Luisfius: The same reason why Spiderweb has its games for sale for a higher price in his own site than in steam or gamersgate. Dunno what that reason is though.
Mephe: In a
blog post late last year, Jeff talked about the price discrepancy and this is what it came down to:
"Steam is a big, sprawling gaming bazaar where practically all of the games are cheap. People see a game, spend a moderate amount of money on it, and try it out. People experiment there, and you need to charge a price that encourages customers to pick you as their experiment. Also, if you charge $20 for your game there, it will be on a list with ten good games at half the price, so you will get murdered.
Spiderweb Software's web site, on the other hand, only lists our games. It is generally only visited by fans of role-playing games. People on our site are generally really interested in the specific sorts of games we sell, and so the higher price doesn't scare them off."
I think that Steams "standard price" for many games often are high compared to what things cost on physical media after a while.... With respect to prices then Steams greatest force seems to be its sales....