games on steam are about the same price as games in the store.

i think red orchestra is a few bucks cheaper on steam but not that much. why steam doesn't give a bigger discount? 1. there is no manual, box, or cd to make. 2. there is no shipping cost. why they sell them at the same price? does it cost that much to host the data for download? thats hart to believe. i think its pure greed. well talk me into it cause im gonna be buying a few pc games soon and if they are about the same price in store with manual, cd, pretty box, im leaning on picking up the games next time i go to wal mart.icecream76239

it's cause the devs make a ton of more money off of it. Plus since they are making so much money they can easily do things such as discounts(You see them all the time on steam) and it doesn't really hurt them that much financially.

Reason being, they don't want to hurt their venders by underselling them. 

If games were 10-20 bucks cheaper as a download, more people would download instead of buying retail and then the retail stores would get pissed and take the games off the shelves for other things, console games, etc..

If the games were taken off of the shelves, the game company would be missing out on huge, virtually free, advertising and thus would lose customers.

Now, in my opinion it's not going to be too long before entertainment will be sold almost entirely directly by the developers,  which could cause huge price cuts because the publishers take out a huge chunk of money just to distribute the game for them.  I'll bet in about 5 years most entertainment will come in the form of downloaded media. 

Most games are $5-10 cheaper on steam rather than in retail. Thats a lot cheaper than it would actually cost production companies to supply the physical components. Don't just use one example to base it on all of them. Retail stores also have to lower their prices to digital download prices in order to compete with them.br377and3r60n

Never once in my experience.. If I go out and try and find an olderish game, the Direct To Drive cost is actually higher, and newer games are always about the same.. so if I'm feeling cheap, but want the game now.. drive out and buy it.. If I'm feeling super cheap.. THen I order them online, and even with shipping they are way less expensive than anywhere else, except for the super new games. But if I feel really lazy I'll order it through download :p Basically, I rarely buy through that but I have, but mostly it's order online unless I need it now, then I'll go out and buy

Not so much the older games. I picked up COD 2 in the box for $AUD20 the other day. It's $US30 on steam.

Like everything, they have some favourable prices and not so favourable prices. I've brought a few things through Steam. You just have to check the market.

8)

When the retailers put the games up in their store they've already paid for those boxes so the developer has already received some cash. When developers put their game up on D2D or Steam they receive payment for each individual sale rather than a big bulk order. The result is money trickling in rather than lump sums early on.

When I bought X3 off of Steam I got it for $13 cheaper than what I would have had to pay otherwise, and that's after exchange rates (I'm in Canada).

Sometimes they have great discounts, much less than stores, on Valve games like HL2 or Episode 1...

For example