Monday, December 19, 2011

Steam Holiday Sale! (and Origin)

*sings*
"It's the most wonderful time, of the year!"

Now through January first, there are all sorts of crazy deals on Steam (Portal 2 for $7.50!), and like during their Summer Sale, there are rewards for earning Achievements in certain games, which coincidentally are also on sale. We even get a daily reward for using various features of the system. I have a 'coupon' for 30% off a Valve game; I already have all of their games, so the discount will probably go towards a gift. Seeing so many deals for AAA titles, I think I've reached the point where I can resist buying them for full MSRP and instead wait for the inevitable sale. Combined with the explosion of F2P games, it's a good time to be a PC gamer.

With that said, after perusing Steam I decided to fire up Origin to see what kind of holiday deals they are offering as competition. (I needed my BF3, don't judge me!!!) Drumroll please...

  • The Sims 3: Barnacle Bay
  • Bulletstorm

I can't even tell if those two being half-off have anything to do with the time of the year. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Origin is destined to fail. EA is simply clueless. When physical production costs are reduced to $0.00, there's no reason for a downloaded game to cost exactly the same as what you'd find at Best Buy. And on a tangent, Origin apparently can't remember that Show: Favorites means it is not supposed to show everything attached to my account. Why does EA even bother to still display the BF3 Alpha and Beta? You can't install them any more.

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