VALVe gets greedy

Sunday Oct 10th 2004

I had to reinstall Steam so like usual I visited their web site. The first thing I see there is 3 “versions” of the new Half-Life 2 from VALVe, that being Bronze, Silver and Gold. What got me was the Gold version - it’s $90 bucks. My first reaction: “You have got to be kidding me.”

The 90 bucks basically gets you the game, 2 additional games (based on the same engine,) some cheesy posters, a soundtrack (please….), a hat (to look super-geeky!) a “collector’s box” (meaning it will collect dust and not be worth anything,) a postcard (YEAH!! A POSTCARD!! SWEET!), and some other crap - with emphasis on the word CRAP.

Game selling has reached a new all-time low with this. First of all, Half-Life 2 isn’t even worth the “base” price of 50 bucks. It’s worth 40 at best. Secondly, there is absolutely nothing “collectible” about Half-Life 2. Not a thing. Third, if you have to include posters, hats and postcards just to sell the game - the game most likely sucks. There is something very wrong about any game that has to “include” stuff just to sell it - much less charge FORTY DOLLARS MORE just for the extra CRAP.

Holy SHIT does this piss me off. What pisses me off even more is that it will probably sell.. that’s the worst part.

Small end note: I know that bundling goodies with games is nothing new… Atari and Nintendo used to do it very well. But the one thing I would expect to see isn’t there: a t-shirt. T-shirts rock. Shirts are always good. That and sew-on patches for backpacks or something like that. Those are actually worth something (to me at least). Hats are dumb. Postcards are SUPER dumb, and posters..? Ehh. Gimme a t-shirt. I won’t wear it, but it’s better than a card or a poster.

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