It’s not often that a brick-and-mortar retailer captures your attention in the middle of a gargantuan Steam sale, but that’s how the tide has gone in the last few years. The sales just aren’t as good any more — and the fact that Australians still get slugged in US dollars makes it even less enticing.
But that’s the opportunity EB are taking up right now, with a end of financial year sale. There’s plenty of games that priced at surprisingly reasonable levels.
Image: Supplied
As always, prices quoted below are done using the exchange rate at the time of writing and may change when and if you decide to purchase. Stock levels may vary too. But with that disclaimer out of the way, onto the sales!
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
On Steam: $37.87 ($US27.99)
At EB: $28
If you’re just looking to purchase The Pre-Sequel — which people who already own Borderlands 1 and 2 might be — then going retail is the best choice. If you want the whole series in one hit, however, Steam’s Borderlands bundles are a better way to go. Just under $50 local for all three Borderlands games plus the DLC isn’t a bad offering.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
On Steam: $40.17 ($US29.69)
At EB: $23
There’s a small crowd out there who genuinely enjoys Call of Duty’s single-player campaigns. I’m one of them, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
But PC players — and rightly so — have been thumbing their nose for a few years. And as a result diehard fans who have played every game on PC since the game was a retelling of World War 2 missions have been waiting for good sales to come around.
$23 isn’t a bad price if you just want to play the campaign. There’s still a few thousand people who haven’t moved onto the newer games, although chances are you’ll probably end up in a US server.
Assassin’s Creed: Rogue
On Steam: $17.08 ($US12.62)
At EB: $9
This is a pretty damn good deal for if you’ve suffered Assassin’s Creed fatigue. Rogue deserved better billing than to be the lowly offering to AC fans stuck with a PS3 or Xbox 360; it was certainly more technically competent than Unity at launch.
But now, it’s at a really good price point. $17.08 still isn’t a bad asking price given every AC game has at least 20 hours of gameplay in it, but if you can pick it up for $9 then you’re laughing.
Watch Dogs
On Steam: $17.83 (US$13.18)
At EB: $9
Watch Dogs might be one of Ubisoft’s most wasted opportunities, and a poster child for misleading E3 footage, but you can’t complain about the hour-to-dollar value here. $9. Damn.
Alternatively, you can ignore the discount and Aiden Pearce entirely. Which is a perfectly acceptable stance to take.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity
On Steam: $27.02 ($US19.97)
At EB: $9
Ubisoft really like giving retailers a good deal. Either that or EB overstocked to the hills on Rogue and Unity stock. Either way, $20 is a good chunk cheaper than what it’ll cost you to get both on Steam.
Warcraft 3 Battle Chest
On Battle.net: $49.90
At EB: $15
You know how I mentioned the other day that Warcraft 3 was still one of the best strategy games to pick up for a first-time PC gamer? Well, thanks to EB it’s actually at an affordable price. (Also, I know this technically isn’t Steam, but it’s one of the more egregious examples of crappy online pricing for Australians.)
How come Battle.net doesn’t have a Battle Chest digital download for their classic games, anyway? You can buy the Warcraft AND the StarCraft Battle Chest from EB cheaper than what WC3 and its expansion costs through Battle.net. And don’t forget: Blizzard’s in the middle of patching those classic games for modern computers too.
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
On Steam: $17.44 (US$12.89)
At EB: $14.98
Not the biggest discount, but hey — at least you don’t have to spend hours waiting for the initial download. You’ll still have to spend plenty of time patching, but a deal is still a deal.
Homeworld Remastered Collection
On Steam: $23.66 ($US17.49)
At EB: $19
Only a few bucks, but if you’re going on a spending spree those savings will add up.
The Division
On Steam: $62.86 ($US46.46)
At EB: $57
If you grab a copy and play with a friend, you can still get a good 50 or 60 hours out of The Division’s single-player. That’s not a bad deal. And as broken and buggered the multiplayer is on PC, I still enjoyed my time trawling through derelict apartments and bombed out taxis.
DOOM
On Steam: $64.86 ($US47.97)
At EB: $47
No contest.
What other deals have you seen in a store that put digital marketplaces like Steam to shame?
Comments
26 responses to “EB Games Has Better Deals On Some PC Titles Than Steam”
I must be missing something. I want to search for PC version of Alien Isolation and I get this:
https://ebgames.com.au/any/any?q=alien%20isolation&availability=onlinestock
Ben 10 sure went grim-dark did he not.
I typed in ARMA and got Brothers in Arms and no ARMA games in the search at all. EB’s search function is pretty much broken.
It works fine, you’ve just got to hit the menu option that lets you see out of stock items.
You’re better off using a google search so ‘alien pc eb games’ for example: https://ebgames.com.au/pc-165100-Alien-Isolation-PC
This is only because the publishers are forcing a same numerical value on the Steam price for the RRP in Australia despite one being sold in USD and the other in AUD… This shit needs to end and Steam need to implement AUD for us so we stop getting shafted by inflated prices and then a currency conversion on top.
The ACCC would have an even bigger field day if the AUD currency appeared on Steam. Remember, Valve are not conducting business in Australia…
Fortunately for us, the ACCC doesn’t employ the born yesterday types.
The AUD price in the USD field problem mostly revolves around Bethesda games… most other publishers get it right and leave the default USD price give or take $5. Bethesda games on release always $20 overpriced.
NZ Prices are in NZ dollars… and the Steam Price is usually equal to NZ retail price.
I dont think Australia Tax exists on Steam… I think morons cant tell the difference between USD and AUD when they upload their pricing spreadsheets.
Activision and 2K are certainly also guilty of this, possibly other publishers too…
Generally if you buy anything off steam that isnt an Indie game EB already has a better price even at full RRP.
Other sites are always cheaper than steam, even during steam sales….
Skyrim Legendary PC at EB KILLS the Steam price, AU$20 vs US$36.50 ($49.35)
Man you know you’ve fucked up when EB Games is showing you up.
Remember that some of these will come with their own launcher, not on Steam, (e.g. I’m fairly sure Rogue comes with a Uplay code, not Steam) if you like to keep your collection together
Remember a) you can still add the game to steam irrespective of launcher and b) Uplay games on steam typically come with Uplay anyway. Steam just loads the launcher for Uplay instead of the game. Not sure about those games if they stopped doing it but I know it happens on my copy of Splinter Cell Blacklist.
I know it’s not on Steam. But I couldn’t go past that $98 Halo 5 CE.
https://www.ebgames.com.au/xbox-one-202557-Halo-5-Guardians-Limited-Collectors-Edition-Xbox-One
I can’t win with statues. I missed Witcher 3, they cancelled the Batmobile on me, and now the standard price has jumped over $200, so this is a nice find.
That’s a cheap price for what you get – although at the full price I’m a bit surprised with the “digital download”. At $300, they can’t even throw in an actual disc?
FYI that doom deal from EB comes with a patch, book and a poster as well.
Expect to pay $3.00 extra for postage (mine is arriving on friday :D)
-snip
Good on EB i say.
Pretty sure they actually raised the prices of a couple of those games before applying their discounts. I’m sure I checked doom a month or so ago and it was about $60 US not $80.
I guess they’d argue that it was 20% at the time or something, but the point is it’s not really 40% off what I’d have paid a month ago.
Would anyone in the US have paid $80 for Doom even at release? That seems way higher than normal for a US game.
https://www.steamprices.com/au/app/379720/doom
Shows that in the US, it was always [and still is] priced at 59.95 for full price. They charge us in USD, but are bumping up the price for AU customers. Pretty shitty.
It looks like it was at 59.95 for us too, but only very briefly around launch, probably by mistake.
Could be, like I said I checked it about a month ago, so that’d be within a couple weeks of launch. I haven’t checked it on Steam since, until the sale of course. Either way, it’s dodgy. Makes it look like they’re raising prices before lowering them so they can artificially inflate the saving. 40% OFF looks better than 20% OFF.
Usually when that happens, its the default price “American region – US dollars” shown… and then they go in a bit later and go through the regions and upload the new prices.
When they get to Australia, they dont know we still get charged in USD… and they upload the AUD retail price into the USD field. So instead of 79.95 AUD it appears as 79.95 USD.
XCOM2 did it and reversed it the second day they got the complaints… Bethesda is either not reading the complaints, ignoring them, or being greedy #&@!* because they got away with it once and keep doing it. (Seriously how can they not see it effect their sales numbers)
Well yeah – Steam doesn’t need to be cheap anymore because it has reached a user count that offsets the previous need to appear as a discount store.
South Park The Stick of Truth for pc for $9 too.
I still wouldn’t buy from EB Games on principle. They’re a terrible company that exploits their staff, a few discounted games sure as hell aren’t going to buy me back.
Someone should tell steam………boy, are they going to embarrassed when they find out EB beat them…………
I would rather pay $100 for Streets of Rage 2 than $9 for watch dogs. (Steam restricts you to paying only $3 for SoR2)