14 DAY TRIAL // Steam had another impressive Christmas showing, mixing a raft of impressive offers with some sort of meta game that involved further price cuts and special items, and all its big competitors, from Gamersgate to Origin, did something similar in concept although not as wide in terms of scope.
On a personal note, the offers are bad for me, not because they make me want something that I should not get but because I tend to crave games that I physically will never find the time to play.
I play at work, I write about video games yet I always end up also gaming inside my home, revisiting old gems or spending time with recent obsessions (the name Skyrim might ring a bell).
But I certainly lack the time to play Just Cause 2, a big, sprawling, engaging game that I saw for the low, low price of just 2.50 dollars or the equivalent in Euro in the Steam offers.
I would love to buy the game and play it and I was ready to give Valve my money, hoping to at some point find the time, when I took a look at the Library list in my account and saw that I have Psychonauts there since 2009 and have yet to fire it up and that my replay of the first Half-Life is similarly stalled.
And this kind of effect is also clearly visible when it comes to other gamers I tend to talk to and I can bet that a majority of players overall have issues with time, especially as they tend to grow in age and have more disposable outcome and less disposable time.
I am not suggesting that digital distribution services stop the practice of big holiday sales but they might want to try to deliver more targeted deals for a smaller number of titles to give gamers a satisfying meal rather than an overwhelming feast.