Origin Boss Says Steam Sales "Cheapen Intellectual Property"

[Woodsey]

Valve have said a couple of times that the increase in sales boost makes up for the price drop anyway. So what you're then doing is making the same amount of money whilst reaching a wider audience, who are then likely to buy your next game closer to a normal price point later.

In other words, this is the stupidest fucking thing I've heard all week.

If there's a game I'm looking forward to, I'll buy it pretty much as soon as it comes out. If there are others I'm less sure about, I'll probably wait. If it stays full price, I'm not going to buy it. If I catch it in a sale, that's an investment and a potential new customer.

Perhaps if publishers weren't inclined to swamping the last 2 months of every year with more releases than anyone in their right mind could afford to purchase at once, this would be less of an issue.

But no, clever EA man, continue pretending that maintaining a higher price point than someone else on the same fucking product ups the prestige on your store somehow. That's exactly how it works.

(And I see there's no point in doing anything more than noting the irony of a guy from EA complaining about IPs being 'cheapened'.)

snip

See top paragraph.

And link: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/24/less-is-more-gabe-newell-on-game-pricing/

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

I can't imagine what it could possibly offer as an effective substitute for ridiculously cheap games, but I sure am looking forward to finding out.

Permalink

Mind control. EA is going to unveil mind control. They will then use it to make us pay twice full price for games.

OT. I agree to a degree. I don't own Skyrim cause I don't want to pay 60 bucks. I want all the dlc and the game for 30.
However, that doesn't mean I'm never going to pay full price. I do all the time for indie games. ...
Wow, I'm cheap aren't I?

 

[martyrdrebel27]

Hmmm...I wonder what EA thinks of the free-to-play market. Specifically ones that aren't "Pay or you stand no chance in hell"

Probably this: "WHAAAT?! Let people play our game and potentially not pay us a single dollar?! That is insane! This is harming the industry (IE, EA only) and making people expect game for FREE!!!!! "

i'm currently rocking a free to play game by EA called Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances, and the only thing paying can do is cut down waiting times, which doesn't turn out to be a HUGE advantage.

I'm all for EA bashing, but fair is fair, and sometimes even the devil needs an advocate.

 

[Pharsalus]

Wow, this just really makes me angry. What a bold d-bag to just come out and say that consumers getting good deals and buying more games is hurting the industry. I could almost pity him if he weren't so full of it. Oh and sales happen everywhere, not just steam.

 

[Griffolion]

Steam sales are to get people onto Steam with cheap games. They win when the percentage of people who stick begin buying at full price.

 

[weirdee]

Likewise, Origin shouldn't hold its breath for me to get to the party.

 

[Graill]

EA Vice President David DeMartini will soon be looking for a job as more and more manufacturers distance themselves from his insane comments. With all game forums at 99%, (give or take 20% forinternet accurracy) against Origin, and marketers watch this, something is going to give.

 

[Blade_125]

Everything is worth what the buyer is willing to pay.

Never forget this EA, or you may oneday be the company failing (as opposed to the companies you buy out and ruin).

 

[Dastardly]

Origin Boss Says Steam Sales "Cheapen Intellectual Property"

This is a naked attempt to shame people into thinking that these low prices screw the artist rather than just the middlemen.

In the retail world, you've got to make a certain amount per copy to break even, due to the cost of producing, packaging, and distributing each unit. Selling below that price can cause a lot of problems.

In the digital world, you've got to make a certain amount total to break even, because the product must only be produced once. So selling one unit for a million dollars, or a million units for one dollar is financially identical to the seller. But which is better from a business perspective? Well, I'd rather have a million people talking about how fun my game is and how great the price was.

EA is still stuck on this per-unit logic pothole.

 

[nasteypenguin]

For whatever reason EA has for not wanting to offer sales en par with Steam's, you can be absolutely sure that it is NOT because they wanted to take a moral high ground.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

You mean it teaches people to save there money until the price is a t a point they feel is right for them? How dare they.

 

[Dastardly]

I think it would have been really silly for anybody to ever expect EA to do the kind of sales that steam does. Steam is able to do them for the same reason places like walmart and target can. When they put stuff on sale its not them that is eating the difference its the guys who made the product. EA on the other hand is the guy who paid to make the product.


The problem with steam sales is that they do hurt developers. Because of steam sales more people are willing to wait till the game goes on sale to buy it. Because of this you get less sales within the first couple months. Now this forces developers/publishers to agree to put there games on sale on steam just to make up the lost money. This leads to more people wanting to wait to buy games on sale. This leads to a never ending cycle of steam making tons of money and fucking over everybody who created the games.

I think there's something you're misunderstanding, and I think it's the same thing EA's folks are missing. We only see the developer "getting screwed" if we look at the per-copy sale price and compare it to the usual. In the retail world, that comparison holds water -- it costs money to burn the disks, package and ship it all, and get it stocked on shelves. In the digital world, however, there is no per-copy cost. Moving one unit at $1 million is exactly the same as moving a million units at $1 each.

 

[pffh]

Sigh... Does EA even know anymore how businesses work.

 

[Da Orky Man]

omg when's the last time this guy bought anything on Steam? it's always, always more expensive than a boxed copy. the only games that are cheap are indie titles that have no other real retail channel.

Really? My £3.74 Portal 2 begs to differ. As does my £2.50 Alpha Protocol, £3.74 Alien vs Predator, £2.50 Tachyon: The Fringe, £5.00 X3: Gold Edition. Actually, most of my Steam games I got considerably cheaper than you can boxed.

 

[Slayer_2]

Saying it harms the market is BS. Despite what EA might think, gamers aren't one giant hivemind. Lots will fork out extra and jump through hoops to get a game early, others will wait half a year to save $10. I use your stupid platform to play BF3, and I forked out $60 to get the game a few hours early. Then you come up with "Premium". I used to be cool with EA, but their treatment of DICE and BF3 is total BS. Why can't it be like BF2? No stupid dick waving contests with Valve or Activision, no stupid DLC ideas, more useful patches, and GODDAMN MODDING TOOLS!

 

[Xannieros]

EA Vice President David DeMartini says gamers shouldn't hold their breath waiting for deep-discount sales to come to Origin.

Guess I won't be looking at Origin games. Not everyone can spend full price for games.
Hello Steam, I still love you.

 

[Zakarath]

Translation:
EA: It's way better for us if you buy our games at full price. Don't you want to help us out here?

Steam summer sale coming soon!

 

[MrBrightside919]

GoG said HUGE sales can cheapen a game. Remember that GoG.com has its own regular chunk of sale specials going on all the time, what they said was harmful were the "80%" off kind of big sales.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some GOG.com...it's pretty much the only other place I get game downloads other than STEAM...

I think it can be really helpful, when they cut the price of a game that isn't selling well. Even if it's an impulse buy, a struggling game can get a second chance from those impulse buys, pushing it onto the top sellers list on STEAM, generating interest from players...and you never know, you might find a new favorite game (Love you, Humble Bundles)...

But then, I can see it as damaging since it gets buyers into a mind set of "Oh, i'll just wait till it's on sale" and they don't buy the game until one of those big sales, or maybe they don't buy it at all because they are waiting for a specific price they are willing to pay, but the game never falls to that price...

I guess it's a two way street...helpful if it is done right, but hurtful if it's abused...

 

[Lunar Templar]

hehehehahahahLMAO!!!!

nice going EA, keep spouting that bullshit, and keep giving me more reasons to never use Origin (like i need more of those)

 

[m72_ar]

What steam sales do to me, and I'm pretty sure I got the same attitude as many people is Steam crazy sales made me buy games that I will not buy under normal circumstances.

If I'm excited about big games, I will buy it within 2 weeks of release, the games that I'm kinda iffy about I'll wait until massive price drop either online or in retail.

Just another reason not to use Origin besides for select EA titles.

Origin
We got no Games
We also got no Sales