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STEAM- Announcements & Updates 2011 Edition |OT2|
- Thread starter ClovingWestbrook
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It wouldn't also work, because they check if your filled in information matches your credit card details. In other words, if you tell Steam you're from one country, but the CC says you're from another, you can't buy shit.JaseC said:
Sure, you could just add a bunch of money on the Steam Wallet and jump on a VPN, but they will suspend your account/remove the game from your account if they catch your account logging from multiple countries within minutes.
IT's just easier to go to the Steam Gifting thread and ask for somebody to gift it to you.
QuantumBro
Banned
SalsaShark said:
It should be tradable in about a week or two, like other promo items.
StuBurns said:
You said this:
Pretty easy mistake for me to make. It's not an issue of 'losing' 30%. It's some companies wanting to 'gain' 30%.
But anyway, I read where the rest of the argument went, and I think you're wrong. I think no matter what way we look at it, publishers were never getting 70% at retail. Whether the money went to the retailer, distribution, packaging, returns, doesn't really matter. Pubs weren't getting 70%.
jim-jam bongs
Member
legend166 said:
I'm not sure that changes the fact that they're able to get 100% with their own digital stores though.
drizzle said:
You could use a virtual CC service such as Entropay. Granted, I've never tried it with Steam, but I used it just fine for foreign PSN purchases before Sony quietly region-locked the Store.
You're right, though; it is easier to simply have a fellow GAFer gift you the games you're after.
jaundicejuice
Member
I guess Bethesda isn't cool enough to let you have extra, giftable keys for games you already own. Not that I'm too keen to inflict Brink on anyone else but I could giveaway Fallout New Vegas and a few others.
It's tempting to pre-order both Skyrim and Rage and then grab the Quakecon pack.
Edit: Welp, there's no mystery here:
Note: You already own the following items in "Quakecon Pack 2011". You will not receive extra copies of these items when you complete this purchase:
BRINK
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Fallout: New Vegas
It's tempting to pre-order both Skyrim and Rage and then grab the Quakecon pack.
Edit: Welp, there's no mystery here:
Note: You already own the following items in "Quakecon Pack 2011". You will not receive extra copies of these items when you complete this purchase:
BRINK
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Fallout: New Vegas
The_Player
Member
The Anger hat looking just great on my Sniper. Now everyone knows it.
jim-jam bongs said:
Well, they can't get 100%, obviously. There are costs involved involved in distributing the game at some level. Taking a completely wild guess for the purpose of the argument, let's say the actual profit margin for Valve on a title after bandwidth (factoring in unlimited downloads across the life of the platform, i.e. in perpetuity) is 15%.
The question for a company like EA becomes, "Is it worth not selling our titles on the market leader in an effort to get that 15%"?
Personally, I think the answer is a big fat resounding "No." I don't think it's going to be worth it at all. I think Steam has very clearly been a rising tide that has lifted all boats. I think EA, and other publishers who would ignore Steam in an effort to push their own stores and get that 15%, are doing something very, very stupid that could end up harming the PC market.
jim-jam bongs
Member
legend166 said:
Yep, I completely agree myself, was just trying to be helpful. I may have made that point on this very page actually!
My guess is that most publishers will find that it's not cost-effective in any way. Their primary bread and butter is consoles, and the likelihood of being able to plug Origin/Acti-mart or whatever into the next generation of consoles is pretty much zero, so it's an uphill battle to get to a break-even point, let alone profitability.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Dude. WoW has basically reached cultural phenomenon levels at this point, I'm not sure that's a fair example.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
I would have bought SC2 if it was on Steam by now instead of playing the trial code from a friend till the time ran out and then promptly forgetting about it.StuBurns said:
jim-jam bongs
Member
iSteam made me chuckle.
I think it would have picked up some extra sales, definitely, but again I think we're talking about games which already have a high profile individually. A better comparison might be something like a new IP from an established developer, I think a game like that would absolutely do better on Steam than on the publisher's store.
StuBurns said:
I think it would have picked up some extra sales, definitely, but again I think we're talking about games which already have a high profile individually. A better comparison might be something like a new IP from an established developer, I think a game like that would absolutely do better on Steam than on the publisher's store.
StuBurns said:
I think there are exceptions. I don't think WoW is a good example in the first place, since it launched basically at the same time as Steam in the first place. And 7 years ago, Steam sucked. But I think MMOs in general live and die on their own ecosystem and community, not where the game is sold.
Using the example of EA games - I think Battlefield 3 will still be a huge success. I do think they'll lose sales by not having it on Steam, though. Probably not enough for it to be felt, but they'll lose some. Maybe not at launch, but definitely on the long tail (if they don't end up putting it on Steam). On the other hand, I think they're going to see some pretty crappy numbers from Crysis 2 by it not being on Steam. I think a $20 sale of that game in the summer sales would have seen a nice revenue kick from that game. I know I would have bought it.
That's what I think Steam offers the most, actually. A long tail, which is something basically impossible in retail unless you're a mega hit in the first place. Daily sales + a very active userbase means that people will buy years old titles at the drop of a hat. And awareness.
People make fun of people who will say they will only buy games off Steam. I'm not one of those people. If the price is right, I'll buy from other places. But Steam is the only store I check daily. My awareness of a title is dramatically increased if it's on Steam. I'm never going to be checking Origin every day. They're going to find if they continue to ignore Steam, awareness of their PC titles is going to fall. And they'll probably end up blaming it on the PC market as a whole and simply choosing not to support the PC.
We're talking about EA for the most part though. The people who make shit like The Sims which in terms of pure player count surpasses WoW, and certainly (legal copies of) StarCraft 2. WoW was a poor example for a few reasons, I had to pick a game that's from Acti/EA and not on Steam, so I had a limited selection. SC2 is a much better example, and I should have used it first time.jim-jam bongs said:
The idea is to condition your user base to use your client. Maybe you hook them in with BF3/TOR at first, but they're not looking every day, so a few months later you get them with Mass Effect 3, and you're a little more comfortable, then you get to holiday and Respawn's game is here. It's a slow process, and in the short term it will negatively impact the sale of EAs games. But if they persist, and provide top games, over time it will be worth the effort.
And they won't be alone either, which is a key element. If it was only Steam and Origin, Origin would be hurting more, but if Acti did move all their games to Battlenet, and the next tier of publishers did it too, what are people going to be holding on to with Steam? At that point it's a hub for Valve's games and indie titles, which is still awesome, it'll still make Valve lots of money and we'll all still use it, but it's of less importance to the industry as a whole.
I would be surprised if ten years from now you can get any new 'AAA' game on Steam not made by Valve.
StuBurns said:
You don't think segmenting digital distribution into publisher based stores is an incredibly bad idea?
It might happen, because video game publishers, on the whole, are stupid and know how to ruin a good thing. But that doesn't mean it's not a horrible idea that would really hurt the market as a whole.
If a publisher is able to reach a critical mass of popularity where they can step outside that marketplace and sell direct to their consumers, good for them. But that's very rare. For every SC2, there are 10 other RTS games that would fall flat on their face if they didn't have digital distro stores to sell them through. For every BF3, there are 10 FPSs that don't have that pull. EA are going to notice that pretty quick smart. And I don't think SC2 is a good example either, because it was a highly anticipated sequel to a cultural phenomenon.
And if anything, the need for online marketplaces is going to increase as the userbase becomes more mainstream and digital downloads more common.
OrangeYouGlad
Banned
Missed New Vegas during the summer sale. What are the odds it comes up during this Quake Con sale?
The_Player
Member
Brink in the Top Sellers list atm. Good, good. Let the "sickness" continue its spread through the Pelgo.
The_Player
Member
SalsaShark said:
I can't see mid-tier publishers launching their own DD storefronts and moving off Steam.
EA has a chance to drive people to Origin with big titles like BF3 and SWTOR, mainly because both are PC focused and have a strong emphasis on community. I think if Origin starts to attract a sizable userbase, we'll see EA even add third-party titles to it, much like Steam.
Other publishers don't have that luxury. Like Bethesda for example, the majority of their titles are single player. How could they justify having you download a dedicated client? There's also the massive investment in building a service. Other publishers don't even attract enough of an audience on PC to warrant building their own service.
I think Activision and EA both have a shot at breaking in the DD market. For anyone else, it's going to be extremely difficult at this point, not to mention 10 years from now.
EA has a chance to drive people to Origin with big titles like BF3 and SWTOR, mainly because both are PC focused and have a strong emphasis on community. I think if Origin starts to attract a sizable userbase, we'll see EA even add third-party titles to it, much like Steam.
Other publishers don't have that luxury. Like Bethesda for example, the majority of their titles are single player. How could they justify having you download a dedicated client? There's also the massive investment in building a service. Other publishers don't even attract enough of an audience on PC to warrant building their own service.
I think Activision and EA both have a shot at breaking in the DD market. For anyone else, it's going to be extremely difficult at this point, not to mention 10 years from now.
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