Defense Grid 50% off - Direct2Drive's "Deal of the Week". Steam Activation?

[freibooter]

Direct2Drive's "Deal of the Week" is



Defense Grid: The Awakening



at 50% off. That's $9.99 and since Direct2Drive has yet to screw over Europe like other digital distributors did, it's a fair €7.70 + VAT for EU citizens.



What would be interesting to know before purchase:

I thought I read that the Direct2Drive version also could be / had to be activated onto Steam.

Was that and is that still true? I find no mention of Steam on Direct2Drive's Store page for Defense Grid - other than in the form of "Achievements" but there are several libraries in place to offer Achievements and stats independent from Steam.

[pkt-zer0]

Oh yeah, I've been waiting for this, so I could actually give the devs some money despite finding 20$ overpriced for this type of a game.


Defense Grid's D2D version is indeed activatable on Steam, here's the support article.


Also, couldn't you gentlemen revise the non-UK Steam pricing? Not charging VAT for UK buyers but charging more VAT for the rest of Europe doesn't sit well with a lot of people. It makes even less sense considering that no such shenaningans are pulled with other digital distribution services.

[freibooter]

Hidden Path was made aware of the EU-pricing problem on Steam multiple times, but neither Valve nor Hidden Path is willing to fix it.

Braid, another Indie game is coming to Steam soon with fair Euro pricing, so should be in Hidden Path's power to correct their pricing on Steam. And it's also in their best interest, just by lowering it a Euro or two they would be showing their good faith and quite a few people that are currently simply boycotting it would change their mind.

But as long as the Direct2Drive version can be activated on Steam, all is well, since prices on Direct2Drive are still fair ...

[pkt-zer0]

Looks like people will have to keep on reminding them, then.



By the way, just bought the game on D2D and activated it on Steam, no problems. (Save for the horrid HUF/USD conversion rate, but that's my problem. Curse you, economy! *shakes fist*)

[jeff]

My understanding is that Steam did in fact change the European pricing last month (dropping it), so I would say that in fact Hidden Path and Steam did take your concerns into account.*





I think*you may disagree on the math*with us, but since we know how much tax we*are paying,*we also know (and you may or may not be surprised to know) that we*are receiving*a bit less per European customer than we do per US customer.





Jeff

[pkt-zer0]

Just checked out the game's store pages. It's still 20€ on non-UK and £14 on UK Steam. Every other game retained its pricing as well, so I'm not seeing how the issue has been addressed at all.


As for the math, maybe you should start charging VAT for UK customers as well (it's the second biggest games market, isn't it?), or inquire about why Valve's taking a bigger cut from European sales, if that's the case.

[jeff]

Sadly, I have no way of verifying, but my understanding was that Valve was going to drop the price to 18.99 Euros on Feb 17th.* I'll follow up.





Jeff

[pkt-zer0]

If the game's store page counts as proper verification, you can actually check them. Just add the country code to the URL, like so:



Defense Grid US

Defense Grid UK

Defense Grid Norway

[jeff]

Ok, thanks for the link.* When I had tried in the past, I always got dollars.*





Anyway, it says 18.99 Euros today.* I'm assuming that it was my follow up*that changed it.*





Thanks for letting us know.





Jeff

[pkt-zer0]

Thanks for resolving the issue.



By the way, how's the D2D sale working out for you so far? The price was the only thing keeping me from buying the game earlier, and I don't suppose I'm alone in this. It's not that it's a bad game, far from it - it's that Elemental TD (optionally replace this with your favourite free TD game) is awesome as well, and hey, that costs 100% less than Defense Grid.

[jeff]

As a small developer working with these distributors is an interesting process.* Every so often we have price sales and that definitely increases the awareness around the game and also increases sales numbers.*





The goal right now is to earn enough in selling the game so we can invest in additional content and platforms.* We'll see how that works out as the year progresses.





Jeff

[analytik]

Purchased for $9.99 + VAT (and activated on Steam). Screw that Steam's "deal" for 12,72€.

Also, some DLC would be nice. Just some plain new levels, or a level editor. I think the game is too short to justify $20/20€.

[Mr. Weedy]

The game is 12,72€ now on Steam.



http://store.steampowered.com/app/18500



Edit: Meh. :P This forum's way of listing posts confused me. This post isn't needed actually. :P