A friend of mine owns a local business that buys and sells all types of media, mostly used. I tend to do about 50% of my business with him and 50% online. While I don’t like not giving the developers money for their product (in the case of buying used) I like to support local businesses. I usually only buy games at his shop that have been around for quite a while and “made their money” so to speak. Titles or new concepts I believe in that need the retail numbers I might buy elsewhere.

My excuse at the moment is that I can’t speak Dutch and I end up buying most of my stuff online in the UK since that’s the only way that I can get something I can understand. However, if wasn’t for this then I’d buy local.

secondly, and i’m sure this is a point everyone’s thought of but not though important enough to bring up because everyone else probably thought of it too, you don’t have to go anywhere to buy the game through the likes of steam. i don’t know how anyone else is doing these days, but i just spent $38 something on gas and my tank wasn’t even empty when i started. ‘nough said i think.

i say, holliday, support the potential of digital-disruption and buy online. you’re supporting the publishers directly and like Head said, we vote with our wallets. i’d vote for steam over wal-mart any day.

As an early adopter to this method of distribution you are indeed essentially a guinea pig. You have to deal with that. The same thing is going on right now with microtransactions as exampled by the Oblivion Horse Armor content package.

Bethesda didn’t, and may still not, know what each chunk of digital content is worth. So, they dropped the horse armor at two bucks to see who would bite. Then they released more content per pack for two bucks a pop, I assume when the gaming community started an outcry.

Maybe Ritual has re-examined what the content is worth and decided that at twenty-dollars a pop, they won’t be able to sell as much, based on what they are providing. Perhaps at eight bucks, they figure more will sell.

Of course, that’s probably not correct as you’ve already stated that Steam still shows it at twenty bucks, unless of course, a price drop is in the offing.

Really though, Vermouth is probably correct. Wal-Mart sells stuff for dirt cheap to get people into the store to buy other things. I don’t imagine the general consumer is clamoring for SiN, but who knows.

In any case, stick with your guns, buy the items through digital distribution. We vote with our wallets and if the powers that be see that more people are buying via digital distribution over hard-copy, they will move more content to digital distribution and offer smaller developers a blueprint to get their product to consumers.

In this case I’d wager that Wal-Mart just bought more copies of Sin than people wanted. So discounting the damned thing is probably there best bet so that they make some money as opposed to no money on these things.

The other case is what we saw with HL2:EP2 which was available at Circuit City for like 9 dollars the week it came out. They A-aren’t making that much money on a 20 dollar sale B-Can discount it deeply as a loss leader as they’re betting that 20% or more of you who come in and buy it discounted will buy a high margin item like a cell phone accessory or a cd or something of that nature. You’d be surprised how well they can hit the nail on the head of how much a sale will effect overall bussiness, when i managed a restaurant and they could project sales figures with coupons very efficently.

Digital distribution can’t really offer loss-leaders or overstock discounts sadly. Personally I’d say buy it because I think retail stores are pariahs who suck the life out of the games industry but I’m something of a firm believer in the slogan the personal is political. I’d be happier giving Ritual 20 dollars than giving Wal-Mart 2, a Distributor & Ritual 3 each or something of that nature.