I have been considering steam since the beging of april.

[Shuffler]

Drano... call me paranoid but in light of all the hacking of web sights lately,
I prefer, as much as possible, to limit my exposure... I will not use PayPal
To those that do, its ur choice   

So you give them your card number instead?

[bustr]

I can see why Paysafe is a good option for European players, and in your payment methods options from the Steam dashboard it is one of the listed options. And the Euro generally does good against the $1.00usd. So if Hitech gets the deal he wants from Steam, nugetx gets his payment plan, Win-win. I don't understand why the last few weeks of mystery, this is pretty straight forward for all concerned if they are part of the Steam Market place. Paysafe paper receipts are even being used between Steam players to transact things like mods for some games. But, Steam has support calls about players who use it as a scam to accumulate pin numbers from other players offering bogus mods for games. Guess that can be a down side of a market place community for online gaming and virtual currency.

The more research I do to understand the Steam market place, the more I find external player driven services dedicated to helping players not pay full price for anything at the Steam market place if possible. The most sophisticated will allow you to compare game titles across countries and what the currency rate real time is for that title in each country. The worst outright tell you how to make your PC look like it's coming from the given country to make the purchase in the virtual store for that region or, the common last ditch solution from those sites, call up a friend who lives there and give him a Steam Wallet gift card.

Steam seems to understand this urge to not pay full price for anything if possible in the online gaming community and tries to leverage it. There is a constant carrot and stick undertone of dangling special offers of many kinds that knock off the cost on game titles. In all of the reading I've done related to Steam and the player driven support services, at times I couldn't tell if it wasn't more important to beat the full price of the game in question let alone even play it.   


From Steam 2010:

Valve Welcomes paysafecard to Steam

Valve today announced that Steam, a leading worldwide platform for PC and Mac games, has added paysafecard to its collection of payment options for customers in many European countries. In celebration, customers who spend 20€ / ₤20 on Steam using paysafecard will receive a free copy of Portal™, the ground-breaking title that earned over 40 Game of the Year Awards, when they shop before August 25th.

Supported countries include: Austria, Belgium, The Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom.

The addition of paysafecard makes it easier than ever to purchase and play any of the 1,200-plus games available via Steam from leading publishers and developers around the world.

For more information about this promotional offer, please visit www.steamgames.com/paysafecard.

About paysafecard group
The paysafecard group, founded in 2000 in Austria and Germany, operate in 25 countries worldwide with offices in Vienna, London, Bern and Buenos Aires. With their successful online prepaid vouchers, the group have established themselves as Europe’s leading provider for prepaid payment solutions. In 2009 the group won awards for being the ‘Leading Prepaid Organisation’ and the ‘Best Prepaid Company outside USA.

[AAIK]

bustr is onto something, steam does seem to take pride in all the discounts it provides its users, so much so that is a meme.

[Ack-Ack]

bustr is onto something, steam does seem to take pride in all the discounts it provides its users, so much so that is a meme.

So?  Here's something that bustr hasn't mentioned.  Steam does not discount any games in their marketplace unless the developer of the game agrees to the discounts.

[bustr]

So?  Here's something that bustr hasn't mentioned.  Steam does not discount any games in their marketplace unless the developer of the game agrees to the discounts.

I'm getting tired of reading about Steam to figure out all the mystery nugetx could have just shared with us. Steam as a single stop market place for the game player(consumer) is a sound concept, I was focused on the consumer side and not sure where I would have found that info. It appears Steam customers and player driven 3rd party sites are used to finding ways to not pay full price for Steam products. So now I suspect I have an answer to why it felt like part of the Steam conversations with nuget were like talking around getting a discount at a flea market over pennies. Who knows maybe nuget enjoys the process of getting things for less than the asking price as much as he enjoys playing online games. Nothing wrong with negotiating in your own favor when it comes to money.

After you fit the bits and pieces together about Steam, payment methods, and the whole culture surrounding not paying full price for Steam products. OK, so are we playing AH3 or should we hold seminars on how to not pay full price on the Internet? I'm sooo confused....

[nugetx]

I'm getting tired of reading about Steam to figure out all the mystery nugetx could have just shared with us

What mystery lol,  i've been talking about paysafecard from my 1st post in the first thread I made, go back and read it.


http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,387063.0.html



There are plenty of people who use other payment options on steam, like bitcoin, skrill, the steam gift cards,  those are just from top of my head, but there are plenty more.  Everyone can use what they are most comfortable with.

[Ack-Ack]

I'm getting tired of reading about Steam to figure out all the mystery nugetx could have just shared with us. Steam as a single stop market place for the game player(consumer) is a sound concept, I was focused on the consumer side and not sure where I would have found that info.

No, you're not focused on the "consumer side" at all.  You are just trying to use another method do show you're displeasure with the prospect of AH going on Steam.  So much so that you'll make an opinion about the whole process based on nothing more than ignorance and misunderstandings and also to try and show nugetx is some type of troll bent on destroying AH.

It appears Steam customers and player driven 3rd party sites are used to finding ways to not pay full price for Steam products.

Part of Steam's success have been the sales they've offered but again, Steam will only discount or put a product on sale with the approval of the developer.  Here are the two methods that are used.  I will simplify it for you.

Method 1:
Developer: "Hey Steam!  I want to put my game on sale with XX% discount.  Make it happen!"
Steam:  "Okay, done!"

Method 2:
Steam: "Hey developer, we're running a summer sale and we'd like to put your game up on sale.  Do you agree?"
Developer: "Hell yes!"

These sales/discounts though tend to be for "box sales" and not free to download subscription games like Aces High.

There are 3rd party sites that do sell Steam product keys (Steam will disable the product if these keys are found to be used) in violation of the Steam EULA, that do target those that want to buy cheap games.  However, these sites also focus on "box games" and game time (through the use of game cards) and AH is immune to this.  How is AH immune?  AH is a free do download game with a subscription model that does not use game cards, so these sites will not impact HTC at all.

So now I suspect I have an answer to why it felt like part of the Steam conversations with nuget were like talking around getting a discount at a flea market over pennies. Who knows maybe nuget enjoys the process of getting things for less than the asking price as much as he enjoys playing online games. Nothing wrong with negotiating in your own favor when it comes to money.

Sometimes it is difficult for a player in a foreign country to have access to certain payment options.  I've never seen his argument for another payment option as someone trying to get AH for cheap, just someone that wants another method to pay for the game.  There isn't a boogeyman under every bed.

After you fit the bits and pieces together about Steam, payment methods, and the whole culture surrounding not paying full price for Steam products. OK, so are we playing AH3 or should we hold seminars on how to not pay full price on the Internet? I'm sooo confused....

Your conclusion is waaaayyyyyyyyy off the mark, maybe that's the cause of your confusion.

We also understand that you're not in favor of the possibility of adding Aces High to Steam but please, do not try to use chicken little worst case scenarios based on fear and ignorance. 

[Ramesis]

So you give them your card number instead?

What do u not understand about the phrase "as much as possible"
 

[bustr]

I think adding AH3 to the Steam market place is a good thing if Hitech can get a deal favorable to his needs especially for the broad spectrum of payment methods offered to it's community that Steam will have to mange. Depending on age demographics, some players need an ability to change hard currency into virtual currency which is often true for younger people in any first world country. Everyone in the Melee arena will be AH3 regardless of their virtual origin. I don't want the Steam portal to cause new players from that virtual origin to think they are being effected lag wise by the active filter program in the Portal. We see what simply talking about lag does in our forums to peoples perceptions of the game.

I do not know if the existence of Steam has evolved part of it's community to not want to pay full price for everything they can expend effort to find a way around. Or, if that is the nature of a portion of the beast called Internet gamer's and the Steam market place portal concentrates and supports them while they constantly validate themselves as that culture in the Steam community world wide.

I did say Steam reminds me of FaceBook focused only on computer games. I used to work for one of the early E-commerce companies out of Richmond California that IBM had a partnership with called Quick Response Service\QRSI\QRS Corp.. Market place portals are a good thing, back then they were the holy grail of B to B business and mostly unreliable due to the technology of the day. Now, an indispensable tool for running a global virtual market place.

[Shuffler]

I'm getting tired of reading about Steam to figure out all the mystery nugetx could have just shared with us. Steam as a single stop market place for the game player(consumer) is a sound concept, I was focused on the consumer side and not sure where I would have found that info. It appears Steam customers and player driven 3rd party sites are used to finding ways to not pay full price for Steam products. So now I suspect I have an answer to why it felt like part of the Steam conversations with nuget were like talking around getting a discount at a flea market over pennies. Who knows maybe nuget enjoys the process of getting things for less than the asking price as much as he enjoys playing online games. Nothing wrong with negotiating in your own favor when it comes to money.

After you fit the bits and pieces together about Steam, payment methods, and the whole culture surrounding not paying full price for Steam products. OK, so are we playing AH3 or should we hold seminars on how to not pay full price on the Internet? I'm sooo confused....

First mistake.... You listened to someone who does not even play the game.

[nugetx]

First mistake.... You listened to someone who does not even play the game.

This is not entirely true, I played for 2 weeks. 

[Shuffler]

This is not entirely true, I played for 2 weeks. 

Like I said said you do not even play the game. That is entirely true.

[nugetx]

Like I said said you do not even play the game. That is entirely true.

It's true that currently i do not play, but it's also true that I played.

[JimmyD3]

It's true that currently i do not play, but it's also true that I played.

Agreed but as you so aptly pointed out earlier 2 weeks means nothing. 

[nugetx]

Agreed but as you so aptly pointed out earlier 2 weeks means nothing. 

Gameplay decisions and systems can be seen in a matter of minutes in a game like this...... it's not a single player game where the game unveils all its secrets in the span of 20 hours, and some do not even do that.