I remember the last two games i bought in store for PC - Dragon age and SC2 both required you to register your copy online before playing, thus making it impossible to either resell of give to a friend to let him borrow.If devs are going that way then there really is no point buying physical anymore IMO as those were the main advantages of it for me.

Steam sales and steam trading

the latter allows you to trade valued virtual commodities for games bought cheaper by people living in countries where games are cheaper (russia, ukraine etc), as long as the publisher does not set a regional restriction on it (happens with some games)

i just pre-ordered Dead rising 3 for 18€ even though it's 45€ on the store

And Witcher 3 can be pre-ordered for even less, ~15€, though i wouldn't recommend it yet as it's too far from release and regional restriction could pop up.

It's a good question, and the answer is slightly convoluted but here goes. Steam is basically a launcher for games you have access to. It also has a store attached called the Steam store which normally has fantastic Summer and Winter sales. However you don't actually have to buy games from the Steam store to launch them in Steam you just need to buy a steam key which are sold from various other online store like GreenManGaming, or from Humble indie Bundles which have their own sales on all the time.  So anything I guy in GMG's top 50 sale here http://www.greenmangaming.com/50-games-1-10/ would be added to my steam launcher as if I had bought it from the Steam store via the key I would receive.

So I can pre-order Alien Isolation for Steam from there with their 20% off code for £25 rather than the £45 it would cost me on amazon for the PS4 version for example.

"92% of all game sales on PC are digital"

Haha and that's the reason why I bought PS3 6y ago. Steam=ONE F BIG DRM.

Digital - 30$
Torrent - 0$

Difference? None

Raziel123 said:

Steam sales and steam trading

i just pre-ordered Dead rising 3 for 18€ even though it's 45€ on the store

And Witcher 3 can be pre-ordered for even less, ~15€, though i wouldn't recommend it yet as it's too far from release and regional restriction could pop up.

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Thanks for the info. Sounds really tempting to buy a PC. I hope something similar will come to consoles.

I don't even trust physical games on PC anymore, I bought DMC with a cool red case and went to put my cd key in and it didn't work. Steam told me my key was terminated by the publisher and to tell the person I bought it off of. $10 I won't get back. At least I'm close with raptr points to getting it for free.....

I do 95% of my gaming on consoles now but I will buy a physical copy of Civilization beyond earth. I've never paid more than $15 for a digital download, it will never feel right.

I do have 72 games in my Steam library from sales, 29 played. Some on Origin from a sale, not played (just grabbed the Steam codes, ignored the rest). Bunch from GoG sales, most not played. A few direct from publishers and humble bundles, most luckily got added to Steam as I wouldn't know how to find them later again.

Anyway I'm done with buying games on pc I won't play. No more bundles, just a small wishlist for when a specific title gets on sale.

You can play Steam games offline

Don't talk about what you don't know

But you can resell/trade the PS4 game, but the £25 you put into a digital code, youre never going to see again.

On consoles, I could buy a game on release play it and trade it and keep doing that with atleast 6-8 games over the length of a year before the game I'm left with is no longer worth much.

Even if you take a game like FIFA, they sell for a good £25 (on PS4/X1) privately which means after playing it the whole year , youve only spent £20 (£45-£25). I dont think youre going to get a digital code near launch for that price.

You know GoG is drm free right