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STEAM- Announcements & Updates 2011 Edition |OT2|
- Thread starter ClovingWestbrook
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Schmattakopf
Member
It's also free advertising, and you can't predict what the sales would be without it.StuBurns said:
When we're talking massive releases, the impact of a four inch steam window is probably very little.Schmattakopf said:
Steam will always be very attractive for smaller devs/pubs, but people like EA, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to push their AAA titles, are really in a very different situation.
The_Player
Member
I AM FULL OF RAGE!!! Literally.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
StuBurns said:
Not true. The cost of running your own servers, advertising, allowing your customers to always have access to download their games, updating, instant access to millions of customers is why so many publishers use Steam. Why don't more record companies set up their own store instead of using iTunes who also takes 30c of every dollar? Because its easier and millions of customers are dedicated to the service.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
You have the good and the bad when you deal with Steam. The good is that the customer base is really big, that being visible on there boosts your sales like crazy, you have a working infrastructure, working advertising opportunities, reducing your price usually results in massive sales spikes because the customers are trained well, blah. On the other hand, you have the 30%.
Now, if you want to open your own store, you lose all the good and the bad. The question is whether that's worth it (for both customer and publisher). For most, it probably isn't. For example, CAPCOM wouldn't benefit from that, really. They'd end up investing more in the groundwork than they might gain extra through the later benefits.
And another thing that's problematic is that the more you distribute the sales channels, the less the benefits of your store can play out. So even if you drop the 30% on Steam and take the bad, the good things are effectively amplified as long as Steam is relatively unchallenged they are the go-to guys for games, so everyone's there and everyone benefits from the Steam-specific niceties. If you take a chunk of people away to corner them in your store, then they will only benefit in relation to your product. That isn't actually good in the long run.
Now, if you want to open your own store, you lose all the good and the bad. The question is whether that's worth it (for both customer and publisher). For most, it probably isn't. For example, CAPCOM wouldn't benefit from that, really. They'd end up investing more in the groundwork than they might gain extra through the later benefits.
And another thing that's problematic is that the more you distribute the sales channels, the less the benefits of your store can play out. So even if you drop the 30% on Steam and take the bad, the good things are effectively amplified as long as Steam is relatively unchallenged they are the go-to guys for games, so everyone's there and everyone benefits from the Steam-specific niceties. If you take a chunk of people away to corner them in your store, then they will only benefit in relation to your product. That isn't actually good in the long run.
The music industry does that because it's massively fragmented and no one would be willing to have forty iTunes clones.LovingSteam said:
If you were right, EA would not be pulling their games from Steam. You would be able to buy StarCraft 2 on there, but you can't. Because for the publishers who have enough pull to not support Steam, they are able to run their service for less than Valve's cut, and that makes sense, Valve aren't a charity, they have to make a profit from their service, it's that profit that some publishers want.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
StuBurns said:
EA already had a client set up and Activision Blizzard has as well. Notice they are both 2 of the biggest publishers in the business. For smaller publishers its different. Also has EA pulled Mass Effect off Steam? Mirrors Edge? DA1? No.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
EA is making a huge mistake, I think. They're betting on their products to pull an unproven infrastructure along, and that's risky; overly risky in my opinion. Especially considering the product-specific investment they had to deal with recently (TOR = fucking crazy money). And they've been struggling with the general concept of DD for years. So don't get too hung up on their strategy. I think they'll hit a wall with their customers (like they usually do, see EA login server performance with big titles, for example, or the DB fuckups for the mapping generic game identity -> EA user -> user content). EA actually has some really big under-the-hood technical issues they've never even touched, they're just dragging that shit along. Not a horse I'd bet on right now.StuBurns said:
Valve had it hard in the beginning without the competition. Now EA will have it hard with an overwhelming competition. Not seeing much to be gained for them. I'd be interested in who's come up with the idea in the first place, actually. That guy must've done coke or something.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
StuBurns said:
Where did I say that ME3 will be on Steam? I didn't. I said that EA hasn't removed the Mass Effect games off of Steam. They've removed exactly 2 games off of Steam: DA2 and Crysis 2. They still have all of the C&C, ME1&2, Mirrors Edge, Sims, Need for Speed, etc.
TouchMyBox
Member
StuBurns said:
"losing 30% of your PC money"? What are the alternatives? Sell at retail and "lose" 60% and lose the benefits of Digital Distribution? Go to another DD service and "lose" the same percentage, if not more? Make your own DD outlet and sink millions into a service that nobody wants?
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
That's so annoying. I have no idea why they keep pulling the Civ games from my region.The_Player said:
I AM FULL OF RAGE!!! Literally.
The_Player
Member
Distribution right, probably.Sgt.Pepper said:
Kind of off/on-topic (since I picked up the games during the big sales) but after having completed Mass Effect 1, just started a bit of 2...
I completed Mass Effect in 26 hours or so and I thoroughly enjoyed, like, the whole game. The universe, combat, the RPG elements, it's all good. I love the goofiness of the Mako, as well. Concerning Mass Effect 2...
Have they really managed to fuck up everything good from the first game?
No Mako
Ammo in weapons
NO FREAKING EQUIPMENT TO SELECT?! JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. I NEED MY WEAPON MODS.
I kind of feel like I just shouldn't play through this at all. End Mass Effect on a high note. I feel so alone without my Wrex and Garrus
I completed Mass Effect in 26 hours or so and I thoroughly enjoyed, like, the whole game. The universe, combat, the RPG elements, it's all good. I love the goofiness of the Mako, as well. Concerning Mass Effect 2...
Have they really managed to fuck up everything good from the first game?
No Mako
Ammo in weapons
NO FREAKING EQUIPMENT TO SELECT?! JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. I NEED MY WEAPON MODS.
I kind of feel like I just shouldn't play through this at all. End Mass Effect on a high note. I feel so alone without my Wrex and Garrus
TouchMyBox
Member
StuBurns said:
Manufacturing, retail margin, distribution, taking a loss and buying back or bending over for a retailer in other ways over unsold copies of games.
That's gotta be more than a $15 cut on a new PC game. Then you have the opportunity costs of being sold out at a particular store and whatnot. A simple, worry-free 70% sounds like heaven compared to that.
Don't know if this is the most accurate thing in the world, but it's gotta be close.
The_Player
Member
I share your pain, bro. They just cut off all that was good in ME1 and ended up with pretty generic duck'n'cover TPS. And yet most of gamers think that the second part is much better than the original.MNC said:
I'm not saying it's not preferable for the vast majority, just that retail cut isn't 60%, or even nearly close to that. And as moronic as it sounds, considering Valve deals in CD keys essentially, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't effectively still have returns. Although that is complete speculation, I'll try and find out later.TouchMyBox said:
EDIT: That chart proves my point not yours.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I don't think Valve takes a cut when a CD key is registered. I believe that's a free service.StuBurns said:
TouchMyBox
Member
Lyphen said:
Didn't think I'd have to explicitly say that.
Yeah, 60% is coming out of my ass, but it's still going to be higher than 30%.
And then if you wish to further the argument, Steam gives publishers money a lot faster than retail does. Money that can be earning interest.
StuBurns said:
So then, why did Activision go Steamworks exclusive with MW2 and Black Ops? I don't know what kind of numbers either did on PC, but both were on the Steam top sellers chart often at release, so I assume sales were decent.
Plus Activision has Blizzard's expertise on the DD side. It's interesting that they chose to embrace Steam.
For everyone that's not Activision and EA I'm willing to bet Steam is very cost effective.
There are rumours that Battlenet is opening up to be their distribution system, although those are only rumours based on unconfirmed leaks right now.x3sphere said:
Right now Steam is king, unless you have massive pull like EA do with a few titles, or Acti or possibly TakeTwo, then Steam is preferable, and will remain so for the foreseeable future I'd imagine.
TouchMyBox
Member
StuBurns said:
I've been expecting this since Starcraft II came out. Activision-Blizzard has sunk millions into making a DD platform that isn't steam which people actually like that would allow them to get a close to 100% cut of their game sales.
Sounds like only a matter of time while Kotick still thinks highly of money.
jim-jam bongs
Member
I don't see the benefit to Activision of moving to B.net to be quite frank. B.net isn't a client like Steam so it's not like it gets them any closer to the customer. Also, they already do direct DD via Digital River.
TouchMyBox
Member
jim-jam bongs said:
Ask random gamer what they think of Battle.net, then ask them what they think about Activision's digitalriver store.
Mindshare and a devoted audience is everything.
jim-jam bongs
Member
TouchMyBox said:
True I guess, but you could argue the same about Steam. If B.net was made a real store (i.e. as opposed to linking to the Blizzard store) then I could see it happening. Maybe.
It could be just waiting for the right time. EA had a download service, and cranking away on their Steam clone, waiting for TOR and BF3 to really kick it off I'd imagine. It's kind of a double edged sword, you want to make your push with your most attractive software, but that's the software that most badly needs to sell well. It's really an all in call they're making.TouchMyBox said:
Steam was able to suck for a while, because it was alone, now Steam is awesome, to compete you can't come out and be Steam as it was day one, you have to compete completely. Oddly similar to EAs potential problem with TOR. I read (and I don't know if it's true) WoW cost almost a hundred million to make when it launched, they've had a very long time of constant player feedback and iteration. Trying to launch with something comparable seems a near impossible task.
TouchMyBox said:
If Acti's Digital River-powered store ever breaks like Ubi's did earlier in the year I will consider it to be amazing.
The King's Bounty games are different enough that it's worth getting the platinum pack, yes. If it's your first time, try to play with no or minimal losses: most of the criticisms of the game ("it's no fun to have to replace all your units") result from playing it poorly.Freedom = $1.05 said:
jim-jam bongs
Member
Soule said:
For future reference, you can fool Steam into showing you the US price by adding ?cc=us to your URL, like:
http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=us
jim-jam bongs
Member
I have no more to add. That makes me sad.
Does it matter if you don't have a US credit-card?
JaseC said:
Does it matter if you don't have a US credit-card?
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