Adon Cabre said:
I think that there are so many strings being pulled in so many places that it's hard for us to make a connection. Consoles affect PC more than people realize. Consoles are the life blood of this industry. The big boys don't fret with Steam's discounts because they know how small the PC market is in relation to consoles.
No, the consoles are the life blood of a very small section of the "AAA" market, like COD and Assassin's Creed. That's not the entire market. Also, it's not a problem for PC gamers if a game does well on the consoles and on the PC. They're different markets.
So go ahead and buy Assassin's Creed 2 at $4 on Steam; it sold nearly 5.5 million copies on the PS3. What do the suits care about PC sales? That's just whip cream on the chocolate cake that is the console sales.
I never get this argument. We made 100 million on consoles, so we don't care about the 10 million we made on PC. Suits like money. They like all the money they can get, eve the money from the PC. In many genres, and with some very big titles, the PC is the one making the money. Also, the formatting does not actually make your argument any better.
SimCity and Origin were not accidents, and they are a perfect reflection of what this market could look like. It was a risk that they were pretty sure would fail; but it didn't matter to them, because that game had to launch. And that's just it -- absent of consoles, there is little quality control. It's the wild west online.
What are you talking about?? Consoles don't create quality control. The only time that was true was when it was impossible to patch a game on the consoles. A lot of console titles have been a mess. That "quality control" on consoles has little to do with the PC version either.
SimCity is not an accident, but it is a very special case. It has a very different audience than most other PC titles.
I do agree that we will see more storefronts created by big companies. But, they have to fight for the consumer's dollars just like everyone else. On the consoles, the AAA games rule, so they can keep the prices high. On PC, they are fighting against a huge amount of competition. You don't have to buy games from Origin at $60. There are great F2P FPSs now on PC, and LoL and DOTA2. That's one of the reasons PC games are cheaper. It has almost nothing to do with console sales. You keep going on about economics, but you dont' address a single one of the economic factors I mentioned.
Publishers can distribute their games online, but retail is still the most profitable way of doing it. As soon as they see a trend toward digital sales, you can bet that they close up shop with Steam, or least fight their ridiculous sales. It's all about riding a wave, and Steam is doing an absolutely fantastic job at it; and even as it convinces people that they own their content.
Good for them.
Nonsense. Steam is simply just beating them by controlling the market. That could change in the future, but it has nothing to do with the consoles. Origin and Ubi's store can beat Steam when they compete on price. To claim that Steam is a small player in the market is just nonsense unless you only look at a cherry-picked list of so-called "AAA" games. But, what you are really talking about are a handful of games that are clearly made and marketed specifically to the console gamers.
I agree that the console market does have an effect on the PC market, but it's only a small part of it. You haven't said anything to back up the claim that PC pricing is low because of the consoles though. You didn't even try to address the main problem with your argument: PC exclusives follow the same pricing pattern. You argument is: "Prices are low on PC because the suits don't care." And yet the Witcher 2 is on sale on GOG.com (ie, the storefront for the people who made the game). Even Origin does sales so that they can actually sell a few copies outside the weird niche that buys The Sims and SimCity.