Buying PC Games

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Overview

These days, there are many different places to buy PC games from. These places can fall under one of two umbrellas, either brick-and-mortar or digital. Brick and mortar sales come from buying a physical copy of the game from a physical store, and digital is purchasing a digital copy of the game from one of the numerous online services out there.

Examples of Brick and mortar stores include:

• Best Buy
• GameStop
• Target

Examples of digital storefronts include:

• Steam
• GOG.com
• Origin

Another option is buying retail games online. Some online retailers (such as Amazon) offer both digital download and physical copies of games.

Differences

Most recent retail releases require activation on a digital distribution service (Steam, Origin or Uplay) and so are functionally identical to buying the game digitally. For older games, or games that don't activate on a service, one of the important differences between a physical copy of a game and a digital copy of the game is licensing. In most cases a physical copy of a game is considered a good, while a digital copy of a game is often considered a service. For example the first sale doctrine allows you to sell your physical copy of a game, while most digital storefronts disallow you from selling your game. This isn't the only important distinction. Because of the myriad rights that apply to a game, games can conceivably be pulled from a digital storefront, or even removed from your library after a purchase.

That being said, digital storefronts have their perks as well. Most digital storefronts allow you to install games from any computer with a simple log-in. Games can usually be found for much cheaper digitally than their physical counterpart.

Sales

Game Sales Listings

SavyGamer

SavyGamer is run by LewieP and is regularly updated almost every day with game deals for PC and console games, as well as console hardware, with a particular focus on the UK market. International PC gamers should focus on the PC Digital Distribution category which should list games available in any country unless specificied.

In addition to SavyGamer, LewieP also writes weekly columns for a number of websites:

• The RPS Bargain Bucket - a weekly column published on a Saturday, featuring cross-platform game deals. Sometimes written by other writers.

• Eurogamer - Cheap This Week - LewieP also wrote a number of game deal articles for Eurogamer, but this has appeared to have stopped in late 2011.

Dealzon PC Games

Dealzon is another deal aggregate website made for gamers, with specific focus on PC gamers in North America. Like SavyGamer above, they also post weekly deal columns at a number of websites:

• Big Deal On The Internet - weekly Tuesday deal list at Escapist Magazine

• GamesBeat - bi-weekly deal list of PC games on VentureBeat's GameBeats section.

Reddit

• r/GameDeals - is an extremely active subreddit which features a high proportion of PC digital distribution game sales. Particularly notable is that Amazon product manager Tony (Tvacgamer) is very active on the site, and regularly posts up information about Amazon digital distribution game sales.