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Forums - PC - How is Steam profitable?

averyblund on 30 May 2010
zarx said:
Garnett said:
zarx said:
Garnett said:

The only reason why L4D sold more on PC than 360 is because it was sold at a discount. I hardly doubt it sold alot on PC at the $50 price tag.

whats your point? a lot of the 360 sales were at a discount as well, and once you factor in the added costs of manufacturing, licensing and retailer cut Valve probably made more money off the PC sales.

My point is even while the 360 version cost $10 more, it will outsell the PC version. Valve must do discounts to keep sales on par with the 360 version, or else it would look bad.

 

I will admit and admire that they are making a shitload of money off of the PC version.

but thanks to steam sales and PC game legs it will probably end up selling way better on PC than on the 360. 

So true Valve's PC games have legs that even the Wii can't match. When you have people still buying HL1 and Counterstrike it just goes to show how different the PC market can be. That said not all PC games are like that. But I put that on the publishers for not supporting them or creating a quality product in the first place.



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Garnett on 30 May 2010
averyblund said:
Garnett said:
zarx said:
Garnett said:

The only reason why L4D sold more on PC than 360 is because it was sold at a discount. I hardly doubt it sold alot on PC at the $50 price tag.

whats your point? a lot of the 360 sales were at a discount as well, and once you factor in the added costs of manufacturing, licensing and retailer cut Valve probably made more money off the PC sales.

My point is even while the 360 version cost $10 more, it will outsell the PC version. Valve must do discounts to keep sales on par with the 360 version, or else it would look bad.

 

I will admit and admire that they are making a shitload of money off of the PC version.

I think what your saying would be true of just about any company other than Valve. They have a huge PC following, but are just another dev to console gamers. WIthout any data to back it up I wouldn't doubt for a moment that any and all Valve titles sell better on PC even at full price. That said full price on PC is obviously less than full price for 360.

Well it just proves my point, that at the retail price tag, 360 version out sold the PC versions.



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Kasz216 on 30 May 2010

Actually, I believe Gabe just stated that they serve a larger client base then either Sony or Microsoft or Apple when it comes to Steam. In some online interview that was on here.

As for how? I would guess It's because they DON'T provide everything... because they're a more open platform.

They aren't as controlling when it comes to things like their network. I don't believe when I start up borderlands online, it has anything to do with steam at all. That's up to gearbox to provide all that. While Microsoft and Sony may make you have your own servers, but they want to control what your games are, monitor everything etc.


Steam is just something you run while online.

PSN and Xbox live are things you run your internet through.



SamuelRSmith on 30 May 2010

A lot of content hosting is provided by third parties, Steam also offers far more full-price games than either XBL or PSN - so in terms of revenue and royalties, that would mean that they have a greater cents-to-bit ratio.



averyblund on 30 May 2010
Garnett said:
averyblund said:
Garnett said:
zarx said:
Garnett said:

The only reason why L4D sold more on PC than 360 is because it was sold at a discount. I hardly doubt it sold alot on PC at the $50 price tag.

whats your point? a lot of the 360 sales were at a discount as well, and once you factor in the added costs of manufacturing, licensing and retailer cut Valve probably made more money off the PC sales.

My point is even while the 360 version cost $10 more, it will outsell the PC version. Valve must do discounts to keep sales on par with the 360 version, or else it would look bad.

 

I will admit and admire that they are making a shitload of money off of the PC version.

I think what your saying would be true of just about any company other than Valve. They have a huge PC following, but are just another dev to console gamers. WIthout any data to back it up I wouldn't doubt for a moment that any and all Valve titles sell better on PC even at full price. That said full price on PC is obviously less than full price for 360.

Well it just proves my point, that at the retail price tag, 360 version out sold the PC versions.

I may have been unclear. I was refering to the fact that PC games usually retail at $50 instead of $60. SO while that might influence some, I have no doubt that even FULL retail Valve titles do better on PC. I think the Orange Box is pretty good show of that.

Again I don't think this is the norm, but Valve titles sell for literally eons. While most console titles see their vast majority of sales in the first couple of months.

I've said it before, titles that cater to PC owners specifially tend to do well with them (see Dragon's Age, Valve, Id games, Blizzard, Epic (prior to Gears)) However titles that offer PC owners a similar experience as console don't seem to preform as well (See COD, anything by Ubi, Activision, 2K, the list goes on).

Push button ports, like Ninja Blade seem to never do well at all, which I think reenforces my point.

I'm not a PC apologist by any means, but to ignore long term sales of titles like StarCraft, Half-Life 2, and others just seems to be a mistake of using console sales logic on a market that is quite different



XBL: WiiVault Wii: PM me  PSN: WiiVault

PC: AMD Athlon II Quadcore 635 (OC to 4.0ghz) , ATI Radeon 5770 1GB (x2)

MacBook Pro C2D 2.8ghz, 9600m GT 512 iMac: C2D 2.0, X2600XT 256