Origin Boss Says Steam Sales "Cheapen Intellectual Property"

[Vigormortis]

Yet another reason Origin will never be able to truly compete with Steam.

Well their servers are better than steam´s and don´t crap out when you don´t want them to.
Also the games launch faster.

Um...bullshit? I've had Origin's servers crap out on me far more than Steams.

As for game launches, that's on the devs shoulders, not Steams. That's more about the engine, not the platform.

If everybody buys games just because their cheap and not because their good,then yes that decreases value.
Also everybody waiting is not good for the dev´s who need money the moment their done with a game and not 5 months down the line.

Except that that's also bullshit. Steam sales have not, and probably will not, ever truly effected the launch of a new game. The ONLY effect the Steam Sales have had on game purchases is vastly increasing the number of products sold; even long after the release date.

In fact, several developers have said that their profit margins have done nothing but improve thanks to Steam Sales. Hell, in the case of a few (like Introversion), Steam Sales actually SAVED them from bankruptcy.

So, um...yeah. I'm calling bullshit on your statements.

 

[Spartan212]

This story brought up a question in my head about publishers (sorry if off topic a bit). What do larger developers stand to gain by joining a publisher (I understand why tiny ones do). For example, why would Bioware join EA? For games like SWTOR or ME3, does EA really increase sales enough to justify the cut that they take on BW's profits? What does EA do that Bioware couldn't have done on their own? When ME3 was announced, I couldn't wait for it. I preordered it as soon as the release date was announced. I didn't need EA to promote it, nor did I need to see commercials about it on TV. Don't most gamers get their info online anyway? Who actually finds out about new games from TV, anyway?

 

[Vigormortis]

But it also seems a little like your arguments are mostly founded up Valve hate rather than on any support you've provided for what you've said. Namely, how Valve is hurting the developer (at least in any way that is different from the usual way publisher-distributors screw the 'little guy').

What is it specifically about Valve's business practices that present a unique harm to the developer, and how?

I said it earlier but the more often you put games on sale especially newer ones the more likely people are to wait a month or two and buy it when it is on sale instead of new. As this continues the problem only gets bigger and bigger. These are obviously not your week one sales people these are your month one and two guys. The economy being bad right now also serves to enlarge the issue.

The less sales a game gets in the first couple months the more likely they are to give in to the steam sales that caused them to have lower sales in the first place. This is the never ending cycle of doom that both EA and GOG were talking about when they say that steam sales are bad.

See my above post please. Because EA and GoG are spewing rhetoric and bullshit. In fact, the reality of it is almost the opposite of their doom-saying.

 

[Treblaine]

Steam does the same big deals with their games, the ones they put their money into. Hell they have made several of their games free to play, even and opened up steam to competing free-to-play games on their service.

Your either forgetting or ignoring on purpose a very important factor. That is both the ratios of valves games to total games on steam and to the number that have gone on sale. When your own product makes up such a miniscule percentage of what your selling its very easy to discount it once in a while. Origin is very different in this in that the vast majority of the games on it are EA titles.


TF2 went free to play for the same reason that most mmos have and facebook games. They realized that they can bring in more money off of microtransactions then from copies of the game. Yep thats right I am saying that what valve is doing with TF2 is on the exact same level and everything that zinga creates. Hell I would say its ever worse because valve isnt even creating the content anymore they are relying on the player base to do it.

That doesn't contradict the refutation I made of your argument.

The reason there aren't many third party games on Origin is no one want to jump on a sinking ship, there are just as many titles that owned by EA on Origin as there are titles owned by Valve on Steam.

Most MMO games are NOT free-to-play, they cost money to buy the game and a high fee EVERY MONTH. You claim it's the same as "zinga". That's not an argument, that's a baseless assertion. You might as well say "Odin is the one true god" and expect me to believe you.

And it shows your ignorance, the player base may make some of the content but THEY ARE PAID FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS if they get officially adopted and featured! The only unpaid content is the content distributed for free that gamers install on their own initiative on their own install. Are you seriously holding it at a negative that Steam games have an active modding community that keeps their games fresh and interesting.

You're new to escapist aren't you?

 

[Doom972]

Steam's method seems to be working quite well for the industry. Nobody is forcing publishers to sell their games there.
If EA wants people to buy games when they come out, they need to price games fairly and not just give all games the standard $50 price (and no game should start at $60).
Some "AAA" titles don't deserve more than $5, being fun but very short.

 

[Imthatguy]

Its hilarious that he mentions Target. Super Markets and Origin being very similar by being ridiculously expensive AND having a pathetic selection.

 

[Nyaliva]

First, the costs of distributing and selling a game are starkly different between retail and digital (namely a fair amount compared to virtually nothing), so the costs of games on Origin shouldn't be $60 to begin with. Heck, I'd give them props if they made them $50 as the starting price.

Second, people will pay good money for a game they know will be good, not one you tell them will be good. However, they might be willing to buy it at a sale. Additionally, if you put it on sale, you will sell more copies. If you never do, chances are you will never sell any copies of that game again.

Third, if they shared the money lost from the sale between the developers and the EA admin staff then the actual developers wouldn't suffer a great loss. I dunno, I just feel when EA says that, they think when a game goes on sale then the loss is taken straight out of the developers paycheck and nothing out of their own share in profits so they think if they did that to their already underpaid developers then the developers would all quit.

Fourth, people will be willing to wait for a game and buy it if they know it's going to be discounted. If they know, from a statement such as EA has provided, that it will never much be discounted, they will pirate it and the developers will get nothing.

 

[marcusslade]

I don't feel a need to buy a game for $80. I haven't played any of the previous games, and whilst I think it looks good, I'm not prepared to pay that.
A couple of months later, I might see it for $40. I think that's good value, so I buy it.

Also, PC sales for any game will drop off after the first 3 months, as will the interest in the title. Look at Skyrim, one of the biggest games to come out on PC in years. 6 months on, there really isn't any buzz about it.
So as a business (Valve or the developer), would you rather try to generate more sales at a cheaper cost, or leave it at the same price and hope someone buys it who hasn't already? And if something isn't selling, wouldn't you drop the price in the hopes that it will generate sales?

Origin should really look at David DeMartini. This is Business 101.

 

[Treblaine]

That doesn't contradict the refutation I made of your argument.

The reason there aren't many third party games on Origin is no one want to jump on a sinking ship, there are just as many titles that owned by EA on Origin as there are titles owned by Valve on Steam.

Wrong its because Origin is still fairly new. EA already said before that they wanted to get origin up and running and then work on getting titles from other developers on it. Something that they are already doing. It also took steam a very long time to build up and get something other then valve games on it. Yes yes I know that there are more people on the internet now then then.

Most MMO games are NOT free-to-play, they cost money to buy the game and a high fee EVERY MONTH. You claim it's the same as "zinga". That's not an argument, that's a baseless assertion. You might as well say "Odin is the one true god" and expect me to believe you.

Well actually most MMO games are free to play. Its only the very big ones that charge you. I am saying they are the same as zinga because they rely on the same business model. You have already admitted that they do so you cant try and deny it now. Both zinga games and TF2 rely on microtranactions in order to make money. The only difference is that valve lets its users create the content they are selling.

And it shows your ignorance, the player base may make some of the content but THEY ARE PAID FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS if they get officially adopted and featured! The only unpaid content is the content distributed for free that gamers install on their own initiative on their own install. Are you seriously holding it at a negative that Steam games have an active modding community that keeps their games fresh and interesting.

You're new to escapist aren't you?

I never said they didnt get paid. I said valve doesnt pay people to create the content, there is a difference. In the case of TF2 valve is simply acting as the retailer for other people to sell their stuff. Except the difference is that they are taking that content and going see see look at us we are releasing free content to people.

Origin has been out for over a year now. That's long enough. Yet they have only convinced 13 games to be released on their system from other publishers. Steam came to Mac only 2 years ago, In that time it has managed to accrue 593 titles for a small market like Steam on Apple-Macs

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_230_231__12&term=awf#os=mac&advanced=0&sort_order=ASC&page=1

This is more than just lack of focus. This is a doomed service. Gog.com is a very small company and has 402 titles in its library which averages 115 games per year. The market is ripe for digital distribution but Origin is toxic. Origin is EA. But they control developers like DICE.

As to TF2 = "zinga"(sic), you are still using spurious logic. Having a superficially similar business model (if you look at it in and EXTREMELY simplified way) doesn't make them the same. You don't seem to know or care about the details or distinctions of either. You insist on calling the company "zinga" instead of Zynga. You seem to get mixed up between Steam and Valve as if Steam is the company rather than the name of a service.

Yes yes, they ARE releasing free content to people. Have you even played TF2? Most of the new weapons, hats and items have been made by Valve. There isn't a difference: 'Being paid to create featured content' is the same as 'being paid to create featured content'. They don't act as the retailer, you clearly haven't played TF2 for any length of time, the weapon once featured is entered into the weapon roster like everything else.

 

[luckshot]

yeaaahhh no.

i saw a bunch of games were in a cheap bundle yesterday in a genre i was interested in, havent installed them but i bought them, and would not have bought them if it wasnt for the special steam sale.

anticipated games get purchased immediately, while odd games and curiosities get to wait until their on sale...which when buying from steam is probably just a week or two

sales sell games that people dont know if they'll like, and if their good their sequels can become part of the coveted anticipated group

 

[Dryk]

I think EA are missing a huge thing here as well. DLC. I've bought a ton of games when they've been on sale, and ended up buying all the DLC because I enjoyed them.

Hell I bought Mass Effect 2 for $10 on Steam and then bought $40 worth of content from Origin :\

 

[survivor686]

As much as we dislike, he does have a right to his opinion. Whether that opinion is smart or not is a whole other kettle of fish.

Doesn't Amazon do the same thing? I recall them discounting ME3 only a month after release or so.

I have to admit after my disappointment with buying games on launch day, waiting for a discount is the smart thing to do. It gives the devs time to patch and fix their product and its saves money for the inevitable DLC (I'm looking at you ME3)

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

1) Publishers are the ones who tell Valve to put their game on sale. If EA wants their games to only be 20% off during a Steam sale, then they can do that.

Funny thing is, they HAVE done that, I'm fairly sure that before they launched Origin that there has been at least one "EA Week" on Steam where there was a different EA game discounted (quite fiercely) each day of the week.

But I guess EA is trying to retcon that out of their own history.

 

[lacktheknack]

And here I was, thinking that the developers had to agree with Valve on how much to sell the game for.

Anyways, I find it weird how he's finger-pointing at Steam for "cheapening intellectual property" and not even looking at gog.com for doing something even more insidious (from their point of view).

 

[FoolKiller]

He [David DeMartini] also suggested that despite giving exposure and huge sales boosts to indie developers and major studios alike, Valve's approach could actually be doing the industry more harm than good. "What Steam does might be teaching the customer that, 'I might not want it in the first month, but if I look at it in four or five months, I'll get one of those weekend sales and I'll buy it at that time at 75 percent off"

He can go and kiss his slippery slope ass all he wants. First EA is claiming that used games are evil. Now, not only am I an evil person for buying a used game, but I am also evil because I'm not an early adopter and don't buy games at 60 dollars the week they come out.

The whole concept of entitlement is always slammed onto gamers. How about a publisher being entitled?

 

[DarkRyter]

I don't think that's how economics work.

 

[Dryk]

The whole concept of entitlement is always slammed onto gamers. How about a publisher being entitled?

They're the publisher, they're allowed to have rights and be entitled. You're a consumer so you're not. Look me in the eye and tell me that that's not how they think

 

[Kayne Ruse]

I agree with what he said. The games industry is not made up of just the big publishers, not by a long shot. A majority of the games on the market come from smaller studios, or even indie studios. If these studios don't get a fast return on their product within a few weeks (or even days) there is the very real possibility that these studios will be forced to shut down, and god knows we need as many jobs in this industry as we can get.

Also, I believe that buying a game does more than just expand your library, but it also supports the developers. I almost always buy games to support the publishers who make great games. It might mean I can buy less games overall, but I think that 1. I already have plenty of games in my library and 2. this generation's sense of entitlement is too big.

So overall, get over yourselves. Think: how many games in your library have you actually played, and how many have you actually finished?