Steam has it about right, I think. The DRM component's always going to be an annoyance, and the best way to get round that is to provide a bunch of stuff which is awesome. The benefits of Steam- sales, auto-patching, the occasional chunk of totally free new content etc- are FAR more significant than the minor annoyance of needing a Steam account. When it first appeared it was a nightmare- now it's essential (in a good way), and I genuinely think it's made PC gaming better.
I don't have an issue with Steam at all, the games are so cheap that DRM really isn't an issue.
I do think it would be interesting for a game to be released on Steam only with 2 prices. A £40 one which you can sell onto other Steam members and a £20 one which is yours forevermore and non-tradeable. See which one gets the most sales.
I think steam revitalised the pc gaming scene at a time when developers were starting to turn away from the platform due to rampant piracy. And mainly their pricing seems spot on.
Nintendo could take a leaf out of their book when it comes to their eshop pricing.
Not been able to buy PC games Pre-Owned is a downer but I don't think thats really just a steam issue as most PC games tend to come with CD-Key's anyway.
My biggest gripe with steam has always been the lack of In-Game profiles. You can have multiple steam accounts but you can only activate a game on 1 so those with more than 1 person wanting to play a game on a system have to buy multiple copies of the same game if you each want your own saves/stats etc...
Other gripe is that they don't have any sort of Pre-paid card system so that those without credit/debit cards are still able to buy things off there.
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I do think it would be interesting for a game to be released on Steam only with 2 prices. A £40 one which you can sell onto other Steam members and a £20 one which is yours forevermore and non-tradeable. See which one gets the most sales.
Nintendo could take a leaf out of their book when it comes to their eshop pricing.
My biggest gripe with steam has always been the lack of In-Game profiles. You can have multiple steam accounts but you can only activate a game on 1 so those with more than 1 person wanting to play a game on a system have to buy multiple copies of the same game if you each want your own saves/stats etc...
Other gripe is that they don't have any sort of Pre-paid card system so that those without credit/debit cards are still able to buy things off there.
Not sure if this is what you meant but Game started selling these a few months ago, are these what you were after?
http://www.game.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/HubArticleView?hubId=195251&articleId=195252&catalogId=10201&langId=44&storeId=10151&cm_sp=pcdownload-_-hub-_-Steam
Anyone know if there game exclusive's or are they available elsewhere?
Pretty sure they're Game only at the moment.