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

[Orlake]

I feel as if EA may be using the term "intellectual property" in congruence with "artistic integrity" or "artistic value." Yes the steam sales are LITERALLY cheapening the IP cost wise, but does nothing to damage the artistic value of these games. If anything, steam is making them more accessible to players who would have not otherwise bought them. Most of these games have had their release periods, the good folks at Valve are just reviving them for an encore.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Valve doesn't even need to respond what with EA being completely batty nuggets.

Escapist Article Date: June 6 EA Vice President claims that Steam sales "cheapen" intellectual property.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117725-Origin-Boss-Says-Steam-Sales-Cheapen-Intellectual-Property

Escapist Article Date: June FUCKING 18 EA "cheapens" intellectual property on Origin with Steam-like sale.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117950-Origin-Cheapens-IP-With-Deep-Cutting-Sales

I am unable to take anything EA says seriously in any manner whatsoever.

 

[Rednog]

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.

 

[Rednog]

Most of these games have had their release periods, the good folks at Valve are just reviving them for an encore.

The problem with this is that Valve/Steam isn't throwing up just games that have had their sale periods come and gone. When you throw up something like Max Payne 3 or any new game the question that no one has data on is whether or not people are realizing that hey X game is released near the steam winter/summer sale, if I wait like 2-3 weeks I will save at least 33-50%. That is a huge drop off in price for such a little time period. And I really think that does cheapen the product because it really just tells you that hey that product really wasn't worth the initial asking price if they are willing to knock off the price this fast.
The question remains whether or not the discounted price is teaching consumers to just wait for the big discount and eating into full price profits. And I really do think EA is correct on this point. I don't think the points stands for games that are older.

 

[Anach]

What companies like CDProject Red, Bethesda and Valve (and Bioware before EA), is that they had a lot of respect from gamers, and this helps to drive sales, through word of mouth, and good will sales. You get good service and don't feel ripped off, then you are more inclined to return and purchase. Whether this is cheap sales, lack of DRM, free content, continual bug fix patches or all of the above. However, companies like EA and UBI on the other hand, continuously try to milk their customers for everything they can, force them into services they don't want and drop support for their games as soon as they stop making enough money.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

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.

Amazon can be really finicky with downloads if you don't live in the US. An attempt to download a soundtrack turned into a series of loops that ended with a "sorry this service isn't avalible outside the US."

 

[Clearing the Eye]

Is this the third article on this site within a week or so containing more or less the exact same information?

Is Valve paying you guys to run stuff about them or something? We get, we get it; they're better than EA. Let's stop talking about this like it's current or relevant. You can only say the same thing so many times and the comments are always copy pastes of the previous ones.

 

[Legion]

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.

Bottom line, EA is greedy as sin, where is Valve likes to get paid as anyone else,but they figure the long term gain outweighs the short term.

This plus Valve realise that if you do something nice fr your consumers every now and again, they will remember it and be more likely to want to buy from you in the future.

EA on the other hand are like petrol stations. They know they can treat their customers like crap, because people want their product and many will buy it anyway. The only difference is that they actually have competition, whereas with petrol, you are forced to buy where you can.

 

[JCrichton]

Is this the third article on this site within a week or so containing more or less the exact same information?

Is Valve paying you guys to run stuff about them or something? We get, we get it; they're better than EA. Let's stop talking about this like it's current or relevant. You can only say the same thing so many times and the comments are always copy pastes of the previous ones.

Valve hasn't released this data previously as far as I know.

I have no problem with Steam/Origins/Uplay/Whatever getting positive or negative press.

Or just a quickie news item like this.

 

[Doom972]

So, given EA's disinterest in cheapening their IP franchises (and, you know, selling product), I hope Valve saw fit to exclude any and all EA titles in the Summer Sale.

Plenty of EA products in the summer sale. Even Crysis 2, which was the first game to be pulled from Steam to promote Origin (and returned last month) had a 75% discount sale. That couldn't have been done without EA's approval.
EA knows sales work better, they just don't like to admit it.

This summer sale makes it really hard to resist the impulse to buy so many games.

 

[The Human Torch]

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.

Amazon can be really finicky with downloads if you don't live in the US. An attempt to download a soundtrack turned into a series of loops that ended with a "sorry this service isn't avalible outside the US."

Type in a fake U.S. address. I am from the Netherlands, and they didn't even correlate my credit-card information with the address I've given them. Bought Spec Ops for a good price.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

How does that make you lose faith in Steam's community? If anything, I think it is telling that people are more willing to pay extra cash and put up with Steam than save money, because the service works so well.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

...But didn't they already come out against these stupid comments (made primarily by EA)?

That's what I was thinking. It seems like every time I've come to this site for a while, there's been another news article or feature about Steam and the words said by EA. I've no idea how accurate they are--you know how "reliable" reports are when it comes to quotes.

It almost feels like the Escapist is just trying to make news at this point, harping on about whatever the current trend in the forum is at the time.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

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.

Amazon can be really finicky with downloads if you don't live in the US. An attempt to download a soundtrack turned into a series of loops that ended with a "sorry this service isn't avalible outside the US."

Type in a fake U.S. address. I am from the Netherlands, and they didn't even correlate my credit-card information with the address I've given them. Bought Spec Ops for a good price.

Really?

You'd think Amazon would check something like that.

 

[MasterProcrastinator]

Anyone who honestly thinks that Steam sales - or similar deals/promotions - have a negative effect on any level, need to read this article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9011-The-Terrifying-Tale-of-Amnesia].

 

[Matt King]

In short.

Bottom line, EA is greedy as sin,

well they are a business what the fuck do you expect

 

[PrototypeC]

WHY ARE THEY STILL SLAPFIGHTING WITH EA

Seriously, aren't they capable of letting this go? Holtman. Stop. The only way this will end is with a lot of disappointment on the part of your customers as we watch you sling insults. I was hoping they would just respond to the first one and then let it go, but they're continuing this back-and-forth. I get it, you don't like them and they're calling you out. I don't really like them either. In fact, I hate them and never buy from them except second-hand.

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.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

This is hilarious how does promoting games that haven't seen sales for a while bad?

EA propaganda? Could they get any more evil lol.

I would probably never buy Max Payne 3 for myself at full price but I'll get it when it's so cheap. Also I bought it for my friend for his birthday back when it was released so they still got a full price sale out of me.

I even bought Alan Wake even though I already own the base game on xbox. It was like 7 quid with the dlc's which I don't have.

 

[The Human Torch]

Really?

You'd think Amazon would check something like that.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

Seriously, that is exactly what I said when I found this out. It works, trust me. The ironic part is that the actual gamedownload itself goes through Steam.

 

[Vivi22]

When you throw up something like Max Payne 3 or any new game the question that no one has data on is whether or not people are realizing that hey X game is released near the steam winter/summer sale, if I wait like 2-3 weeks I will save at least 33-50%.

Most people who buy a game that close to release are not going to be bothered waiting a few weeks in anticipation of a sale, particularly given how new it is.

That is a huge drop off in price for such a little time period. And I really think that does cheapen the product because it really just tells you that hey that product really wasn't worth the initial asking price if they are willing to knock off the price this fast.

Actually, in the case of Max Payne 3 at least, I'd say it tells me that sales weren't what Rockstar was hoping for so they wanted to stir up a bit more interest. According to vgchartz, it's only sold 1.87 million as of July 7th across all platforms. That's probably not even enough to break even considering it's a big budget Rockstar release (not GTA by any means, but it would have still been expensive in development costs alone) and we're creeping up on a month after release. Most games make the majority of their sales in the first 3 months, with the first month obviously being the biggest in terms of revenue.

A sale this soon doesn't necessarily mean that the game wasn't worth full price. But it does mean that Rockstar dumped a ton of money into it and they're desperate to get as much back as they can. If Valve's data is right and the sales increase dramatically during a sale and remain steady after then Rockstar can only gain from this.