Thinking of buying GC2

I'd buy the Ultimate Edition disc for that price on Amazon. The boxed edition is getting hard to find.

The good news is then you can register the game key you get in the box with Impulse and then be able to get the digital download too!

Just make sure it's not a used copy as the key is non-transferable. 

Well, the thing you should bear in mind is that if you buy digital, you're cutting out the middle retailer.  Retail means that digital downloads need to be set at a certain price, otherwise the game doesn't get stocked at those outlets.  In essence if you buy digital, you get nothing extra, except the warm fuzzy glow from sticking it to the man (retail).

Though to be honest, the ridiculously slim shelf space means that retail probably won't make as much money for Stardock right now anyway.  My local game shop has just two wall shelves for PC games and they're not even filled all the way to the ground.  Consoles and console games own the rest of the shop.

Yeah let's be honest, the days of the PC games shop in the high street are probably numbered.  Here in the UK we have 'Game' which is a large retail chain that stocks a reasonable number of PC games.  But let's face it, if you've got a PC you've probably got an internet connection.  If you've got an internet connection, you have access to amazon and play.com and a bunch of other sites that sell PC games for far less than a high street retailer, with higher rent, staff and distribution costs, could hope to match.  And that's before you consider digital downloads.

I'll order the amazon version.  I have no desire to 'stick it to the man', especially when it costs me $30 to do so.

Well if nothing else, it's nice to have a digital version available.  I had a problem with a retail version of Sims 3, but after registering the game online I found I was allowed to download it using EADM.  Excellent!

My package from Amazon just arrived in the post.  I opened it to find it... didn't contain GC2.

Oh no!

However, upon closer inspection I found it contained something called "Space Unlimited Compilation" which includes GC2 as well as three other games.  No idea why I was sent this, I didn't order it, but I can't complain.   So now for less than a quarter of the price of the digital download for GC2 I have GC2 and three other games called Dark Star One, Star Assault and Sins of a Solar Empite.

Anybody know if these other 3 games are any good?

Did it contain the Ultimate Edition of GC2?

Wow you did strike the jackpot. I googled it and it does contain the ultimate edition of GCII.

Sins is great! Try it out and if you like the base game of Sins then Pre-Order Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. That will contain the original Sins plus all add ons to date when it is release later this year.

Dark Star One is a space RPG game like Freelancer, X3, or Evochron Mecenary. Your mileage may vary.

I don't know about Star Assault.

Don't forget to register your Sins and GCII CD keys with your Impulse account!

Cool.  I haven't tried out the other 3 games yet because I have been too busy on GC2, but it's good to know that at least one of them is a good game.  Not sure how much mileage I'll get out of DSO as I already played the X series to death.  I don't know anything about SA either, it doesn't even seem to have its own Wiki page, but who knows

Yup

I'm probably a really noob gamer when it comes to 4X space strategy games, but I've playing GalCivI for several months and totally loved it.  I found GalCivII for $20 at gamestop and bought it.  I just started my first map on it and man I'm having fun.  The jump from the first one to the second one is amazing.

For the price you can get it for, it's a steal.  I had the same issue you had.  "Am I really going to pay $40 for a five year old game?"  But then I found it at a price I was willing to pay. 

I don't know if this is a used or a new copy, but with all retail bought Stardock games, when you register the serial number with them on Impulse, it makes the game available for download literally rendering the disc you bought as a backup.  I mention if it's used because if the original purchaser registered online, it seems to stay with their Impulse profile.  Not a 100% sure on this though, but I've seen similar issues like this on other boards.

On a side note, I just complained about them never having a sale on Elemental digitally, and I just bought it again for half off the Impulse price for $20 at walmart.  I don't know why they don't ever seem to drop the price on their games, but they probably figure that most people that use Impulse are also probably Stardock game fans, they don't have to lower their prices to make sales.

I would say that $40 for the game + expansions isn't bad, especially since digital download means you can always re-dl it if need be. If you lose a disk, sucks for you. Can't lose a digital product.

I would have to lose the disks 6 times before it even became debatable whether paying $40 would have been a good deal.

Well consider yourself lucky that you can pick up a retail copy.  Some of us bought GC2 years and years ago and then each of the expansions, before an Ultimate Edition reached the shelves.  Back then it was digital expansion pack or nothing.