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[MrNyarlathotep]

Because they're more concerned w/ the short term than the long term.

EA was alleging that yes the sales get you money now but they were devaluing games for the long term.

Which is in itself undermined by EA titles usually being the first to be bargain binned at retail.

To me, I believe games should be priced based on the following questions:

"What is the price that people can pay for a game and think there wasn't something more fulfilling by that same amount of money?"

Here's the thing about the Supply and Demand curve;

It's a curve.

There are few people who will demand something at a high price, there are many people who will demand something at a low price.

By moving along the price curve with regular sales at increasing discounts, you pick up additional customers when their own attached value to a product equals the price it is sold for.

Price and value are not automatically equivalent. It's foolish to think they are, or that you can equivocate a 10 hour tv show and a multiplayer game as being worth the same to all potential customers.

 

[The Technomancer]

Yes, but I don't believe pre-orders making major of the Steam sales

They don't have to be the majority. They just have to not go down. As long as the existence of sales doesn't decrease the number of people buying at full price I cannot see any argument for claiming that sales devalue content.

 

[diamount]

I'd say it's better to buy a game on the cheap and be surprised than buy it full priced and fell disappointed.

 

[DyTonic]

Also, remember that even EA didn't buy their own bullshit. They almost immediately turned around and discounted a bunch of Origin titles, no?

/thread


At the end of the day who wants to buy a 3 year old game for more than $10.

 

[Palette Swap]

Half-Life 3!

Spoiler

Portal 3....

Spoiler

Summer Sale 3

 

[corporate cheerleader]

/thread


At the end of the day who wants to buy a 3 year old game for more than $10.

Nintendo fans. :/

 

[Visualante2]

Sim City sent to die Maxis closed.

 

[MRORANGE]

Half-Life 3!

Spoiler

Portal 3....

Spoiler

Summer Sale 3

how can you forget

Spoiler

L4D3

 

[demosthenes]

Nintendo fans. :/

& Square, LOL.

 

[DyTonic]

Nintendo fans. :/

That's a different story.

 

[walking fiend]

They don't have to be the majority. They just have to not go down. As long as the existence of sales doesn't decrease the number of people buying at full price I cannot see any argument for claiming that sales devalue content.

We don't know if they don't go down either, having even games you like at a lot lower price is a very strong incentive

Here's the thing about the Supply and Demand curve;

It's a curve.

There are few people who will demand something at a high price, there are many people who will demand something at a low price.

By moving along the price curve with regular sales at increasing discounts, you pick up additional customers when their own attached value to a product equals the price it is sold for.

Price and value are not automatically equivalent. It's foolish to think they are, or that you can equivocate a 10 hour tv show and a multiplayer game as being worth the same to all potential customers.

obviously; that's why game prices goes down at the retail or Nintendo, Sony, etc. have select titles;

the thing is: You shouldn't be able to buy games that are really good for their times at a cheap price; if you want really good games, you pay for them; if you don't want to pay that much for a game, fine, buy older games, buy smaller games, etc.

 

[The Technomancer]

We don't know if they don't go down either, having even games you like at a lot lower price is a very strong incentive

Er...yes we do. That's the whole point of this article.

But our pre-orders are bigger than they used to be. Tonnes of people, right? And our day one sales are bigger than they used to be. Our first week, second week, third week, all those are bigger.

More people are buying games full price within a few weeks of launch then before. The existence of sales is not discouraging people from buying full price games.

 

[cdevl]

On top of all other benefits, the way Valve does things also fights piracy. A lot of casual pirates are not interested in pirating games anymore because a lot of these games either available relatively cheap or will be available relatively cheap. So what in the past used to be an illegal download now brings more money to developer / publisher. That's got to make a difference.

 

[Mrbob]

Walking Fiend is just trying to find a new bullet point in his attempt to attack Steam since all other methods have failed. Never failing to make up an argument while ignoring the content involved say to the contrary.

Him and Heavy should get together to swap notes.

 

[Aselith]

very idiotic answer overall; it doesn't matter whether more people buy more games overall, it matters how much they spend in the end on it; by their line of reasoning, iOS $0.99 is orders of magnitude better than theirs, cause much much more people buy more games there

He said presales and day one sales are up which is full priced or minus 10%. That's a range from $40 to $60 depending on the game.

 

[Chinner]

how can you forget

Spoiler

L4D3

they still need to release the much anticipated sequel to riochet

 

[corporate cheerleader]

That's a different story.

I know, but there aren't many others that keep the prices of their games so high. Someone at Nintendo (forgot who exactly) said that if you lower the price of the games, people who bought it early would be disappointed because they spent much more.

It is interesting to see how different their pricing policies differ.

 

[DyTonic]

On top of all other benefits, the way Valve does things also fights piracy. A lot of casual pirates are not interested in pirating games anymore because a lot of these games either available relatively cheap or will be available relatively cheap. So what in the past used to be an illegal download now brings more money to developer / publisher. That's got to make a difference.

Good point.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

It's somewhat telling just how disruptive a force Steam has been that it's opponents have gone from "but-but-but monopolies are bad, they're going to price fix" to "they're selling everything too cheap and the sky is falling it's bad longterm somehow"

 

[walking fiend]

Er...yes we do. That's the whole point of this article.

Just because Steam sales is currently going up for the moment, it doesn't mean for example compared to PS3/360, more people less people buy games at $40-$60 range;

as I said, iOS is getting larger every day, but it is pretty small, and for example in 5 years it may become as large as %50 of the market, but %100 of market at 2017 maybe like only half of the market at now

Walking Fiend is just trying to find a new bullet point in his attempt to attack Steam since all other methods have failed.

Is it hard for you to argue against my two very simple example and so you try to defend steam blindly:

1. Apple doesn't make its money from software: iOS is doing the same thing, it is very small and is only making the overall handheld market smaller
2. Amazon makes it's money from intellectual property: they don't do sales like this

 

[demidar]

There are very few franchises that I would buy for full prices. That said, were it not for Steam bundles and sales, games that I would never have bought have a chance. Rarely is the case that I would wait for a game I'd really like to play just to save some money.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Great, so Steam cheapens intellectual property, EA overvalues unintelligible dreck. Which is worse for the industry?

 

[arts&crafts]

If all steam game go one sale for $5 instead of $50, you think people are going to buy 10 times more games? and if go to $1, 50 times more?

Yes I believe this. At least in terms of a steam sale. A perfect example would be feep and sequence. Didn't he say he made insane ammounts of profit in comparison to the rest of the time it has been for sold.

But lets use black Friday as an example. If a big screen tv is 1000 dollars off on black Friday, isn't that devaluing TVs forever? (according to eA and you)

 

[The Technomancer]

Just because Steam sales is currently going up for the moment, it doesn't mean for example compared to PS3/360, more people less people buy games at $40-$60 range;

Its not at the moment. They have years worth of data. At some point saying that a trend is anomalous starts to strain credibility. The devaluation argument seems based on the premise that if people know a game will be on sale later they wait, instead of buying it at full price now. But that is not the trend that pretty much the largest DD outlet has noticed over a period of years. The trend they have noticed is that, despite the existence of sales, people continue to buy games at full price at the same or higher rates then in the past.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Just because Steam sales is currently going up for the moment, it doesn't mean for example compared to PS3/360, more people less people buy games at $40-$60 range

PC games shouldn't cost as much as console titles, because there are no platform holder licencing fees to pay.

Digitally distributed games shouldn't cost as much as retail games, as there are no manufacturing, logistics or distribution costs to pay.

If a publisher sells 7 PC games on Steam (at 10% off), and 10 PS360 (at full price) games in retail, they made more money through Steam.

 

[Derrick01]

Great, so Steam cheapens intellectual property, EA overvalues unintelligible dreck. Which is worse for the industry?

Well one company is swimming in money and encouraging innovation from a game and service standpoint and the other is in a race with the US government to see who can bleed money faster while pumping out safe uninspired mainstream games left and right.

 

[remnant]

very idiotic answer overall; it doesn't matter whether more people buy more games overall, it matters how much they spend in the end on it; by their line of reasoning, iOS $0.99 is orders of magnitude better than theirs, cause much much more people buy more games there

Pretty much

Oh and I have never pre-order anything on Steam for exactly the reason EA and others have stated.

 

[Shambles]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ales-cheapen-intellectual-property-accusation

Some bits:



Not that this is really news that EA is wrong but hey!

EA's just mad that Origin sucks and that they can't compete with Steam. QQ

 

[walking fiend]

Yes I believe this. At least in terms of a steam sale. A perfect example would be feep and sequence. Didn't he say he made insane ammounts of profit in comparison to the rest of the time it has been for sold.

But lets use black Friday as an example. If a big screen tv is 1000 dollars off on black Friday, isn't that devaluing TVs forever? (according to eA and you)

1. You have to wait between 1 day to 364 days for a black friday, steam sales happen all the time;

2. For example on consoles, you get offs like at most 33%, not 75%; the problem with DD software is that you can sell it almost any price and have profit; for hardware or things sold at retail, you can't go lower than a price without losing money

3. In Black Friday it is not only games that go down on price, a lot of other things goes down; as I said, gaming industry is only one of the industries people go after for their entertainment, the problem gets much worse when games are very cheap compared to other type of entertainments which offer the comparable value

 

[arts&crafts]

Pretty much

Oh and I have never pre-order anything on Steam for exactly the reason EA and others have stated.

Ah you have never wanted to play a game without waiting at least 6 months for a discount. I envy your self control.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Well one company is swimming in money and encouraging innovation from a game and service standpoint and the other is in a race with the US government to see who can bleed money faster while pumping out safe uninspired mainstream games left and right.

Yang

 

[remnant]

Ah you have never wanted to play a game without waiting at least 6 months for a discount. I envy your self control.

Why would I wait 6 months. Steam games go on sale all the damn time. Hell how long is the wait between the Halloween and Christmas sale?

 

[mclaren777]

People who are looking forward to a specific game are not going to wait for a sale.

I've never purchased a Steam game that wasn't on sale.

Major sales are the only time I even consider buying Steam games.

 

[JaseC]

Why would I wait 6 months. Steam games go on sale all the damn time. Hell how long is the wait between the Halloween and Christmas sale?

The size of the Halloween sale is a fraction of that of the Winter/Christmas sale. The Summer/mid-year and Winter/Christmas sales are the only two big Steam sales of the year.

 

[The Technomancer]

Why would I wait 6 months. Steam games go on sale all the damn time. Hell how long is the wait between the Halloween and Christmas sale?

Games don't usually go significantly on sale within the first six months of their release. You might get like 10% off and I'm really going to have a hard time buying the claim that selling a $50 at $45 occasionally somehow devalues its IP

 

[walking fiend]

1. No, the App Store isn't (very) profitable, it's meant to sell hardware. But people price however they want, it has nothing to do with Apple. And while there is a lot of complaining in that space(which, if you pay attention to the business models of people complaining, they aren't advertising, they aren't doing any research on the economics of the market they're trying to work in), there is moderate success as well, at higher price points. See: Spiderweb. And it hasn't harmed the handheld market nearly as much as people thought if you compare 3DS sales to DS sales in similar timeframes.

2. As already stated, Amazon absolutely does sales like this, it's a huge part of their business model, they even do rock-bottom dailies on books. As for their game sales, they're doing a massive one right now, and there's even a rep who posts here who is happy to point you towards their events.

You simply have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry to be so blunt, but you just aren't basing your opinions on reality.

1. The problem is the Valve line of reasoning approved the strategy of App store [getting more people on board, selling more games]; but as you said, that is a strategy to sell hardware

It obviously have hurt the handheld market, 3DS hw sale may be good, but software sales it is not good at all

2. I haven't seen major books going for major sales;

I think I should point out I do not believe every retail game is worth the price tag of $60 at release, some games simply are not worth it; I have problem with games that can sell at higher prices to get very low at sales

For example people say why Nintendo games sell at high prices a long time after their release; the answer is pretty simple: because at that price, you can get few better games, if at all

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

2. For example on consoles, you get offs like at most 33%, not 75%; the problem with DD software is that you can sell it almost any price and have profit; for hardware or things sold at retail, you can't go lower than a price without losing money

Yes, after you have made your initial costs back, everything you sell is then profit, and DD has little to no costs involved.

I don't see where the 'problem' part of that is?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I've never purchased a Steam game that wasn't on sale.

Major sales are the only time I even consider buying Steam games.

the question stands then, would you have ever purchased those game at all, had they not been on sale?

 

[ciridesu]

I see both views and wouldn't dismiss either one as the implications in revenue are very hard to guesstimate. I wouldn't conclude much from the interview either, as he likely doesn't acknowledge Steam's increased userbase in the statistics does he?

Also, publishers will keep agreeing to future discounts and sales for reasons already stated. They lose significant money in the short-term by disallowing them due to competition and the logic of extracting sales from consumers at every price point. However...

Here's the thing about the Supply and Demand curve;

It's a curve.

There are few people who will demand something at a high price, there are many people who will demand something at a low price.

By moving along the price curve with regular sales at increasing discounts, you pick up additional customers when their own attached value to a product equals the price it is sold for.

Price and value are not automatically equivalent. It's foolish to think they are, or that you can equivocate a 10 hour tv show and a multiplayer game as being worth the same to all potential customers.

This works well to a certain extent, but in the long-run what does in fact pull the curve downwards? When future price expectations decrease.

Now... I won't side with either opinion though as I believe the matter to be too complicated. However, I feel as if sales in general hurt new IP's the most as they lack the fan base to enough first-day sales and do not distinguish well from the games currently on sale in the minds of the majority of consumers. This in return makes IP's long-term investments, which to be profitable require good word-of-mouth and reception in general. How this affects the performance of new IP sales in comparison to other factors I don't know.

Steam's sales work well for phenomenons such as Amnesia, but I feel as if they may hurt the performance of new blockbuster ip's, slightly. If the game is good then the sales garnered from the previous game will bring sales with word of mouth etc and effectively make them positive. I understand publishers may not dislike the fact that they may strengthen the 'investment' factor of ip's though.

 

[walking fiend]

Yes, after you have made your initial costs back, everything you sell is then profit, and DD has little to no costs involved.

I don't see where the 'problem' part of that is?

Let's consider it from point of view of Valve and a game publisher/developer:

1. Valve:
"Our competitions are retail for PC and HD consoles in general; what can we do?"
"We have the advantage of DD having no cost; so what we do is that once we made our money back, we sell at very low cost that retails can't afford"

The problem: You may get a bigger share of the market, but you are shrinking the overall revenue of the market;

2. Developer/Publisher:
"We have a strong competition from game B"
"Easy, let us sell our games at a very low price compared to B"

The problem: You are selling more games than them, you may even sell more games in general [as in the extreme case of iOS compared to 3DS for example], but the overall market shrinks.


---
of course, I am basing this on the data we have since iOS inception; or the fact that retail sales have become 'shit' in the US and Europe while chances of Steam compensating for them is practically 0; or that why Amazon is not doing the same with their intellectual property to this extent [those that worth their price tags of course]


---
People vouch for steam, cause they can get their games cheaper, and Valve getting bigger and more profitable is just condensing this; however, similar data and logic says that overall they are hurting the market, and we shouldn't forget that Valve is making a lot of profit without actually being tied to the development of most of the games sold at their store [unlike for example EA or Nintendo]

 

[Htown]

Walking Fiend, stop it. You're not making any sense.

Right now on Amazon:

Also:

 

[Htown]

2. I haven't seen major books going for major sales;

Who's talking about books?

Oh well. Still wrong.

 

[Interfectum]

Walking Fiend, you may want to stop now. You're wrong in every single post you make.

 

[Boerseun]

Sales numbers for PC games are massively inflated. Units sold mean nothing at this point as discounting have completely broken the PC sector. Anyone who uses PC game sales numbers to indicate the "popularity" of the platform is a complete moron.

 

[walking fiend]

Walking Fiend, stop it. You're not making any sense.

Right now on Amazon:

Also:

Who's talking about books?

Oh well. Still wrong.

Thanks a lot for actually helping my point :

How does it comes best books of the year are being off 'up to %40' while THQ DD %82?

Notice I was talking about 'extreme' sales through whole of my discussion, and specifically was using %75 value... And mentioned why they aren't comparable to for example hw sales at Black Friday for 33%...

 

[Dave Long]

The funny thing about talking long term about video and computer games is... THERE IS NO LONG TERM! Most games have a shelf life of three months at full retail at the very best. Without the Steam sales, many of these titles would be forgotten in quite literally less than a year.

Because there are discounts and Steam sales, publishers now have a steady stream of income and even have created some evergreens where they otherwise would never have found them.

EA really don't get it, but I think that's because they want to work on a yearly sales business model where they're constantly updating the same game much as they do their sports games. Steam sales don't fit that agenda very well.

 

[mavs]

---
of course, I am basing this on the data we have since iOS inception; or the fact that retail sales have become 'shit' in the US and Europe while chances of Steam compensating for them is practically 0; or that why Amazon is not doing the same with their intellectual property to this extent [those that worth their price tags of course]

What intellectual property does Amazon have? They sell other peoples' products, like Steam. Except unlike Steam, book publishers hate Amazon, and publishers don't set their own prices on Amazon. There's a whole U.S. Department of Justice case going on about this right now.

 

[walking fiend]

The funny thing about talking long term about video and computer games is... THERE IS NO LONG TERM! Most games have a shelf life of three months at full retail at the very best. Without the Steam sales, many of these titles would be forgotten in quite literally less than a year.

Yeah, there is no long term obviously; every developer who doesn't make series with an annual releases like CoD or Fifa is going to make only one game for the rest of their life, or at least once a decade... and of course in retail game prices don't go down as the time passes...

Valve defense force is amazing

 

[Evlar]

The funny thing about talking long term about video and computer games is... THERE IS NO LONG TERM! Most games have a shelf life of three months at full retail at the very best. Without the Steam sales, many of these titles would be forgotten in quite literally less than a year.

Because there are discounts and Steam sales, publishers now have a steady stream of income and even have created some evergreens where they otherwise would never have found them.

EA really don't get it, but I think that's because they want to work on a yearly sales business model where they're constantly updating the same game much as they do their sports games. Steam sales don't fit that agenda very well.

Good insight.

 

[The Technomancer]

Yeah, there is no long term obviously; every developer who doesn't make series with an annual releases like CoD or Fifa is going to make only one game for the rest of their life, or at least once a decade... and of course in retail game prices don't go down as the time passes...

I literally do not understand the point you are making any more. There are not less people buying games at full price. Do you acknowledge that or reject it?