If You Buy Video Games Online, Is It Best To Buy Mostly From STEAM?

Multiple online game sellers can have the same game, but it's future Downloadable Content + Expansions for games that are also important! Recently, I bought Batman Arkham City on Origin's Black Friday Sale for $24.95, but I was thinking to myself I should wait to buy it on STEAM instead. And I should have! I regret my purchase because now Steam has 2 DLC packs for the game and they're not available on Origin... [Nightwing & Robin Bundle DLC's]. Do you think these will pop up on Origin? Does Origin sell DLC's too?

What's your experience? I see many Steam games with lots of DLC's available when you see their Store Page. So maybe it's best to only buy from Steam if possible?

 

All I know is Steam very commonly has amazing deals, EX. 75% on Civilization V recently. They have plenty of cheap games. Unless you see a good deal elswhere, going with Steam is most of the time the absolute best way to go. A lot of people also like Steam too because of its social networking and achievements system.

 

I am a collector maniac, I need the DVDs

 

I just like to have all of my games under one service, and Steam has the largest customer base, so I tend to buy from them.

 

Personally, I think game publishers aren't trying to give Origin to much investment due to the fact it's just starting out to become a digital retailer. Only time will tell...

Steam already has tons of game, from indie to the big time developers. It's recognized by PC Gamers as the go-to digital retailer. Their daily deals and sales are always mind-blowing. Plus, it's only a short time span till some games start to reach below $30.

 

i prefer steam or steam based games because some retail games, like the batman ac and me2 games i bought require the dvd to play. and i have taken out my dvd in lieu of a 2nd hdd

 

Steam has been great for me. Rarely do I ever buy games at full price anymore. Waiting for the Summer, Black Friday, and Xmas sales is probably one of the smartest things a gamer could do. I mean, picking up Battlefield Bad Company 2 for $6.67 and Borderlands with all the DLCs for $5 (this was a year ago) was just an awesome feeling. So much content for barely any cash (buying a $60 game for 6-7 hours of playtime bugs me).

But there is a downside to getting these great deals; you often have to wait a relatively long time after the initial release date for it to come down in price during holiday sales. And for games that are more multiplayer (luckily when I bought BF:BC2 there were still plenty of active and full servers) than single player, the community could have already migrated to a new release multiplayer title.

 

I buy from Steam, Origin, and GOG. I actually don't like Steam that much because you need to have the Steam client running to run the games, and it's slow-booting and buggy for me for some reason. But they definitely have the best selection and the lowest prices of the three.

I prefer buying online to in-store retail because I hate having to use the CD-ROM to launch the game.

 

Depends on where you live, I hear STEAM is expensive for non-Americans.

Anyways, I buy from trusted big names like: Amazon Digital Downloads, STEAM and EA Origin.

 

I noticed Amazon had a fire sale on Dungeon Siege 3 for $5! I bought it on Steam + DLC + guide for $27 but it was worth more on Steam because it had the DLC. And I prefer pdf or online game guides.

I think you can play your games in offline mode in Steam. You can also backup your Steam games. On Origin you have to keep your download cache as backup. I don't know how game backups work on other places, maybe you have to redownload the games if you have to reinstall them unless they give you a game install file with a product code.

I prefer not having dvds anymore, it clutters the house! If I had a dvd for every of my 136 Steam games it would be very unmanageable and sometimes I lose my dvds and think I've lost a game. Bought 2 games twice because of that.

A few games it's best to buy retail like Civ 5 - they give you a map + printed stuff not available from Steam.

 

I buy everything from steam and sometimes amazon and rarely anywhere else unless I have to like with Battlefield 3 only on origin. I seen some shady things with origin terms of service so I tend to stay away from them. The DLC for arkham city are available to you even if you didn't get the game on steam. You just have to go get them at Games for Windows Live:
Batman Arkham City - Xbox.com

 

95% of the time, I buy on steam. Occasionally a title won't be available for whatever reason, and depending on the title I might buy it, but not being on steam is a major detrimental factor in that decision.

The only titles I can think of as of late are Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3, as far as games I bought that weren't on steam.

 

I usually buy from steam because it's a nice platform and it's easy since I have all my games in one place. If I can get retail and use the cd keys in steam then that's even better, but otherwise I won't buy retail unless I'm forced to. I refuse to buy from origin though.

 

Are you sure buying the DLC's from Xbox Live will work with an Origin install? Has anyone done this? Or will these DLC's pop up on Origin? These DLC's might mess up my Origin install as sometimes Origin autopatches stuff...

 

I don't like Steam, the way they work their concept, is that of the 30+ games I and my family have on our PC, all but 2 are controlled by Steam. Not out of my choice, and because I paid the various amounts of money for the games only to actually only have paid a fee to play the games.

p90x schedule is meant to be a combination of a variety of types of workouts and is essentially meant to shock your body into shape over 90 days. There is crazy stuff like plyometrics or jump training, weight training, cardio, and even a hardcore version of yoga. The videos have you working out 6 days a week and do require a few special (albeit low cost) pieces of equipment to really do it.
The first Brush Stroke Manicure I personally saw was the beautiful Jewel Tone Abstract Brush Strokes manicure by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails. I fell in love with how gorgeous the texture of the essie nail polish looked and couldn’t wait to try it myself someday.

 

You buy the DLC from GFWL- Marketplace,It will automatically attach to the Live account you login with so make sure it's the one tied to Arkham City. That is what I did I also bought through Origins.

 

there are lots of steam haters out there, personally I've never had any problems buying from steam and it's one of the apps that usually gets installed on my system after a reformat

i only buy from other sellers when it's cheaper to or not available in steam like SC2, BF3, mount and blade (bought direcctly from the site to help out the developers of this great indie game) or Ufo series.

simply just makes life easier having everything in one interface.

 

To answer the OP question: nowadays it is the best platform due to its great deals sessions (summer, thanksgiving, christmas) and its service advantages (user friendly, autoupdates, etc). I have also bought (seldom) from D2D and GG.

For me the question is where I can get a certain game cheaper with digital distribution (I don't have that much space to store DVDs that may get scratched a few years later).

 

Some people hate digital stores, some hate Steam and some hate Origin.

I use both Steam, Origin, GoG.com (Client free) and Desura (Indie love).
Might also buy from other stores if the key can be redeemed on either Steam or Origin.

 

I prefer to stick with Steam because I have a large library there. And part of that reason is their phenomenal sales. I mean you can pick up an entire publisher's catalog of games on sale for like $49-99, games which would normally cost you hundreds of dollars if bought individually.

Unfortunately EA has to do their own thing. I don't have anything against it, I just don't care to have a bunch of different game launching clients. I'd prefer to have one. GoG.com at least offers their games without DRM, but they have no launcher. I'd actually like a launcher app for GoG.com games.

 

I live in Costa Rica and the prices are still the same as they are for me while I am in the States. I teach English down here and usually recommend Steam to my students who are gamers and want to avoid all the taxes of buying games retail down here.