Where Do You Get Your Mac Games?

[maxdenis]

Lately...Macgamestore.com for two reasons:

1) Their 7 day no-questions-asked return policy. If I don't like a game, I can get in-store credit. Tech support is super fast.

2) Rewards program which returns 5 percent. I buy a lot of games so these add up quite a bit.

I also like their app quite a bit.

Max

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Purely out of interest - why don't people use the smaller sites like macgamestore, macgames.co.uk, gamersgate & macgames.fr? Obviously I speak on behalf of MacGames.co.uk, and we feel that sites like ours offer a large selection of both boxed and downloadable Mac games, plus (we think!) a better service for Mac users because we all focus solely on Mac Gaming, so can offer more advice & support to Mac users.

It's also worth noting that for aspyr games in particular, everywhere that sells the download versions (be it amazon, gamersgate, macgames.co.uk, or macgamestore), sells a steam activation code so you use steam anyway.

You may then ask, what's the point in not going direct to steam?

Two reasons:
Firstly, SUPPORT - you can't contact steam without using its Ticketing system and waiting in a queue, which is usually experiencing 'High Ticketing Volume' so they ask you to please be patient. Speaking for MacGames.co.uk - we have a phone number, email address & contact form which are manned pretty much 24/7 & are all listed on every page of the website.

Secondly, PRICE - Occasionally we run a sale on Aspyr games like Black ops or more Recently Civilizaition V Gold. For example, Civ V - At the end of the day, yes you'll receive a code to download via steam (including steam play if the game is listed as such), but you'd pay £17.45 for it on MacGames.co.uk in the sale, or its £29.95 list price in steam. You get the exact same result - a steam download - but at nearly half the price. Even if you don't use smaller sites all the time - you've got to admit its a no-brainer in the sales!

Anyway thats my little rant about how I can't understand why more people don't use our website, but I do have a couple of serious questions - WHY don't people turn to the smaller sites? Should we really just let the big boys take over?! Recently, I have thought about closing down MacGames.co.uk, which has been serving the Mac community since 1998, so an answer to this question would help us really evaluate our existence, and I'll be following this thread with great interest.

Well, here again was my response which did not include your store:

"Blizzard Direct, Steam, Mac App Store, Amazon, Origin, GOG and I prefer the stores in about that order generally speaking."

That is six individual accounts I have to keep track of already. I do not see the value of adding yet another.

Sales you might run are irrelevant to me. I'm sorry but all digital retailers run sales periodically and in particular, Steam and Amazon are known for steep discounts. Every now and then the MAS isn't bad either with 50% or more off. Just the other day I got two X3 games for only 99 cents each. That's a pretty tough deal to beat.

I prefer Steam (like many do) as a central place for most of my games library. There are a number of reasons for this. I like the features of the client such as automatic updates, social features, achievements and more. Steam has become more than just a store. It is like a gaming platform for computer gamers whether they be running Windows, OS X or Linux. So, there is a big draw to buy AND play my games there in that social setting where I have friends and follow their activity daily and they see mine, etc.

I prefer Steam whenever I am able to get something there and I can wait for it to be on sale if need be because given enough time, most things will be.

I buy from Blizzard direct because I cannot get or play Blizzard games on Steam and I don't want physical copies of them from Amazon. So I just buy WoW expansions, Diablo, SC, there.

I bought from Origin because they had a great sale on a bunch of Feral titles at one point. Otherwise, I don't care about Origin at all. And now that Feral seems to be coming to Steam, I will care even less about Origin or getting them on MAS for that matter.

I previously used MAS for Feral and Aspyr titles not on Steam mostly. See the pattern here?

Old classics fixed up with Boxer or Wine are GOG's specialty and you guys do not compete with that.

Amazon.com I probably will have no further use for now. I can get my Mac games from Blizzard and Steam and maybe MAS sometimes.

Can you understand why with those well known choices already available to me how I am uninterested in any other places on top of them? Having numerous accounts without any real substantial benefit to having them is not worthwhile for me. And that is why I have yet to shop anywhere else.

By the way, do you guarantee that Red Alert 3 will run on OS X 10.8.x? I notice the following disclaimer on its store page which made me wonder why you did this:

"This product is not eligible for refunds, returns, or exchanges."

for this particular game which I have not seen elsewhere, such as Steam or MAS for Macs. That notice sent up a red flag with me. What is the problem with this particular title that it needs this disclaimer?

You mentioned prices in way favorable to yourself but on the other hand I just saw Civilization IV Complete for fifty bucks on your site. On Steam the exact same title is 30 bucks and I think that is steep considering it is old now and a previous version of the game. So you cannot boast you offer great values all the time because that sure isn't.

I forgot to mention Blizzard and MAS game updates are automagic also. I value this highly. So, it should come as no surprise that Blizzard, Steam and MAS are my top three places to shop.

There is exactly one thing that distinguishes you from the competition enough to have tempted me slightly. That is Heroes of Might and Magic V for Mac. But I already own the Windows version which will run fine in Parallels and includes all the expansions so given it is 30 bucks, I'll have to pass.

You wanted some feedback. Sorry it isn't very good but I am taking the time to be forthright with you at least. I've got enough accounts and they service my needs completely. That's the bottom line. You'd need to offer some special value to me that really makes shopping at yet another place worthwhile but I am not seeing it.

EDIT:

On a brighter note...

I went and had another look. I noticed you do have an app to download and keep games up to date. So that is a plus. It looks nice too.

 

[macgames]

Can you understand why with those well known choices already available to me how I am uninterested in any other places on top of them? Having numerous accounts without any real substantial benefit to having them is not worthwhile for me. And that is why I have yet to shop anywhere else.

By the way, do you guarantee that Red Alert 3 will run on OS X 10.8.x? I notice the following disclaimer on its store page which made me wonder why you did this:

"This product is not eligible for refunds, returns, or exchanges."

for this particular game which I have not seen elsewhere, such as Steam or MAS for Macs. That notice sent up a red flag with me. What is the problem with this particular title that it needs this disclaimer?

You mentioned prices in way favorable to yourself but on the other hand I just saw Civilization IV Complete for fifty bucks on your site. On Steam the exact same title is 30 bucks and I think that is steep considering it is old now and a previous version of the game. So you cannot boast you offer great values all the time because that sure isn't.

I forgot to mention Blizzard and MAS game updates are automagic also. I value this highly. So, it should come as no surprise that Blizzard, Steam and MAS are my top three places to shop.

There is exactly one thing that distinguishes you from the competition enough to have tempted me slightly. That is Heroes of Might and Magic V for Mac. But I already own the Windows version which will run fine in Parallels and includes all the expansions so given it is 30 bucks, I'll have to pass.

You wanted some feedback. Sorry it isn't very good but I am taking the time to be forthright with you at least. I've got enough accounts and they service my needs completely. That's the bottom line. You'd need to offer some special value to me that really makes shopping at yet another place worthwhile but I am not seeing it.

Thanks for your feedback DirtyHarry50. I completely get where you're coming from - gaming really is much simpler when it is all in one place, and having more & more outlets clearly isn't helping. Maybe I could re-do the site as a news website, but again there's a few of those already too! We'll see...

Just one thing - I said I represented MacGames.co.uk, not macgamestore, so I can't answer those specific questions relating to product listings on their site. I can however point out that on MacGames.co.uk the Civilization IV prices are considerably lower than steam - the most expensive (the Complete Edition) is £11.95 which comes in at $18.50, although thats not a download I'm afraid, just the boxed version.

MacGames.co.uk/search-civilization

We also have Heroes of Might & Magic V at £12.95 ($20), but again that is a boxed game.

http://macgames.co.uk/71-heroes-of-might-magic-v.html

Thank you for for taking the time to give me a thorough & honest response.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Thanks for your feedback DirtyHarry50. I completely get where you're coming from - gaming really is much simpler when it is all in one place, and having more & more outlets clearly isn't helping. Maybe I could re-do the site as a news website, but again there's a few of those already too! We'll see...

Just one thing - I said I represented MacGames.co.uk, not macgamestore, so I can't answer those specific questions relating to product listings on their site. I can however point out that on MacGames.co.uk the Civilization IV prices are considerably lower than steam - the most expensive (the Complete Edition) is £11.95 which comes in at $18.50, although thats not a download I'm afraid, just the boxed version.

MacGames.co.uk/search-civilization

We also have Heroes of Might & Magic V at £12.95 ($20), but again that is a boxed game.

http://macgames.co.uk/71-heroes-of-might-magic-v.html

Thank you for for taking the time to give me a thorough & honest response.

Sorry about that. I was confused and thought you were from Macgamestore. So I'd looked there and the prices I mentioned were there as you noticed I think. My apologies for that.

I would think it must be pretty tough to compete with the likes of Steam with all the services they have built up to lure gamers to their store/platform along with the pricing they are able to offer probably because of the number of units they can move. I'd guess they are able to get better margins on that account which is hard for smaller stores to match. The Mac App Store has the great benefit of being right on the Dock of every new Mac. It doesn't get more accessible than that and while I think integration with Game Center on the Mac has a long way to go in terms of features, it is a good start towards an experience similar to Steam for MAS shoppers. Those two right there offer convenience and features other stores are hard pressed to match from what I can see although EA's Origin may grow also to be another noteworthy online store with added services via their client. They have built in some of the basics already.

A long time ago, I ran a retail software store for a chain in the US called "Egghead Software." At the time, we were it. There were no other software retailers to speak of in the US yet. Some years later, along came superstores with larger selections AND hardware for a complete one stop shopping experience. Our small stores were all based in lower rent strip malls across America and we did not have the space to compete with this and upper management did not seem to see the tide rolling in. It was not long before Egghead Software began losing sales to the stores that "had it all." It was not much longer before Egghead was no more. CompUSA based out of Texas took over nationwide but they too eventually fell victim to another retail chain for the very same reason we fell to them.

BestBuy is an electronics store here that sells stereos, televisions, music, etc. They also sell Computers including Macs and software and games. As they became more popular because they had it all, CompUSA sank fast and went out of business. Once again, the place that had it all took all. For me this was interesting to watch as it played out. Just like Egghead did, CompUSA tried to react but it was too little and too late. Once the tide started turning, it was only a couple of years to completely wipe out a very large nationwide chain of stores. Now BestBuy is in trouble thanks in no small part to Amazon.com who really has it all. You name it, they've got it. People window shop at BestBuy but then purchase online for cheaper and with no state sales tax in most cases, potentially saving a lot of money that way at least until the government steps in and starts taxing online sales across the board. This is in the US that I see this happening.

In the world of computer games Steam presently has it all. And I think that is the problem for everybody else. How do you compete with that? Increasingly, games are built with Steam features and actually require it now. Likewise, certain EA titles require their client Origin. If one needs the client anyway and the stuff goes on sale cheap periodically anyway (and at this point everybody knows it does) well then, why not just buy it there? There is only one reason: a cheaper Steam or EA/Origin key sold elsewhere. But how do you compete with 75% and even 80% off sales that consumers know are coming every summer, fall and winter, not to mention daily, midweek and weekends?

I wonder how everybody else gets by really except on price if and when they can.

All that said, the App Store icon on the Dock is a powerful thing I'd bet. I wonder how many Mac users never venture any further than there for games. And for those that do, there's a pretty good chance they have heard of Steam by this point.