Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

I remember a time when people used to buy media content by the piece. You bought  a book, record, video or game and brought it home to keep forever. I have no great nostalgia for those times because content was expensive and the selection was limited. The advent of the internet and digital distribution shook things up and for a brief few years a lot of people thought that they could just keep downloading everything for free. Nowadays however we are firmly in the age of the subscription service where you can have access to a large selection of titles for a relatively modest subscription fee as long as you keep paying month by month. Subscription services have become utterly dominant in music and video and there are some very compelling offerings in video games and books now too.  These subscription services appear to offer an unbeatable value proposition. The monthly fee offers an enormous library of content and this fee is often less than you would have to pay for a single pie...

It has been over 6 Months since I bought anything on Steam. These days my bargain conscious euro's go to Steam's competitors including Amazon, Green Man, Gog, Gamer's Gate and others even when I am buying games that install on Steam. A few years ago Steam sales of AAA games were the pinnacle of gaming value and at that time I was spending hundreds of euros in the Steam store. Nowadays however whenever I see something for sale on Steam I automatically look around to see if I can get it cheaper somewhere else. My lack of Steam purchases in over half a year shows that I almost always can. It is particularly telling that I didn't buy a single game from the Steam Christmas sale because I had already acquired everything I wanted at better prices from other online retailers. I suppose this is a natural consequence of Steam having such a dominant position in PC gaming. Competitors know that they have to beat Steam to get business and they do. This is free market competitio...

I have a strange problem with  DLC (downloadable content): I have way too much of it. This unusual complaint stems from my tendency put off purchasing games until they are on sale. By that stage most of the DLC that was drip fed to early purchasers is often bundled with the main game or costs so little extra that it seems foolish not to buy it. Fallout 3, which I have just finished playing came with 5 DLC add ons. Darksiders II which I am currently installing has a ludicrous 13 additional DLC codes. This abundance of DLC causes several problems. The first is trying to figure out what any of it is.  A single piece of DLC can contain anything from a piece of cosmetic armour to an entire new campaign and the grandiose names attached to DLC packs rarely give much clue as to what they contain. Even after figuring out what each piece of DLC is you are faced with the dilemma of whether installing it will improve or damage your game experience. It is regrettably common for DLC add...

Like many gamers I am looking forward to Steam's post Christmas sale. It is a great opportunity to pad out ones gaming library with some bargains. Valve generally adds a bit of showmanship with holiday achievements and such so it is always a fun event event though I never seem to have quite as much free time for gaming over the holiday period anticipated. What then for the also rans of digital game distribution? Surely the overwhelming dominance of Steam must send them into pits of despair as they consider that what should be their best selling period of the year is so completely overshadowed by the looming behemoth that is the Steam Sale. Well this year I am pleased to note that the GoGs, Gamestop's,  Game Flys and other distributors are not sitting back and waiting for Steam to roll over their Yuletide hopes and dreams. In a masterful display of competitive strategy they are getting their retaliation in first by holding substantial sales before Christmas. In my case at...