Just wondered if you guys have a particular place / a set of places that you buy from, that you always stick to - so for instance if a new adventure game came out (say, just for instance... oh I don't know, just thinking of a name completely at random... Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots ), and if you liked the look of the game and wanted to get it, would you wait until it was on sale at those particular vendors? Or would you just get it?

I ask out of general curiosity and of course because I want to have an idea when my game does eventually go on sale whether I'd be shooting myself in the foot by not reaching out to as many vendors as possible.

Personally I have bought games from a number of places and am not really too bothered about waiting for it to go on sale at Steam or whatever, but I get the impression that some people only buy from one or two places they have come to trust. Might just be my warped imagination though?!

I have 5-6 places that I purchase from. What I do is check all the places whether they have the game and which one offers me the better deal. I will also check whether the game has different pre-order incentives depending where I buy from. For example pre-ordering the game from different vendors might mean different pre-order incentives or additional content. If there are no differences in the game and there are no pre-order incentives at all, I will just find the best deal and just order.

The one crucial thing for me is that the game doesn't have any kind of drm and unfortunately most vendors are pretty vague about that, sometimes even claimimg drm-free when you still have to go through some kind of validation. Disks aren't safe anymore either so by now GOG is the only place left I trust (reportedly dotemu too, but I haven't tried that).

With casual games, I usually wait for them to come to Big Fish (where I can use stored credits to purchase).
Occasionally I've bought games straight from the developer.

With adventure games, I preferentially buy from a place I've bought from before. But there have been times when the only source of the game was some place I'd never heard of, and I bought from them after reading about them at Gameboomers.


I've used DotEMU and their games have always been DRM-free. Sometimes they've gotten games earlier than GOG (Post Mortem) or offer games GOG doesn't (currently DotEMU has Salammbo and A Vampyre Story while GOG doesn't). I bought several games from DotEMU back when GOG had that ill-conceived publicity stunt where they suggested they'd be going out of business.

Well, it seems like download is the method of the future in buying games. I used to hold out for disk copies but have all but given up and have now acclimated myself to the download scene. My biggest reason for holding out so long was that I have a large amount of game trades under my belt at a trading game site but trading is almost a thing of the past due to the unavailability of disk copies in a large amount of games anymore.

Back to the subject and the reason I made that long speech was because I am now partial to GOG.com and Steam mainly because I can always go back and find my purchased games in the event of a crash etc. However that does not discourage me from looking for the game wherever it may be available. My goal is to find a game I am interested in no matter where it is available.

You can do the same at DotEMU and Big Fish. Neither one limits your downloads or reinstalls.

I buy from many sources - always first trying for a disk version or at least a DRM Free version I can burn to disk.

But I try to buy direct from the developers themselves whenever possible.

I buy quite frequently from Gog.

And I buy from BigFish.

And I suppose I'll have to get to grips with Steam soon.

Amazon and Play.Com are my two main on-line sites for disk versions here in the UK.
Plus certain Ebay (UK) dealers who have proved to be honest and reliable.

But a concern for me is the "on-line activation" requirement that is steadily growing. [Disk versions included.]
If any of the sites demanding this should go out of business, what happens to all the games I've paid for ??

I buy nearly all the time from GOG and occasionally from DotEmu these days. I absolutely will not buy a game with any form of DRM/online activation and those are the sites where I am most likely to find what I'm looking for anyway. So help me, even if I would like to play a game and it looks great to me, DRM kills the buy.

Gil. aka Fossil...but a fossil with no chains on

Used to buy from Interact/Amazon, now I buy from Adventure Shop. They have a good sale now and then..

I check everywhere it is for sale, I must first find out if it sold in the UK in order to save myself having to pay an extra pound if I buy from another country. Then figure out if it would still be more expensive to buy in the UK.

I will also check if the game has a Mac version and if the reseller offers both the Mac and PC versions when you buy the game once.

When I check the amount of emails I receive every week from all the resellers, I must admit I ended up buying from almost all of them in recent years. It can only mean I went for the best deal every time. At least I am aware now of any sale at any time.

It takes me forever to buy something, I must research everything. I spend more time buying and downloading games than actually playing them. I make a point of trying to own every adventure game out there.

I have become very used from buying from the Mac App Store, and I would hope eventually that the PC Store available on Windows 8 would also become similar, as this could become the main and unique buying place you would need to worry about.

However the App Store does not have everything, or sometime it is more expensive, and I end up buying from everywhere, especially from the Mac Game Store or from the developers themselves.

And unfortunately the PC Store does not appear to be taking off the ground. I never bought anything from it yet and I despair that I ever will because no one appears to be selling their games there. Might have something to do with how it is designed to work.

I bought many games from Gog, a few from Steam, my last one from Gamersgate. I bought from the Adventure Shop, Big Fish Games, etc. I never tried DotEmu.

I would think nowadays that if you have a game to sell, you don't need a distributor. You should be able to organise yourself having the game being sold on a handful of these websites mentioned in this thread and that's it. For adventure games I think this would be best. For other types of games I can't be sure, I don't buy any.

Thanks all - illuminating replies!

My publisher is in the UK and unless there's something he's not telling me will be selling completely DRM-free. Not sure how many other vendors might sell it in the future... of course, we have to actually finish making the game first anyway which is going to take a little time!

I joined Steam when I started playing Skyrim. Had to in order to play. I was worried about the whole online thing since my internet is slow, but it turned out to be no problem. The game manager client is fine. In fact, I like it. Have had no issues with game updates, etc. I had already played Dragon Age and The Sims 3 before Skyrim and had gotten used to the online achievement awards system with them, even enjoyed chatting with my sister in-game with Sims.

I've bought several games from Big Fish, though my membership is cancelled there for now since Amazon started selling more digital games. Don't need the ongoing monthly credits. Is that how Big Fish still works?

Anyway, I mainly use Amazon or Steam now, but also buy from GOG. I've used Amazon's marketplace too. I remember the first time buying a game from a UK dealer! I've bought from a few other places when I couldn't find a game at my main stores or had seen a better sale. I've bought games direct from distributors when necessary. I even bought an older game through eBay--two games: Legend of the Prophet/Legend of the Assassin.

But I prefer sticking to sites I know. And I almost always buy games when they're on sale or the initial prices have been reduced.

Fantastic !!

As a UK-er that's all music to my ears, CaptainD !!!!

I've just spent a very enjoyable couple of hours playing the demo - I just love the humour, voice acting & references to other games! I look forward to the rest of the game!

If I want a game, I will buy a disc version if available from any reputable source or the developer provided the postage charges are reasonable & that the disc doesn't need on-line activation! Otherwise I would prefer to download from somewhere like GOG but do use Amazon & The Adventure Shop. I do have a Steam account but will only download from there as a last resort!

Thanks Chrissie!

There should be a physical copy available as well. Seems a lot of people still want that even today (I prefer digital myself, but that's mainly because I have a 2 year-old and thus no spare space at all!! :D)

A disk version for me, too, thank you SO much !!!!

Screen7 are going to be publishing the game and they're keen to do physical copies!

They're also keen on localisation, but heaven only knows how some of the game would translate to another language... It's barely English at times (and I'm not even talking about the Brummie accent for the main character...)

Talking of accents one of the many things that made me laugh in the demo was:

Hah, we were going to get someone different to voice the character but she never got back to us so Rob did this one (he voiced Zero-Bit and several other characters) - he wanted to include the first line from "The IT Crowd" ("Hello, have you tried turning it off and on again?" before the client even says anything).

One of my favorite shows CaptainD, too bad it was cancelled!