It's not crazy, especially for a game that has been admittedly developed with console being the priority platform. You got the action game streamlining you asked for, we pay $50. Thats the trade-off

That's because you can't register ME1 on the BioWare forums and the old BioWare forums where you could register it on are long dead. But it's just better to blame Valve for your ignorance, right?

Anyway, on topic. I really can't believe people are justifying this. There really is nothing more to it than greed. DXHR, Dead Island, and Space Marine are just 3 upcoming PC games that sell for $50. $60 is no standard. It was companies like Activision and EA doing this. Now, Bethesda is doing the same. I've gotten over it, they're company. To them, money is the priority, not customer satisfaction.

Your right. I'm sorry. logic officialy has no meaning.

(im on pc)

I expected $60 for Skyrim, it's a major release and a virtually guaranteed seller across platforms. If you can find a place to order it on discount or buy it online for less, excellent (do share).

I don't feel cheated though. Elder Scrolls games are one of those rare few purchases that generally provides a huge return of entertainment for the dollar spent.

(Compare it to something like $60 for Modern Warfare 2, which had a significantly more linear and shorter single player campaign.)

PC Retail pre-order is equivalent to $40 (US) where I am - LOL.

I won't sit here and rationalize an arbitrary price hike on Bethesda's behalf, I'll just wait for the game to go on sale of for a GOTY edition if there is one.

Well, your comment directly indicated that in 5 years you may not be able to find your Oblivion disk. Either it was stolen, misplaced, or not kept organized. Or a poor example. And you can always use that physical disk despite any problems with internet access you may have (let's say you're with Comcast), or Valve unexpectedly bankrupts and doesn't exist in 5 years - that disk is still there.

Yea thats why 90% of the time I buy physical I just use steam for their crazy developer sales in the summer. I get the point ur trying to make tho.

Well large scale natural disasters will most likely destroy your DVD, but you PC will go with it, so no downland games either The fact is that the games that require on-line connections already have a history of being unavailable, and a long one - starting with shut down MMOs, sold companies (sometimes the games are only temporary unlabeled, but it is still the users inconvenience) and copy protection and banning issues that take month to resolve.
I although asume that you are living an a stable country where you can take fast and reliable Internet connection for granted? The sad fact is that it's very easy to find one self without Internet access whatsoever if you move, have a habit of traveling or there is any kind of crisis in the country...
So let's be fair - Beth set the price for a game, and they should get it, but the retail version includes the service costs - Bethesda is not paying for it - we do, it the use who pays 10$+ to get the game, and the retailer who can get some extra money if they arrange the cheaper handling services. Download game does not have the distribution costs, so where does the money go? You thing to Bethesda? Sorry, but I doubt it - the distributor more likely, and I somehow doubt that maintaining the servers costs the same amount as maintaining the manufacturing plants.
If you are OK with being ripped off by online distributor, than it's your choice, but I prefer not to give anyone control of what and when I play, and actually pay for them to do that...

Well personally I need the physical game in my hands and would never buy a $60 game on steam. On-topic though, that's the standard now, I agree digital games shouldn't cost this much but that's how it.

You make a great point (i have stable internet but I dont take it for granted, I grew up with 56k lol)

But this entire thread assumes that the 10 dollars is going right into todds pocket when its most likely that everyones favorite company valve is taking it.

I'm seeing some replies and some guys dont get the point of this thread. I will be more specif and clarify some things:

1- Im not complaining to the price itself, but the pre-purchase price on Steam and price for downloadable version.
2- $59 for a downloadable version with no manual, no box and no media is a bit high in my opinion. Some guys said: "But they need to maintain the servers and u can download the game multiple times". Dont forget you need to pay your internet provider every month so you can download the game. And if u say its not their fault. Ok. Cause its not our fault they need to mantain the servers.

3- Now for the pre-order lets anolyze something interesting:

1st: You pay the price; 2nd: You have to wait 3 months; 3th: You play the game with no benefits

When you are paying for something and having to wait like 3 months to receive, you are having a disadvantage.
But there is something interesting you might not have thought: Buying in pre-order you are ensuring the sale and more... they will have 3 months until the official release date to generate profits with your money, so they are having a big advantage.

In my opinion, based on what i said and think, an price reduction or extras should be mandatory for pre-order, cause i cant see the purpose of pre-order, especially when ur clearly on disadvantage compared to retail version on day release.

LOL, the strawman "OMG U GUYS SPEND $9000 ON UR PC" :rolleyes:

Additionally, you failed to recognize the primary point of contention. It's not that the price is $10 more expensive--honestly, that shouldn't matter so much--it's that the digital copy, which comes with none of the items the physical copy does while offering no side benefits costs exactly the same as said physical copy.

Finally, it's generally frowned upon to suggest moderator actions...if they want to close the thread, they can and most certainly will. And they have visited this thread so far



Absolutely not Even while I disagree with some design choices, I'm happy with others, and I already know it's good for a vanilla romp, and then I have years of mods :wub: I just take issue that the digital distribution is not being priced fairly for what it is (and I wouldn't buy it anyway, despite 70% of my library consisting of Steam purchased/activated titles.



Again, the $60 is and should not be the point of contention. It's the gap between the digital and physical distributions of the game in terms of provided items/content and/or delivery costs. And I dare say that no one will be cheated in terms of game length and quality at all :wub:

And no, comparing it to expansion packs on an older mediocre FPS isn't the best of ideas

That's why I don't bother pre-ordering. There's no need. Meanwhile, the forums were full of people clamoring "OMG! When will the preorders be available! It's only four months til release! Why are they waiting so long to let us preorder! It's so late!"

Just because a bunch of the players are all hyped to preorder something months in advance, doesn't mean the companies are obliged to give them something for it.



Pre-order bonuses vary widely. I still have a bunch of physical preorder bonuses from buying console games in the 90's. But just because Squaresoft, during one summer, offered some bonuses on games that they released, doesn't obligate all companies to do so for all the games they sell. It's all in the hands of the customer - the company puts the offer out there. It's up to you to decide if you like the offer.

I didn't care about the pre-order bonuses for New Vegas, so I didn't bother.
I don't care about the bonus map for Skyrim, so I'm not bothering to pre-order that, either. Even though I'm going to get it from a store.
A different bonus, I might have made a different decision..... but it's MY decision. The company isn't required to give me things.

(If I were getting Skyrim from Steam, I probably would pre-order it. Why? Not for manuals, or TF2 hats, or some in-game DLC. But for the opportunity to do advance download, so that I wouldn't have to sit around waiting for my glacial download rate on release day. That's something practical - it would be worth the pre-order for me. If I were getting Skyrim digitally, of course.

eh, no. when the market becomes untenable is when it will happen and it will also happen per region. do you really think they wont make the switch over in Europe because some guy in Tibet hasnt got broadband yet?

At this point I don't think I will pre-oreder. It doesn't make sense to.

1-I'm annoyed about the total removal of Spellmaking.
2-Black Friday is just two weeks away, other holiday sales to follow.
3-Allows a window for patching some of the bugs that pop up.

And you know, for a FACT, exactly what the profit margin difference is for Bethesda between digital and print copies for Skyrim? Please, share with us your vastly superior knowledge of the gaming industries costs relative to digital vs print.

Some extras would be nice, that should be our point here.

People who believe that a digital distribution should somehow be cheaper... simply don't comprehend the business model very well. It costs only PENNIES to press a DVD. You think Steam isn't getting some form of compensation for hosting it? I would daresay that the cost to press a DVD is LESS than the cost of the bandwidth Steam uses to download a 15 GB game to your computer.

Clearly the box and manual and disc cost nothing to make if the digital download is just as expensive (or more expensive) than the retail box. Greedy publishers.

*cough* MW2 *cough*

:whistling:

Yeah bro thats the point.

Being modest about the extras i would like to receive some exclusive items like: A sword with/without some kind of enhancements, a bow, a helmet, maybe an exclusive horse too.
Would not it be asking too much, besides being a good satisfaction to pre-order customers.

Just read this and realise he's kind of showing you to be a bit thick (also I stopped reading soon after that post I'll admit). Go look at hardcopy versions and the pre-purchase bonuses you can get from those.
Steam isn't the only platform you can pre-purchase from. If you think Steam are cheaper because they don't have to worry about logistics or boxing, they have you fooled. Often you can buy hardcopy games cheaper with more stuff.
I have the.. "General's Edition" or something of Napoleon: Total War. A friend bought it for me, and I had some issues with a missing key so I got hold of the receipt. It had been cheaper than the stock-standard version you could get from Steam. Not to mention instead of receiving no bonuses, I have a statuette, a map, and a "leather" (read: very-not-leather) notebook thing.

If you want to pre-purchase, for the love of god, don't do it over Steam. Ideally, you don't want your game running over steam anyway, it has caused some issues with modding in the past. Better to be safe (and pay less.. and get more).
Personally I'm just insanely glad that Bethesda haven't gone down the EA route of totally f[censored]ing us over, and giving away exclusive in-game content or other bulls[morecensored], we all get the complete game as God intended (TES is most certainly a divine creation).

Finally, what bonuses Steam give you is mostly Valve's decision, not Bethesda's.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/business/. I don't need the exact numbers, it's a widely accepted fact it's cheaper to publish on Steam vs. Retail.



The costs aren't in the DVDs

Still haven't had any confirmation of whether there will be mandatory SteamWorks on the DVD (or even the PC system requirements for that matter...)

If someone could http://twitter.com/#!/DCDeacon that would be great although I think he's had too many Skyrim questions recently.

Something like "Skyrim: Mandatory or optional SteamWorks activation on DVDs?" would do it. It's going to be a make or break for me. ie No mandatory SteamWorks = Will happily pay $150 for Collector's Edition, Mandatory SteamWorks = Wait until it's $30 months after release if I get it at all.

I think quite a few people other than myself would like this info with advance notice as well.