Positech Games Boss Calls For An End To Deep-Discount Sales

[weirdee]

It's a bad thing (and I argue this point primarily as devil's advocate) because it hollows out the industry: You have major triple-A launches like Titanfall on one end, and low-budget indie stuff on the other, with no sustainable middle ground. Indie devs are effectively forced to sell their games at sub-$10 prices almost from the day they launch, and while some of them have done quite well for themselves that way, it's not entirely clear what the long-term effect will be. But it's not unreasonable to suggest that at some point, when these prices become the de facto norm, they'll no longer have the impact they do now. And then what? Free-to-play everything? That's where we're headed already, and it's not a future many people care for. So what's the alternative? What happens to indie devs when gamers finally decide that nobody is worth more than 99 cents?

there's no middle ground because most of the publishers dropped support for the middle ground when they were chasing the top

don't even try to put this on the players, i would have been willing to purchase many of the classics (most of them middle ground titles) from the 90s if i wasn't a kid without any allowance at the time, and the main reason that market went away is because budgets spiraled out of control and pushed for mammoth releases with the sale consuming power of a thousand games, while the average performers were sucked dry to fund them

and still do to this day, because anybody with an even remote smell of success on them is easily bought out by a bigger name with promises of "improving their potential" and the lure of more capital to work with, and without any incentive for an actual legacy of game making excellence besides what can be milked out of an idea, promising groups of developers are systematically juiced for all they're worth, and discarded at the end of the cycle to fend for themselves at another company which will do the same thing until they burn out and retire from the industry, or return to their roots with their hard won lessons

it's only now that ascended indie studios are returning to the middle ground, but they're going to have to fight the f2p industry for that spot

 

[Slegiar Dryke]

you know, I'm seeing a lot of comments against what this guy's saying, but I think he's pretty on to something. I can't number the amount of times I've bought humbles, steam sales, etc, for that cheap price.......the part I think diverges though from the statement is, not so much the sale itself is devaluing the games. more, it's removing the desire to play by not having it be as impactful a thing.

An example: All of the games that I've bought new, in box, for 40-60 bucks, I've played the heck out of and beaten almost all the way through (or all the way through, depending on achievements if they have them). those piles and piles and piles of games that I've gotten through sales? bundles? deep cut prices?..........maaaybe a 3rd of them....at best? It just doesn't feel as important to want to play them......they didn't make as much an impact with their price...the inital thrust of momentum hasn't been given by paying that "New Game Price".

just my $0.02

 

[Twattycake_Fancypant]

you know, I'm seeing a lot of comments against what this guy's saying, but I think he's pretty on to something. I can't number the amount of times I've bought humbles, steam sales, etc, for that cheap price.......the part I think diverges though from the statement is, not so much the sale itself is devaluing the games. more, it's removing the desire to play by not having it be as impactful a thing.

An example: All of the games that I've bought new, in box, for 40-60 bucks, I've played the heck out of and beaten almost all the way through (or all the way through, depending on achievements if they have them). those piles and piles and piles of games that I've gotten through sales? bundles? deep cut prices?..........maaaybe a 3rd of them....at best? It just doesn't feel as important to want to play them......they didn't make as much an impact with their price...the inital thrust of momentum hasn't been given by paying that "New Game Price".

just my $0.02

I say it's because you had no other choice. At full price, unless you or your parents were/are earning well above average, it's either play what few games you can afford per year, or play nothing at all and hate yourself for the money (or Christmas wishes) you wasted on that shit game you got.

Incidentally, that's why Ocarina of Time, or the Goldeneye game on the N64 are held in such high regard. They were nice enough games and we didn't usually have that much else to steal their spotlight. I know for a fact that I would have had the time for loads of other games. I couldn't get them, though. Crimbo and birthday only came around once a year, after all. So I played the absolute pants off of them. It takes a lot for a game to get gushing reviews from me these days. OoT got a free pass in comparison.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

They still wait until a sale because they don't feel his product is worth the price he is asking.

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing the person I quoted on their stance of "This developer has a different opinion than me on sales. I immediately disagree and refuse to give them money without considering why they have their opinion."
Honestly people have to start looking at stuff like this on a case by case basis rather than generalizing.

Check the Steam Forums, I know they're a headache, but there are a fair amount of people who call brand new indie titles at more than $10 "expensive".

I would call £6 (rough conversion) expensive for an indie game considering the level of depth and the amount of play I have had from them in the past. I would call anything over £10 expensive for any game.[/quote]

And that's your choice and your opinion. But that doesn't mean much to small developers and two man indie teams who are barely making money as is.

I'm all for Positech not wanting to have %50 off sales of their games. And I'm all for you thinking that $15 USD is expensive. They think they're worth more due to the hours of work they put into making their game. You think $15 expensive based on whatever subjective calculation you have in your head. I'm inclined to side with the small developer on this issue because at they put work into their product and live off of it.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Isn't this just obvious evidence of the devaluation of games? You can't get into any kind of movie theater these days for less than $10 and for that you get 90 minutes of Michael Bay's latest horseshit. And a decent triple-A game in a genre you like is worth less than that?

But as far as digital distribution goes isn't the apparent devaluation offset by sheer volume of sales? At the moment Bioshock Infinite is 75% off and is selling for only £4.99 (according to Steam at the time of typing), four sales and that's full price. Now that is multiplied several times over when it comes to Steam's big sales. Yeah you have your people who are okay to sit there and wait for these sales to get their 50% - 75% off deals because they know they're coming, but I can't see that being a big percentage of people who binge on these sales. But then these sales draw in people who impulse buy and people who are just looking to see what's on sale, people who might never have bought anything otherwise.

Given the relatively low cost of digital distribution (I'm not sure what Valve's cut in individual sales are) it seems like pure profit and exposure. I could be way off mark.

 

[joshuaayt]

Thing is, people still buy games at launch- if they really give a shit about it. Hell, games are still making bank with pre-orders, there is no deficit of people paying full price for their games.

Sales just let you capture people outside of your direct target demographic. I don't really care about Civ 5, never played any of those games- but for 75% off? Yeah, I'd give it a whirl, people tell me it's pretty good.

 

[DrOswald]

I think the bigger problem here is that so many $60 game are actually only worth $5 or $10. I pay full price for games I really want and I think will be worth it - Xcom, Mario 3D World and Bravely Default, for example. But so many other games are not worth their price. I would say only 1 out of 50 games are worth their normal asking price to me, not when so many other good products are available. I can get 1 full price game or I can get a Kindle. 9 times out of ten the Kindle is a better buy.

 

[Twattycake_Fancypant]

Bravely Default has been mentioned three times now, as a game that is absolutely worth the initial price point. Never heard of it. Is this some clever spambot action that manages to pass the Turing test, or am I missing something?

 

[Ipsen]

How I see it, developers can value their work in a game, but only consumers can value the quality. And seeing how the primary way that this exchange works is by monetary currency, devs can translate their work as their price(fine), but consumers MUST assume the quality is worth the price at sale(also fine).

Neither scenario would be an issue if the quality of some games hadn't dropped in more than recent years, especially for some more expensive titles. But it happens both ways, in that indie titles, both priced MUCH more cheaply than the AAA some of us were solely accustomed to and consisting of content MUCH better than expected, we get cases of both 'better than expected games' and 'worse than expected games' (coupled with respective expectations for each end). It's a situation of industry shock from both two ends, and I might even go so far as to say both depend on each other, at this point in the industry's life.

 

[Vivi22]

I feel like this is one of those situations where you can safely discard the opinion of the person in question. Developers and Publishers will never be satisfied until they can assure that a game will stay it's launch price forever, and everyone will pay it. Until that happens, they'll whine and whine and whine, but that's all it is, just white noise, they don't bring up any new or interesting ideas. They want money, and they want control of their products, that's all.. what the gamer wants, that's ancillary, it's at the bottom of their list, and that's why we don't care when they ***** and moan.

Not to mention that Valve has basically got the data that proves his comments about devaluing games by deeply discounting them isn't true. If it was, the bump in sales wouldn't continue long after the sale ends. But it does so he's wrong. Simple as that.

Every few months some studio head, publisher, or whatever comes along saying this exact same thing. But they're wrong. Valve has proven it, and a lot of developers who've been involved in Steam sales have confirmed the exact same thing.

 

[Olas]

I thought this was going to be an article about how the marked discounts on games are a trick to give consumers the illusion they're getting better deals than maybe they really are.

Instead of selling a game for 15$ they're selling it for 75% off.

But no, turns out he's just saying that games should be more expensive. Um, no.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Say what now? I know steam is playing me like a fiddle when I haven't even tried 30% of the games in my library. So? I still spend less on games during sales than I would buying games for consoles at gamestop. I get more games and most of them do get played. Really the only ones that don't get played are ones I buy on a whim. So the developer just got a sale it never would have gotten from me simply because it was so cheap and looked kind of cool. Positech. I will remember that name after this you fiend!

 

[Neta]

Most of the time, it's not "devaluing" a game, it's selling it at its proper value.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm probably not the best source of this kind of information, seeing as I buy so rarely, but when I see a heavily discounted game I don't think I'm getting a 10 dollar game, I think I'm getting a 60 dollar game for 10 dollars. Although I admit that despite living in Australia I have never thought of a game as a 120 dollar game.

Honestly, the key to decent pricing I think will be to have more direct developer/studio to player selling, which is happening slowly. But in the mean time, massive sales often don't happen until well after the people who really want the game have bought it, and so seeing as it aims more at people who are just curious or can't afford it than people who have the means to buy it and are fanatics, it's not a problem in my opinion. Another thing is that with discounted games on Steam, you forfeit your ability to resell it, something that can turn $60 games into $20 games when all is said and done, so for the loss of that ability I think it's only fair they be cheaper to begin with.

 

[major_chaos]

I know everyone is going to be angry, but IMO he has a point. Anymore it seems like everyone is so used to steam sales that they wont pay more than $30 for a game and I can't see how devs can survive if they are forced to keep dropping prices lower and lower. Soon no body will buy anything that isn't a 99 cent Iphone game.

 

[Yarrow]

In my experience deep discounts on some games has in the past resulted in me paying full price for game released later in the same series/by the same developer. It also encouraged me to try games that I wouldn't otherwise consider. For example I bought Saints Row 3 for a huge discount despite it not being the typical game I'd play, I thoroughly enjoyed it and went on to purchase Saints Row 4 at full price.

 

[Flames66]

I'm all for Positech not wanting to have %50 off sales of their games. And I'm all for you thinking that $15 USD is expensive. They think they're worth more due to the hours of work they put into making their game. You think $15 expensive based on whatever subjective calculation you have in your head. I'm inclined to side with the small developer on this issue because at they put work into their product and live off of it.

That's fair enough. They made it and can choose to sell it for whatever price they like. I will decide how much I am willing to pay for it as must anyone making a purchase. I personally think £40 for a game is extortion and won't pay it. At that price, I would expect a product to last a lifetime.