Torchlight someone gifted me through Direct2Drive. Unfortunately for myself and Steam, I usually only buy the super discounted sale games, but now that I have a little more scratch that may change soon. In fact, Borderlands was the only "full price" game I've bought from there, and even that was on a group buy so it was cheaper.

GoG looks interesting but I haven't bit on anything yet. Icewind Dale has been pretty hard to resist though, so I may knuckle under soon and pick it up and a couple other things from there as well.
 
GraveRobberX

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Steam, I have one of those budget laptops, (2007 Dell Laptop from Best Buy)

I just use it for older games that are playable, which isn't that half bad

Steam looks so stream lined, others DD retailers offers/style aren't viable until I get a beefy laptop/desktop
 
Y

Yeef

Member
They need a universal serial key system that allows you to use your games on any service regardless of where you originally bought it. Steam already does it with some games, but every game and every service should have it. I think it'd probably be the best way to get some market share away from Steam.
 
W

Won

Member
The last 12 months? Probably only Steam and maybe one game directly from a developer. Though I didn't buy that much to begin with this year.
 
H

hamchan

Member
Steam: Alot of things
GoG: Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate
D2D: Black Ops since they forgot to region lock it so I ended up not having to pay Steam's ridiculous $90 USD price.
Impulse: Sins of a Solar Empire
Blizz Store: WotLK + Cataclysm
 
H

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
eznark said:
Why the poll?
Click to expand...

We don't have much in terms of hard data on these services, so polls have become important in gauging the market and I'm curious as to where we stand.
 
E

eznark

Banned
Syth_Blade22 said:
We don't have much in terms of hard data on these services, so polls have become important in gauging the market and I'm curious as to where we stand.
Click to expand...
this is hard data? :lol
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
Steam, and I selected "other" because I also use MacGamesArcade, which actually has some notable Mac games that the Mac version of Steam doesn't have, and imo it has a better ui, too.
 
S

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
is some company paying you to gather marketing data on the "hardcore" gaming community? ;P
 
P

Prophet Steve

Member
I really want to use only one program and do not want to research every time I see a good discount whether or not I need an other program to run it, so Steam. Also I checked Gametap a few months ago but don't use it anymore. And I buy games sometimes directly via the developers site.
 
G

gregor7777

Banned
I think he means while we lack hard data, this anecdotal data will at least provide some ballpark idea of how our little community here shops the DD services for PC games. But you know that. I didn't need to type this.
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
eznark said:
this is hard data? :lol
Click to expand...

We don't have much hard data, so we have to rely on other forms of information to paint a picture of the DD market.

:lol :lol :lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go away.

is some company paying you to gather marketing data on the "hardcore" gaming community? ;P
Click to expand...

No, I just noticed that while attempting to dig up information for this thread there wasn't much available, even in terms of polling. And Kotaku's poll didn't appear to allow for multiple options, which is a bit silly when you consider a service like GOG which specializes in being a secondary platform.
 
F

flyinpiranha

Member
I use Steam.

I would use the other services because of their sales but I don't like having to go to various sites to re-download. Plus almost everything I want (besides Blizzard games) is on Steam and usually at a great price.

I also like the interface, I think I have some D2D games I bought for like $5 awhile back but I never go there, I just really like how Steam handles everything and having only one game site (besides Amazon or something) having my CC information is a good thing for me.
 
D

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Not to criticise but don't you think GFW deserves its own option? I ticked other but I would count something like EA's service as "other" not GFW.
 
V

Volcynika

Member
I got Titan Quest cheap off D2D sometime within the last 12 months...got a few games off GoG, but majority of the time Steam. So I answered all three, of course!
 
A

arstal

Whine Whine FADC Troll
Scrow said:
is some company paying you to gather marketing data on the "hardcore" gaming community? ;P
Click to expand...

Nah, this is due to my questioning NPD data.

This isn't hard data, but it's a good snapshot of what services GAF is willing to use.
 
E

eznark

Banned
Is "use" in this case purely purchasing? For instance a game like Dawn of War you need to use GFW in addition to whatever service you used to purchase it?

"Go away" seems unnecessary, just wondering what the data is to be used for.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom