I've previously mentioned that I've recently bought myself a new gaming PC. Before I almost exclusively played games on Xbox and only occasionally played older games that would run on my laptop. Due to this I never really paid attention to Steam very much (unless I wanted to play some Half Life 2) and just bought my games from Amazon or Game. Now that PC gaming has become my main platform I've been booting up Steam almost everyday.
So just after I got my PC the Steam Autumn Sale started. This was my first taste of how tempting it can be to splurge a tonne of money of their sales. I ended up spending £30 on this sale but managed to get 8 games (Bioshock 1 &2, Batman Arkham Asylum & City, Crysis 1, Warhead & 2 and Deus Ex: HR). These were all big games in my opinion and some of them had not been out long (no more than a year in the case of DE:HR and BM:AC as I remember my friend buying them during my final year of Uni). I couldn't really believe the ridiculous amount of money you could save in these sales. Most games were between 50-75% off and with sales like this I can now see how high street retailers don't get any business. Another thing these sales made me realise is that why would anybody want to download any of these games illegally.
So after the post-Autumn sale high I was hoping that my bank balance would get a break. Valve burst my bubble by starting the Holiday sale no more than a month later. Seriously were they trying to bankrupt me? Just before it started I said that I would not buy too many games this time and limit my spending. By the end of the sale I spent another £30 on games. The really evil part of these sales are the deadlines they place on the offers. I sat debating with myself so many times over whether I should be shelling out more money because a game was 75% and if I didn't buy it now would I regret it and would it be on offer again. Also they kept cycling round games in either daily deals or flash sales which meant that if I managed to resist it first time around it came back up and tempted me all over again!! The final kick in the teeth that this sale dealt was the encore sale. I though that as soon as January 5th rolled around my wallet would be safe! Oh no, they then made Dishonored 50% off again and for the final time I couldn't resist it.
After these 2 sales, winning a Never Settle code (for Far Cry 3, Hitman and Sleeping Dogs) and getting Diablo 3 for my birthday I have enough games to last me till next year. Unfortunately I know that there will probably be a Steam Summer sale with more obscene bargains and several games coming out around March which I want (Bioshock Infinite, SimCity, StarCraft: HotS) which will drain my wallet and provide me a never-ending list of games I'll struggle to get around to playing!
Thanks for reading and I will endeavour to release a Science Friday this week but no promises due to attending a funeral but will definitely do one next week along with the usual Geek Monday and Games Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment