Valve: If Steam Sales Didn't Work We Wouldn't Run Them

[Vivi22]

With every article that continues this dumb chest-thumping session, my distaste for Valve grows (my opinion of EA can't go any lower, so that stays the same). I know it's just one or two guys instead of every single employee or even the CEO, but that's enough. Reel this guy back, don't let him say any more. I don't care if it's true or not, I don't care how much market research went into it. It's pathetic.

I don't see it as chest thumping at all. It's literally EA trying to justify not running sales and not only getting customers to go along with it, but convincing them to actually like it. Valve on the other hand is just coming out and basically saying, "yeah, we know what the other guys said, but we've got but loads of data which shows the opposite to be true."

Why shouldn't they point out when EA are being a bunch of lying assholes? Particularly when they have evidence proving that they're wrong. I mean, when you get right down to it, Valve has spent years shaking up the traditional gaming business model and experimenting with new pricing structures, marketing techniques, etc. left and right to find out what actually, unequivocally works. That information is valuable, not just to Valve or to consumers, but to the entire industry. If they can change the mindset of the larger publishers by proving that what they do is making them less money then everyone wins.

How anyone could simply dismiss that fact as nothing more than a pissing match is beyond me. I want Valve to speak out when the traditional business models don't work, particularly when the traditional models have been seeing developers shuttered and publishers racking up huge financial losses yet continuing to stick with doing more of the same.

 

[The Human Torch]

In short.

Bottom line, EA is greedy as sin,

well they are a business what the fuck do you expect

As much as any company has a right/need to earn money, there is a right way, and a wrong way to go about it. Especially as the wrong way drives customers away, or if the wrong way basically flies against factual improved results in money earning.

EA has no idea what it's doing, their bloated business model will severely cripple their performance in the future. Did you read that they need to sell 5 MILLION copies of Dead Space 3 to break even with their development costs? That's one heck of a sales goal. Especially as it needs to break the 5 million copies sold before it even makes a profit.

This kind of business model, combined with their stubbornness when it comes to sales, and their tenacity to nickle and dime their customers. It's just not good business.

 

[bafrali]

In short.

Bottom line, EA is greedy as sin,

well they are a business what the fuck do you expect

Wow!!! You managed to insult the whole industry with one sentence. Congratulations sir.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Ah yes I remember the Portal for free offer 2 years ago, it made me create a steam account despite being mainly a console gamer at the time. 91 games later Valve has seen alot of my money, while EA in the same time period has only seen a share of $2.99 from me for the original Syndicate game. So I think Steam seem to do Valve and any publishers who participates alot of good financially.

 

[draythefingerless]

i feel this needs to be posted here


EA is the devil, and Valve is the lord coming to save us from its temptations.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Though I have to probably add against Valve in at least the obsessive compuslive consumers... hats. They love to make hats. And sell them for rediculous prices. Other then that, I love Steam and Valve.

If you could design silly virtual hats and people would continue to pay thousands for them every day, would you continue to make silly virtual hats? I think we know almost everybody's answer.

It's genius god damnit, they have the vitual hat market NAILED.

 

[Signa]

In short.

EA likes money, and thinks thing should be expensive so they get all the money. If a game is 60 dollars it must be 60 dollars. There is no compromise.

Valve also likes money, but so do developers and publishers. They may get less off these games during sales, but a lot of them are old games that have not had many salse in a long time to begin with. Valve figures out if they put them on sale for a limited time, it encourages people to buy them if on impulse alone, not only generating revenu for Valve but for the developers of these games.

Also, according to their research, a 75% off sale on steam increases sales by around 3000%. So putting things on sale actually makes you more money.

I have to state that figure might be wrong from what I've heard. PROFITS go up around 3000% for some games. They aren't just selling 30x the games, they are making 30x the money they were at the higher price. Depending on the sale, that's a lot more than just 30x sales.

 

[Kerodohi]

I love the Steam sales and don't think they cheapen IP at all. Why?
Because I'm a lot more likely to buy a game I never would have been interested in at full price. Oftentimes I end up really loving those games and will buy more IP at full price from the same developers. Or even just within the same genre.

Case in point: I got the Dungeon Siege pack awhile ago, figuring that even if I didn't really like dungeon crawlers, it was cheap enough to justify the purchase. Turns out that they were extremely enjoyable games and now I've got three or four other games of the same genre, all from different developers at different price points. None of whom would have gotten any of my money if it hadn't been for the sale

 

[Metalrocks]

?A, just accept it. you are a bunch of greedy, money sucking, selfish, ?goistic A-holes (EA) that cant accept any good business scheme. even when it stares you in the face.
valve knows what its doing and they are pretty much loved for it. are you so blind to see that???

if i woulndt be a ME fan, i would have never bothered to get ME3 and origin. also getting BF3 later on since it is more fun to play then MW3.

 

[PingoBlack]

Come on people, you know the truth.

This so called "expert" from Valve can say all he want, but we all know EA has their hands over their ears so hard their head is popping from screaming la-la-la from top of their lungs they know instinctively this guy has no idea what he is talking about.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY! SWAG!

I c wut u did thar!

On Topic: I'm fairly positive that the Escapist already posted an article like this. Why repeat it?

 

[bLAZay00]

A bigger question is: why should the gamer pay 60$ for a digital version of a game? Seeing as how the regular distribution network has been cut out these kind of deep discounts should be the rule not the exception.

 

[Somebloke]

The Escapist has obviously grown into such a humungous megacorporation, that it is no longer possible for the 549'th hand from the left to know what the n*7^4'th one from the right is/has_been/will_be doing. :9

 

[nawoa]

Hey EA. You know what cheapens the value of a game? Dicing it up into bits and selling them to me every couple of months after I've bought it, including on release day. Or splitting chunks of content off from the main game and making those a "pre-order bonus" exclusive to a certain retailer. Or making me pay $10 extra for the collector's edition to get the full game, as if $60 wasn't enough to begin with.

The argument about artists or whoever needing something to work on while the game is finished is a load of crap. Game companies with the resources to have such a large staff aren't just resting on their laurels while the finishing touches are being put on one game, they're already working on the next one.

 

[Patrick Buck]

Though I have to probably add against Valve in at least the obsessive compuslive consumers... hats. They love to make hats. And sell them for rediculous prices. Other then that, I love Steam and Valve.

To be honest, I've always seen people buying hats in TF2 as stupid, and prehaps Valve are charging so much, to try and make them realise they are spending money on such pointless stuff?
But then I talk to someone on TF2 and I see that isn't working...

Also, Valve do wanna make money, while they are a better company than most, they still want money. All of them do. I don't blame them for it, it's just when they start making day-one DLC, or charging stupid prices for online, or pointless changes, does it get stupid. (Looking at you EA, and a little at you too Valve, with your overpriced TF2 hats.)

 

[Waaghpowa]

I honestly lost faith in the steam community when Spec Ops hit like #5 of top sellers on the North American client. Amazon had it for $25 and no one bought it. People are head of heals for steam that they'll willingly pay more to buy it directly from them than save a handful of money.

Amazon.com wont let people outside the US purchase from the site, so it has very little to do with that.

Hey, there's another good thing about steam over it's competitors. It's not region specific!

 

[thenightgaunt]

The thing is that EA has been run in recent years like any other company and for good reason, traditionally Game companies were just like any other company in regards to how they should be managed. For EA, sales are a bad idea because every sale is lost revenue. This is a very physical minded sales mindset though. The store sells the game at full price, the net profit on it is not only known, but was planned for and other future investments (new game dev) is planned based on that number.
But if the store sells the game at a discount, there goes the profit. All that's been achieved is an increase in awareness of your store and a reduction of inventory.

But none of that matters to Steam, because their inventory has NO COSTS relating to sales aside from server costs (this is very simplified). They don't spend millions on producing discs, boxes, shipping, store rent, etc...
So sales make damned good sense from Steam's point of view. Especially since people can't trade games. So you got Portal for free. But you missed Portal 2 at the sale. So you buy it full price afterwards. Or you tell friends about it and they buy it for $9. Either way, Steam's making $$ off those sales. From the oldschool EA perspective, each of those sales is loaded with opportunity cost (the money that could have been made in a normal sale). From the digital download mindset, those sales are more profit. That's the fantastic thing about this model. When you're product is 100% digital you can play with the price charged for a product in order to boost sales without loosing any money. EA just can't get their heads around that. Look at how they've run their digital stores up to now (Sims 3 especially).

 

[aba1]

Why is EA so shallow that they are actually outright slandering the competition, seems fairly shallow to me.

 

[mattaui]

Stores have sales, they get people to buy stuff they might not otherwise have bought, sometimes even in the hopes that a low enough price would entice someone to buy something they'd never think of buying, but might give it a try for a few bucks. Everything goes on sale at some point, somewhere. Is EA attacking Amazon for putting everything on sale pretty much all the time?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Spec Ops: The Line hit $33 today... sold!

Well another $33 to Valve and 2K!

I honestly lost faith in the steam community when Spec Ops hit like #5 of top sellers on the North American client. Amazon had it for $25 and no one bought it. People are head of heals for steam that they'll willingly pay more to buy it directly from them than save a handful of money.

that's not steam's fault, people just are too lazy to check all over every single day, and for the most part steam has ridiculous sale deals, so it allows these people to save money, and be lazy...what's not to love?


plus was it a physical copy or a digital download for that spec ops game?

captcha: fuzzy wuzzy

yes i am