Polite Declines During the Steam Summer Sale ’14

As of Monday, 30 June 2014, 1 P.M. EST, Steam returned to its normal self, and so swiftly too. It is odd seeing the storefront as it once was, and with nary a sign of the frantic ten days of summer sales. There are no more little green discount rectangles, no more timers counting down until the next flash sale. The dust has settled. Seeing all these games without a discount tacked next to the price tag seems profane. Nonetheless business moves forward, and life moves on. While Valve retreats to prepare the world for The International so, too, do the Steam gamers retreat to their little cubbies and nuzzle up with all their new games.

I continue to do my own nuzzling, yes. I am pleased with my purchases and with my overall behavior during this sale. Indeed. I practiced discretion, deliberate purchasing, and had only a single instance of impulse buying. My wishlist was the framework for what I did and what I did not purchase. Yes, I acquired a few games that were on my wishlist and a handful of others that were not.

But there are a select few which I decided not to buy – I could have, but I didn’t. With games made available at such a heavy discount, why the devil not? The answer to this varies from game to game, and it was not because I thought the prices would go lower. Below are two of the more thoughtful lines of considerations among the group of games I decided to pass up.

 

 

 

 

 

At a 75% discount EU4 would have cost me $10.00. That’s very attractive, not to mention generous. And considering the robust number of hours that I have logged into EU3 proceeding forward to its successor only seems like a logical step. In due time, I will. But when EU4 popped up in a flash sale last week, the time was not time and I did not purchase. I attribute two factors to this decision. An admirable quality of Paradox Development Studio is their focus on community; the developer acts on suggestions made by fans. From these suggestions expansions are developed and released – Expansions that do just that: They expand and add worthwhile content and mechanics to the base games, adding new layers of strategic experimentation and implementation.

EU4 was released during August last year. Since then, two expansions have been released (with a mini-expansion soon the land). On the other hand, Crusader Kings 2, released by Paradox during February 2012, has had the benefit of time to mature and expand. To date, there are seven expansions for CK2. Of these seven I own four. Of these four I have truly burrowed to the mechanical guts of only two. I have much to do in CK2 (and the game’s concept is slowly percolating in my mind as one of the awesomest in the universe ever). To jump into EU4 – even if it is only the base game – from my standpoint would be premature. I like the idea of showing up late to the Paradox party and branching out to different expansions at my leisure and readiness. Perhaps in a year I shall be able to do so for EU4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let it be said that the decision to not buy this was never based on the price tag; I am totally willing to pay the twenty bucks for Transistor. I would be willing to pay more. Even at a 20-25% discount during the summer sale I still felt perplexed, like I was in a sort of quasi-ethical quandary. Why? Part of the perplexity stems from recalling my experience playing Bastion, Supergiant’s previous game, and how I loved nearly everything about it. It maintained a singular stylistic vision and the gameplay was a blast. There was something honest, almost pure, about Bastion. The game made me feel like a kid. I have all the trust in the universe that Supergiant will deliver another well-directed, focused effort.

This is why I passed on Transistor during the Summer Sale; I do not want to betray this focus of Supergiant by crowding Transistor together in my attention with all the other games I just bought. The act of buying, downloading and installing Transistor should be an event all on its own. I recall the afternoon when I had finally saved enough allowance money to buy Super Mario Bros. 3. After I bought the cartridge, I made my Dad run red lights because I was so freaking excited to get home to play it – nothing else mattered. I want to feel the same focused anticipation as Transistor slowly trickles its way from the Steam servers onto my harddrive… and perhaps get a ButtonMashing review out of it.