Ahh Steam threads, they are like peanuts
Fact Steam likely could move maaaaaaaany more purchases than Matrix Games/Slitherine ever will, even if they sell at seemingly insulting prices.
Fact, I love my Civ V to death, but it won't run BEFORE my system connects to the net and initiates Steam first. Which means I am either at home or another online location or I am not playing my legally purchased game (which I got in both cases as physical disks in a store both base game and expansion). It's annoying as hell, but the number of times I desperately need to play Civ V at my mother's place (offline) is incredibly small bordering on not worth mention.
Fact 1.1 of the above, I am almost always on a net supplying location when I am playing any of my games. So really, crying about a need to be online really loses a lot of value. I can even play Civ V at Tim Horton's if I feel like carrying my laptop around that badly.
Fact, I buy almost all my real wargames as Matrix Games/Slitherine purchases simply because they sell them as complete program requiring only a serial to install as many times as I bloody well feel like it on as many machines as I damn well want. Which means, if I really felt like it, my son can play on his machine vs me on my machine with a single purchase. Granted, the day my son WANTS to play a wargame with me, I am likely going to celebrate and buy all my friends a game as a way to celebrate.
Fact, people that worship something being sold to them in a case with jacket art and with a reduced size manual (to fit in the case) and a company silk screened disc feeling it is worth the 10 extra bucks and makes it more valuable for it, NEED HELP. I'd rather make my own one of a kind jacket art and get my own case (worth about 5 cents these days) and even burn my own disc image (pathetically easy to do in 2012 even if not in 1995) on a blank disc (worth about 20 cents). I also like that the file can be burned to a flash drive and in two locations on a primary computer hard drive and one several back up discs as well as a laptop and stored even on tablets as it is all really just what it is, data. You could even store the data online with most service providers as they offer data storage.
I am pondering getting Panzer Command Ostfront today as I see it is on sale for peanuts. So cheap as to be hard to resist. And as a download only, as I'd need to be mentally challenged to think I needed it sent to me as a physical item. It's 3d but it is also turn based, that makes me interested. I am curious to see how it stacks up against Actung Panzer Operation Star. And the price is sooo not too much today. Even 'I' can justify getting it (and I have too many games already).
I would likely get more games on Steam if I had no choice. I like that they offer low prices, only a liar would say otherwise.
But I DO have a choice, and it is called Matrix Games/Slitherine. The thing is, I would love to see Matrix Games/Slitherine making as much money as they can, and I truly believe they could via Steam. But I would be sad to know I couldn't enjoy playing my games offline, and be able to install as I see fit. Thus, I consider Steam a great 'alternative purchase method' but certainly not the best method that exists. The best is as I likely have made plain, the way Matrix Games/Slitherine already does it.
And if they are happy with their sales volumes and profit levels who am I too tell them otherwise
I've walked away from a few games of recent years, simply because the game simply wasn't soooooo great I was willing to suck it up and suffer the DRM method insisted on by the publishers (who's name started in Battle, and ends in Front). Combat Mission looks good enough to want, buuuuuuut not so good I am willing to encourage their idiotic solution to people stealing from them. That and mr Tiller's method sucks as well. But the market has soooo many games, and we don't really need to feel pressured eh. I can live without a few of them. And I do. EA this bird is for you, I don't care to purchase any of your games regardless of how they are marketed including Steam or a method I prefer.
I am also old fashioned. I prefer my games look like a board game, and use hexes and turns. But I am open to creative methods of marketing.
