I'd imagine they wouldn't want to run the risk of devaluing their own product over the entire sale as opposed to running a limited window offer. There's a big difference in perception.
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There will be no daily & flash deals in the upcoming Steam Autumn sale (25/11)
- Thread starter texhnolyze
- Start date
I'd imagine they wouldn't want to run the risk of devaluing their own product over the entire sale as opposed to running a limited window offer. There's a big difference in perception.
family_guy
Member
Does this mean everything will be on sale day 1? It seemed like some things would be on sale on day 1 but not on sale on day 3. Or maybe I'm thinking of another site like GMG.
Many many less will. The number of publishers and devs willing to do a 80% discount for a day or 12 hours is bigger than the number of ones that would be willing to do that for 2 weeks.
somesayyea
Member
end of an era folks
While I kind of agree with the "sales used to be better" part of your post they are still hyped for good reason. Compared to console digital sales, steam sales are vastly superior.
autoduelist
Member
Not sure I agree with this. It's not like publishers were hoping you'd accidentally miss the daily window. They'd be perfectly happy if you had noticed and bought during that window, as that's how they generate income. You missing the daily and deciding against buying at all [especially since it had just been lower] did them no good at all.
TheOnlyMook
Member
I think this will be better in the long run. I never really enjoyed how Flash/Daily deals worked.
Doesn't the refund policy prevent that by taking a few days anyway?
If the sales are shit this go around of -25/-50% the Steam Sale train will pretty much be done. It made sense for the initial/non-dailies to not be very good because people would hope one day that week that the flash/daily would be that title. Now if it's a bad sale price, it's just a bad sale price. Nobody will impulse buy.
super-famicom
Member
Ok, then I only have to frantically open the Steam App on my phone just once a day. That's fine.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Well, look at Weeklong sales.
Sure there are games with steep discounts, but they either are games that a) everyone already has or b) noone cares for.
This actually makes me sad. Checking the dailies and flash sales over the holidays actually became something of a tradition for me over the years. Even if the deals are still comparable, it's just not gonna be the same checking over all the deals on day 1.
Why does Valve think we own so many games, anyway? It's not about actually owning games to play them - no one on Neogaf plays games. We own them because we see a deal that will expire in a day and we HAVE TO HAVE IT NOW.
Why does Valve think we own so many games, anyway? It's not about actually owning games to play them - no one on Neogaf plays games. We own them because we see a deal that will expire in a day and we HAVE TO HAVE IT NOW.
LizardKing
Member
On a somewhat related note though, how is it that the fact that these publishers dictate all these prices to the online retailers not considered price fixing?
autoduelist
Member
Because that's not what price fixing is? Price fixing is when the various manufacturers/producers of a given product all agree to sell at the same price.
This is a publisher setting the price of a unique product.
Femmeworth
Banned
What if they copy GOG and do bundles?
Which game would you like to buy?
______________[W] Left 4 Dead 2_________________
[A] Dota 2 Hats_________________[D]CS: GO Skins
______________
Am I the only one who has a price in mind for a game and will pick it up at or below that price? Regardless of the %-age discount?
If I want Game X but only feel like I'd get $20 of entertainment out of it I'm not buying it at $60, if it goes on sale for ~$20 at 66% off I'll buy it. If not and a year down the line the base price is $30 and goes on sale for ~$20 (33% sale) I'm buying it.
I'm more interested in the out of pocket cost for the game. This is why I still haven't snagged GTAV the shark card shenanigans put me off completely.
If I want Game X but only feel like I'd get $20 of entertainment out of it I'm not buying it at $60, if it goes on sale for ~$20 at 66% off I'll buy it. If not and a year down the line the base price is $30 and goes on sale for ~$20 (33% sale) I'm buying it.
I'm more interested in the out of pocket cost for the game. This is why I still haven't snagged GTAV the shark card shenanigans put me off completely.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
I get it, but the flash sales were fun.
LizardKing
Member
Wikipedia says this...
In any case, I know that a publisher cannot walk into Best Buy and tell them what to sell their game at. They also have to be using some type of coercion, like not selling keys to them, to get the online retailers to play ball.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
If there were 10 different publishers of Splatoon and they all agreed to price the game at the same price, that would be considered price fixing. However, there's only one publisher of Splatoon and they can set the price to whatever they want - you can't price fix with yourself.
In the case of a publisher/retailer relationship, the publisher sells the game at a set price to the retailer and offers a recommended retail price. However, the retailer is free to price the game at whatever price they want and frequently do (hence, sales).
In the case of digitally distributed games, there's usually no middle man - the publisher sets the price directly and the storefront takes a percentage of the total.
Would you like to buy a game?
______________[W] Zombie Problem?______________
[A] Give me hats _________________[D]Sarcastic___
______________
I thought so too, but I guess I get that other people don't have the time or even care to check back every 8 hours or so.
I guess it also makes sense that bit about people refunding whatever they bought during a sale when/if it does pop up during a flash sale.
I'd like to think there's a middle ground; Valve has used longer windows for some of their sales. In this year's summer sale, all flash sales lasted a full 24 hours.
80s Bad Guy
Banned
I honestly don't care about missing daily deals, but steam sales were always an event, and checking in a few times a day was half the fun. Now it's just a sale.
Hopefully the winter sale will have some community event. Just not that stupid monster clicking game again. What a nightmare
Hopefully the winter sale will have some community event. Just not that stupid monster clicking game again. What a nightmare
autoduelist
Member
That definition you quoted is pretty poor, but the key word in there is 'businesses', plural. It requires multiple businesses [generally, the dominant players in a given industry] colluding together to fix prices.
If I invent widgets, I can set the price. That isn't price fixing. Sure, retailers can put up sales and such, but that's on them.
If you and I are the two dominant players in the widget industry, and they cost $10 to make but we collude and decide to sell them for $200, that would be price fixing.
True enough, the actual profit could stay the same if purchases for the "lower tier" sales increase accordingly.
I'm just saying, if this really hurts their market in terms of revenue, Valve will change it very promptly and in case it does not, well, then that is actually healthy for Steam as a market place, isn't?
(And honestly, If you only want cheap games, there are enough ways to get cheap Steam keys from outside the storefront itself)
The problem with this is that I fully expect the regular/non-daily sales prices from past sales (or from weekend publisher sales) to be the only sales prices in these coming sales. If that happens, what's the point of Valve holding a huge sale a couple of times a year if you are just going to fill it with the same discounts that the Humble Store, GMG, Gamersgate, etc offer every other week between them?
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Well, that depends on what you mean, because 90% of the store is on sale during sales. As for what this means for the intensity of discounts, we'll find out.
Delusibeta
Banned
Do note that this is effectively the warm up, and thus I wouldn't be drawing too many conclusions on the structure of the Christmas sale based off of this. Don't forget: the Halloween sale did this as well, and this upcoming sale is of similar stature. If you're really looking for the cheapest deal, skip this sale and wait for the Christmas sale, since prices will be at worst the same as this upcoming sale.
Haunted
Member
I think it's fairly easy to predict the consequences of this, and depending on your main perspective, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Good for developers and publishers because it puts a bit of a brake on the "race to the bottom" mentality.
Bad for developers and publishers because the hype and momentum that was built by strong user engagement, by keeping people coming back periodically and having a rhythm of buildup and excitement to each new daily/flash deal surely was one of the factors that made each new Steam sale such a breakout success.
Good for the end consumer because the gamification of Steam sales and slight(?) manipulation of certain psychological traits associated with it can be a dangerous road to go down.
Bad for the end consumer because it can be assumed that discounts won't be as steep as before.
I assume Valve has done a lot of testing and predictive modeling on this to arrive at the conclusion that this is the best way to conduct this sale
... or someone just had the spontaneous idea to try it out and see what happens. You never know with the cards at Valve!
At this point, I'd say it's 50/50 whether this is the way sales will be done going forward or if this is done to let the Christmas sale have a bigger impact by being a return to the crowd-pleasing daily/flash model.
stan423321
Member
They do bundles. They just rarely push them as much as everyone else does - and GOG is hardly the best example.
Limited stock, lottery tickets, starting a sale just after another - that sort of thing would be copying GOG. Bundles?
Hamster Plugin
Member
Not really. Playstation games have a higher regular price than PC games, but the discount percentages on PSN have been as good as Steam. Indie games have the same price and their PSN and Steam sale prices often match (Axiom Verge PS4 version was actually 2 cents cheaper than Steam, lol).
The real issue is that Steam is a huge ripoff in Europe in general, and sales are merely just the games going down to normal price. I laughed hard at Witcher 3's "30% off" sale a month back when it was still a few euros more expensive than the retail launch price on PC.
Valve needs to think of something new and change the entire layout/structure of the sales. The past few years there has been over like 3000 new games on steam. You can't just do a sale anymore where Skyrim and Alan Wake gets some extra special treatment on the front page. Those days are over. There is over 6000 game on steam now and most of those developers want eyes on them. Gonna be a real tough dilemma going forward for them. I'm just hoping they at least do a meta game for the winter sale.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I liked checking back every morning to see what the sales were, personally.
Expect Skyrim to be featured at least twice.
Same with Alan Wake. And Borderlands 2. And Magicka.
Volvo just doesn't give a fuck.
Yup. The only indies and small pub games that will get a significant spotlight are the ones that have already done well. Ark, Cities Skyline, Rocket League, Darkest Dungeon, etc.
Be advised, I will be doing a 50% deal during Autumn and 75% during Christmas.
I guess they might change, but it's been announced for developers that this policy is for both Autumn and Holiday sale. This is also reflected in the mechanism for setting up discount prices.
Ugh. Well, I'm going to cross my fingers that other stores pick up Valve's slack. Won't be the same with Nuuvem effectively out of the picture in most cases, though.
Eh, I'm not too worried about it. If the worst case scenario happens, with games being on sale only 33-50% off throughout, then I'd have to imagine the amount of revenue this sale generates will be a pretty substantial drop off from previous sales. Valve would see that and see that it doesn't work, and go back to the old method. Hopefully
Woody Invincible
Banned
I'm hoping that this is to align with a super holiday gimmick that will result in higher discounts of some sort.
charlequin
Banned
I mean, there's multiple factors pushing in that direction:
- Some people don't do a lot of in-depth analysis on this sort of thing, they just have a general-sale percentage they do and a higher short-sale percentage they do. Some of these devs are just gonna enter that first number in the spreadsheet and be done with it.
- Regardless of the actual numbers, a bunch of devs are going to blanch at a super-high discount over a long window since they won't be able to control the impact of that choice, so they'll stick with lower discounts just out of risk aversion.
- It's possible that this is the right choice anyway, simply because without the promotional benefit of placement the high discount might not pay for itself as effectively, and going with a low discount might not actually change the volume of sale-period sales that much.
yup I pretty much have a price in mind before buying on steam.
< $5 = throwaway games where I like the genre
< $10 = most titles I want
< $20 = must have titles that I wanted to buy at launch
I have no problems not buying something because of my backlog.