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Forums - Gaming - The darkside of Steam sales.

 

Do you think Steam sales are making the developers avoid PC

Yes 18 14.52%
 
No 67 54.03%
 
Maybe some of them 33 26.61%
 
See the results 5 4.03%
 
Total:123
zarx on 18 March 2014
Akiran said:

This might be off the point but I always cringe when seeing PC market since the majority of people only use Steam, with few exceptions. An indie who can't get on Steam is basically left in the dark unless they're an anomaly


The biggest PC games aren't even on Steam, League of Legends alone has more users than Steam it's self. Blizzard and EA two of the biggest publishers of PC games don't even put their games on Steam. Minecraft isn't on Steam either. And then is GoG, Desura, Uplay, Origin etc.



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biglittlesps on 18 March 2014
theshonen8899 said:
biglittlesps said:

I dont think PC generated more Money for AAA games(may be for indies) in sales better than Consoles. 

I never said PC generated more money (why is this capitalized?) than consoles. It's is a fundamental law that mainstream gamers will always choose the simplest platforms to game on. The question raised by the OP was whether or not Steam sales hurt the gaming industry, to which I used many examples in which it is actually helping, not hurting.

biglittlesps said:

Also if a friend buys the game at sale then their friends will also wait for that sale mostly and not going to buy at full price unless the game is excellent one

You are assuming that every gamer is willing to wait for the next big Steam sale, which is usually every 5-6 months. I highly doubt that with a friend's recommendation that they would sit on their hands for that long, but let's assume your supposition is correct. Then that means Friend #2 or Friend #3 (who would have never otherwise paid attention to the game) buys the game on Steam sale. Since we are talking about digital games, clearly this is an economic situation of unlimited supply and we don't need to worry about factors like borrowing games or used game sales. Effectively, Steam has sold gamers on a game they would have never originally bought without Steam sales. It doesn't matter if this is a indie game or a AAA game, selling gamers on a game in a way that other methods like advertising or reviews couldn't is a win for the publisher, every single time.

biglittlesps said:

This technique is best for very old games but not a year + game which steam is doing and hurting the game sales in consoles for multiplatforms.

How on earth does this hurt sales for other platforms? Any gamer that owns a PC in conjuction with other consoles will always buy any game they can...on PC. That's the point of buying a PC, superior multi-platforms and no problems with backwards-compatibility. The gamer with a PC would never have bought a console version of the game in the first place...unless it was significantly cheaper than it was on PC. Which means the publisher still lost money (even more so since it's cheaper and thanks to physical manufacturering costs). To which your point is moot.

Why the many AAA studios/developers are being closed and moving to indie? I says its because of lack of good sales for the game and one of the reasons is changed mind of the consumers due to the Steam sales and its pricing which made consumers to think Console prices are not worth to buy that game.

If the steam is doing great for developers/publishers then why there isn't growith in AAA sector, no AAA exclusives for PC and why developers are moving to indie instead of being AAA? Why Valve and PC is not doing anything other than support Indies and its sales when Consoles are trying to move AAA gaming indusry?



GAMING is not about spending hours to pass/waste our time just for fun,

its a Feeling/Experience about a VIRTUAL WORLD we can never be in real, and realizing some of our dreams (also creating new ones).

So, Feel Emotions, Experience Adventure/Action, Challenge Game, Solve puzzles and Have fun.

PlayStation is about all-round "New experiences" using new IP's to provide great diversity for everyone.

Xbox is always about Online and Shooting.

Nintendo is always about Fun games and milking IP's.

biglittlesps on 18 March 2014
zarx said:
Akiran said:

This might be off the point but I always cringe when seeing PC market since the majority of people only use Steam, with few exceptions. An indie who can't get on Steam is basically left in the dark unless they're an anomaly


The biggest PC games aren't even on Steam, League of Legends alone has more users than Steam it's self. Blizzard and EA two of the biggest publishers of PC games don't even put their games on Steam. Minecraft isn't on Steam either. And then is GoG, Desura, Uplay, Origin etc.


Biggest contributing factor is Steam which is very popuar due to its sales technique and made big impact on consumers who use PC for gaming.



GAMING is not about spending hours to pass/waste our time just for fun,

its a Feeling/Experience about a VIRTUAL WORLD we can never be in real, and realizing some of our dreams (also creating new ones).

So, Feel Emotions, Experience Adventure/Action, Challenge Game, Solve puzzles and Have fun.

PlayStation is about all-round "New experiences" using new IP's to provide great diversity for everyone.

Xbox is always about Online and Shooting.

Nintendo is always about Fun games and milking IP's.

Akiran on 18 March 2014
zarx said:
Akiran said:

This might be off the point but I always cringe when seeing PC market since the majority of people only use Steam, with few exceptions. An indie who can't get on Steam is basically left in the dark unless they're an anomaly


The biggest PC games aren't even on Steam, League of Legends alone has more users than Steam it's self. Blizzard and EA two of the biggest publishers of PC games don't even put their games on Steam. Minecraft isn't on Steam either. And then is GoG, Desura, Uplay, Origin etc.

I'll stop here, but you do have a point. Blizzard & EA are big enough that they're able to sell their games without going through Steam, and I didn't factor in F2P games. Minecrafts popularity is so large that it transcends platforms (I find it pointless to buy it on consoles since there aren't mods)
I still hate Origin, my copy of BF3 no longer works



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zarx on 18 March 2014
biglittlesps said:

Why 3rd party should make single player AAA exclusives for Consoles only? when they can sell that game in PC too because consoles are similar to PC architecture now and thirt parties are there for money first.

But consoles have its firsty/second party spending so much time and money to create new AAA experiences for pushing the game industry and help retail sector, but i dont see this hapenning in PC at all other than F2P style games and Indie games. Without consoles I ont see AAA games(which is the only thing than can push PC High end GPU's) being created in PC sector with single player focus.

PC is generating money for developers through their Indies, F2P and old games re-release for many publishers but not moving AAA gaming.


For market reasons obviously, it is slowly changing there are fewer and fewer 3rd party games not coming to PC every year. Even Japan is getting on board. Of course PC doesn't have a 1st party publisher paying to deny other platforms games. But it has other things instead. And honestly if AAA singleplayer exclusives are the only games you are interested in that is kinda sad, broaden your horizons some most of may favorate experiances in gaming don't come from AAA. Also AAA singleplayer games aren't from the only games pushing GPUs.As for PC not moving the needle on AAA well look at this http://bf4stats.com/, or you know look at any major publisher's financials. And I am not sure why you are talking like people are trying to say consoles are dieing off here anyway. Consoles are a very large and important part of the overall gaming ecosystem, just like PC is, and increasingly mobile whether we like it or not.

And I hope you learn to like indie and F2P because they will be becoming a much bigger part of console gaming as well.



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LiquorandGunFun on 18 March 2014

Its digital, no shipping, or anything. just a click, click.

And its bc of steam sales I will risk the money to see if a game is good instead of torrenting it.

If its a game I really want of course I will spend the $60 or $50 to buy it. Plus it bc of the sales I will try and buy games I normally wouldn't.

I see too many pros to the few cons OP. I disagree completely.



 

Davman on 18 March 2014

Guys you miss a point here. If a gamer doesn't buy a game full price in the first year of release (i am generous, i would say first 6 months).

Then he will NEVER buy it full price.

So industry must take account of people that are not willing or cannot afford to pay that much.

Deal with it and stop whining about developers/publishers shut down blah blah blah.



Kynes on 18 March 2014
theshonen8899 said:
Kynes said:

I have 764 games on Steam. If not for those 50-75% discounts, I can assure you that I wouldn't have purchased 95% of those games. It's the same as piracy, most people won't purchase a game at full price, but they do if there is a sale, so it's not money left on the table, is more money earned from people who would instead have pirated your game.

I only purchase at full price those games that I'm 100% sure that I want them ASAP.

That's where the contradiction is. You have 764 games on Steam and you say you wouldn't have purchased 95% of those games. It's not the same as piracy, you gave developers significantly more money than they would originally have received if they hadn't put it on sale. If 1 out of 10 people were originally going to buy the game for $60 but 5 out of 10 people bought the game for $30 instead, how much more money do you think that is?

I say that I wouldn't have purchased at full price. This way they at least get some money from me, money that they wouldn't have got if there weren't sales.

Regarding piracy, I mean the excuse some companies use, that every pirated song or game is money they lost. It's not true, it's not money lost, it's money they wouldn't have received anyway.



NotStan on 18 March 2014

At the end of the day, a sale is a sale even if it on sale (yo dawg I heard you like sales). Better get at least £5 from a game rather than nothing. At the end of the day steam is a digital distribution, so there are no extra costs from printing/storing etc. Developers win from sales, it's Piracy that kinda takes away the potential profit that a developer will get. And I think it's the piracy that turn the developers off.



Disconnect and self destruct, one bullet a time.

lt_dan_27 on 18 March 2014
OttoniBastos said:
KingdomHeartsFan said:

Can steam make a game 50% or 75% or w/e off without the developers permission?

If your game is not selling great at $60.What you would do?

No, this makes no sense. The dev has to agree to putting a game on sale. Valve doesn't just say "SCREW OTHERS DEVZ!" 

Your arguments here, further makes no sense. So you're telling me that if you were a dev, you'd keep your game at $60, what, forever? If a game isn't selling for $60 anymore, you lower the price. It's simply demand. If people don't want your product, you lower the price to make people want it more. Say your gamee s currently selling for $30. Only one or two people are buying it a day now. Steam puts it on sale for $5, and 1000's of people buy it while it's on sale for a day or two. That makes a nice little boost to the profit margin. You're not making as much per game sold, but you're making more overall. Devs literally always report higher profits during the huge blowout sales.