Edit: And we have a winner. Impulse at 308 NOK. With a -20% coupon I just got it’s even cheaper, 245 NOK. So there you go, Norway’s cheapest Prototype store is Impulse.
Prototype for sale on Impulse
NOT! Guess what? Activision has limited this item to North America only, so there you go, fantastic. Stardock can in all likelyhood not do a damn thing about it, yet chances are that they’ll get all the fallout for such a decision. Activision are a bunch of fucking assholes. Yes, really, you are. Now go shoot yourself in the foot a few more times. Please.
Been looking forward to trying out Prototype (I’ve been waiting for what, 2-3 years for this game?) when it comes out seeing as it’s the closest thing to free-running mayhem game with superpowers you’ll get for PC these days (and everything else ending up on a goddamn console).
So here we are, getting insanely hyped about this game, and the calendars tell us that we’re not far from release now. That’s when we see a Steam News popup telling us that we can pre-order the game 1 1/2 week in advance. Excitedly I click the button to actually do what I’m told I can do, pre-order this bad babby.
60 Euro = 533 NOK
I hit the ‘Add to cart’ button in a hurry, and upon arrival to the next screen I actually look at the price tag and ask myself “Wait a sec… wtf? That can’t be right”. Because really, exorbitant amounts of cash asked for a digital copy with no physical equivalent coming in the mail, no pre-order bonus or bonus materials, and not being a collectors edition kind of kicked the alarm bells in my head into action. I headed off to check out other stores available to me, namely cdon.com
399 NOK = 44.70 Euro
For this whole “Check out the prices on the purchases of the physical medium” thing I did, I used Kelkoo.no. Imagine that, using kelkoo was a complete waste of time because I remembered I’d used gamezone.no in the past. Lo and behold, for there I saw the best price so far.
359 NOK = 29.02 Euro
Adding 27 NOK in shipping we get 386 NOK (43.25 Euro) total from gamezone (who had a 2 NOK cheaper shipping than cdon.com! Madness!). That’s a difference in 147 NOK (16.47 Euro).
And if you can’t wait for the physical copy to get to you by mail before playing I’m pretty sure you can in good conscience download the pirated version off the ‘net (search Google for ‘prototype torrent‘ or something).
Really Steam/Activision are you fucking retarded, or do you assume everyone else are retarded and think this assumption is a good long-term move? I prefer shopping through Steam, but it seems gamezone + thepiratebay is a better option this time around.
Imagine a kid that really likes using Steam and rarely uses anything else for his gaming purchases, and assume that he doesn’t have those amounts of cash right there and then, does anyone think he’ll overlook the piracy option? Does it surprise anyone that people pirate crap anymore, or does it only surprise those who compare piracy with terrorism and similar fantasies?
hit Start->run->”calc”
the difference is 13 NOK (with shipping and handling)
You want to engage in piracy over a couple of euros? noob.
oops. disregard. I’m the noob. Full pirate sails ahoy.
This is what I’ve been telling Steam since they started charging us Europeans in Euros: One Dollar equals NOT one Euro.
When, oh when, will they change?
No physical presence, sure, no extra bits, fine, but the convinience of downloading it while-u-wait style is going to appeal to a lot of people, and for quite a few be worth the price difference. Personally I pre-ordered Prototype from Play.com, but that’s just because I wanted the physical stuff for a game I’ve been waiting for this long. I’m sure I’ll probably end up tying it into Steam via CD-Key anyway for the achievements and things, but before you bash Steam or Activision just take a minute to think about what they’re actually providing and how that is entirely worth a few euros, kr, or GBP to some people.
I don’t think you’ve understood the logistics involved. Digital distribution is so dirt cheap compared to physical distribution, the “extra” they’re providing in their service is so laden by the fact that Steam is pretty much a monopoly now.
I look forward to Impulse emerging as a serious contender to Steam, because right now the online game distribution is suffering from a severe lack of competition.