Steam isn't producing a "race to the bottom". What it's done is increase supply. Unless there's been a massive surge in demand (there hasn't; player time is fin

Steam isn't producing a "race to the bottom". What it's done is increase supply. Unless there's been a massive surge in demand (there hasn't; player time is finite), prices have to drop accordingly to compete. Years ago, I'd be willing to pay $20 for an indie game after playing the Shareware trial and deciding that I liked it enough that I wanted to play the whole thing. That situation likely existed because I wasn't spending my gaming time playing some other title. These days, I have more games on my backlog than I have time for, so your indie title could be priced at $0.50 and I wouldn't care - if I don't have time to play it, it's worthless to me. If I have to choose between spending my playtime on Assassin's Creed (which I know is going to be an AAA title, but for which I pay $40-$60) and Indie Button Masher (which may or may not be of dubious quality and/or play-length, for which I pay $10-$20), which do you think I'm going to plunk down for? There are more AAA titles than ever on the market - this fall alone has been one of the biggest quarters for AAA titles in video game history - and it's not that I'm Mr. Stingy Customer who doesn't want to pay for your games. It's that I'm Mr. Spending My Gaming Time On AAA Titles, and if you want me to spend that time on your game instead, it had better be ready to deliver equivalent value-per-dollar. Let's look at some of the indie games in my Steam list which I got on Steam sales or in bundles. Super Laser Racer - 11 minutes played Steel Storm: Burning Retribution - 42 minutes played Sanctum - 4 hours played Machinarium - 32 minutes played HOARD - 77 minutes played Hammerfight - 21 minutes played Gish - 20 minutes played Crayon Physics Deluxe - 47 minutes played Bullet Candy - 36 minutes played Now let's look at where I'm spending my time: Mass Effect 2 - 96 hours played Team Fortress 2 - 104 hours played Portal 2 - 27 hours played Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 29 hours played And to be fair, there are some games like Minecraft (140h), Magicka (45h), and Terraria (48h) that I have spent a LOT of time on. I also bought them for full price on the recommendations of friends. I don't have a vacuum of time that I'm trying to fill with more games. The reason that Indie Button Masher isn't worth $15 to me anymore is because I have so many other high-quality games to spend my time on. There are occasional shining examples (like Magicka) are were well-worth the full $20 + whatever else I spent on DLC for them, but I bought them because my friends recommended them and assured me that they were worth my time and money, not because it was on a Steam sale. If there's a game I kinda want, I'll wait on a Steam sale for it, but not because I'm being cheap, but because I have plenty of other games to play in the meantime. If there's a title that I really want, I'll buy it outright for full price. DXHR, Arkham City, Skyward Sword, and Magicka all fall under that heading, for example. I spend more money than ever on games, thanks to Steam. Just because I'm not spending it on your games doesn't mean Steam is slowly killing the market.