We might start getting better sales from now on.

[Tom]

I think most people can agree that in recent years, Steam has stopped having the kind of deep discount they used to have before. I mean, a few years ago, it's very normal to see even AAA titles selling at as low as $5 during a promotional sale.

I theorize that part of the reason is the rise of Steam gift reselling. Back in the days, a promotional sale is exactly what it should be, a temporary boost of media coverage and user traffic that was ultimatly intended to drive normal price sales.

But nowadays, with Steam gift resellers, having a deep discount effectively destroys the market value of a game. Because the market will be permanently filled with these cheap gifts sold by gift resellers. You are effectively forward-moving and cannibalizing your later sales with a discount.

Now with gift resellers out of the picture, the new system should encourage developers to have the kind of deep discount they used to have before.

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

A $60 game (standard AAA pricing for the last few years) being sold for $5 is a 92% discount and that has never happened.

The general idea makes a little of sense but not that much. Mostly because:

1- Grey market hardly influences sales. Steam's own community is far more destructive as we have been shown time and time. It's thanks to us, and our willingness to exploit just about everything we can that things like flash sales and inventory gifts don't happen anymore.

2- Developers raising prices worldwide to match USD sales even in poor regions and general greed makes sales less meaningful. Usually people who can't/don't buy an overpriced game at full price wasn't going to buy it anyway, and by the time there's a sale most people who wanted the game already got it, from Steam or other means.

3- Sales simply aren't special anymore. Everyone does them. All the time, all year long, someone is going a sale. People remember Steam for its sales from the past, but fail to realise that discounts hardly changed at all. It's just us, again, that became too spoiled, and nowadays anything less than 95% discount is hardly considered a sale.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

引用自 Narcoleptic Marshmallow：

A $60 game (standard AAA pricing for the last few years) being sold for $5 is a 92% discount and that has never happened.

The general idea makes a little of sense but not that much. Mostly because:

1- Grey market hardly influences sales. Steam's own community is far more destructive as we have been shown time and time. It's thanks to us, and our willingness to exploit just about everything we can that things like flash sales and inventory gifts don't happen anymore.

2- Developers raising prices worldwide to match USD sales even in poor regions and general greed makes sales less meaningful. Usually people who can't/don't buy an overpriced game at full price wasn't going to buy it anyway, and by the time there's a sale most people who wanted the game already got it, from Steam or other means.

3- Sales simply aren't special anymore. Everyone does them. All the time, all year long, someone is going a sale. People remember Steam for its sales from the past, but fail to realise that discounts hardly changed at all. It's just us, again, that became too spoiled, and nowadays anything less than 95% discount is hardly considered a sale.

Ahem...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/307690/Sleeping_Dogs_Definitive_Edition/

S.x.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

In addition there was one Steam sale where Skyrim was on sale for £2.49. Amazing.

S.x.

[Tom]

引用自 Start_Running：

You do realize that's exactly what selling a game at a discount is. IT's the same as a worker saying they'll only need to be paid half their usual salary for a month.

See how that works.

Really wish people would look beyond their own skin to see the larger picture sometimes. A discount is a calculated action. Discount too much and you essentially short change yourself. Also as I said. AAA games older than 3 years never got discounted that low. THat's a myth. The sort of myth that unfortunately colours people's expectations.

You'll have to show me the store page that shoews this in Wayback machine.

I'm afraid there's no way I can. Even SteamDB doesn't track price histroy from that long ago. But I do distinctly remember a lot of AAA games selling at $5 around the time of 2010~2014, among them hits like Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Portal 2, Borderlands 2, etc.

引用自 Narcoleptic Marshmallow：

A $60 game (standard AAA pricing for the last few years) being sold for $5 is a 92% discount and that has never happened.

No, before 2014 it was very normal for AAA titles to drop to $20 1~2 years after release. And 75% off of $20 is $5.

[Start_Running]

引用自 Tomwelcome：

引用自 Start_Running：

You do realize that's exactly what selling a game at a discount is. IT's the same as a worker saying they'll only need to be paid half their usual salary for a month.

See how that works.

Really wish people would look beyond their own skin to see the larger picture sometimes. A discount is a calculated action. Discount too much and you essentially short change yourself. Also as I said. AAA games older than 3 years never got discounted that low. THat's a myth. The sort of myth that unfortunately colours people's expectations.

You'll have to show me the store page that shoews this in Wayback machine.

I'm afraid there's no way I can. Even SteamDB doesn't track price histroy from that long ago. But I do distinctly remember a lot of AAA games selling at $5 around the time of 2010~2014, among them hits like Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Portal 2, Borderlands 2, etc.

You're actually right on those titles. But here's the thing. With the exception of portal 2, the didn't come down to $5 dollars until they were about 3 years old. and here's the other fascination thing. They naver had a 90% discount or even 80%. If you actually track the price points you'd notice that over time the base price starts droping. A game mey never get more than a 50% discount but those who pay attention will notice that the figure that gets discounted , drops over time. But don't take my word for it.

Here's the third kick to your logic. Check the price graph and you'll notice that all these games have hit the same low points on price every year since around 2014. So sales have not in fact getting worse, if nothing they've gotten better. :)

See for yourself over yere:
http://steamsales.rhekua.com/

[Start_Running]

引用自 ambidot：

引用自 Start_Running：

They naver had a 90% discount or even 80%. If you actually track the price points you'd notice that over time the base price starts droping. A game mey never get more than a 50% discount but those who pay attention will notice that the figure that gets discounted , drops over time. But don't take my word for it.

Portal 2 has been -80% in every holiday sale for the past three years.

And the game was released in 2011. So the game is at the very least 5 years old. See what I mean. Also more importantly it's base price has been dropping over time as well. This is why tell people to look at the price, not the discount percentage.

[Tom]

引用自 Start_Running：

You're actually right on those titles. But here's the thing. With the exception of portal 2, the didn't come down to $5 dollars until they were about 3 years old. and here's the other fascination thing. They naver had a 90% discount or even 80%. If you actually track the price points you'd notice that over time the base price starts droping. A game mey never get more than a 50% discount but those who pay attention will notice that the figure that gets discounted , drops over time. But don't take my word for it.

Here's the third kick to your logic. Check the price graph and you'll notice that all these games have hit the same low points on price every year since around 2014. So sales have not in fact getting worse, if nothing they've gotten better. :)

See for yourself over yere:
http://steamsales.rhekua.com/

What an interesting website! Well... you are right. I guess I did base part of my argument on false perception.

But I think my theory is still relevant, albeit to a lesser degree than I imagined, because reseller was still more or less a risk factor for publishers and developers.

[Black Blade]

引用自 gallifrey：

Steam's REAL vulnerability is Green Man Gaming and other similar sites and it is open to a really simple fraud. This is how it works. The publishers want to publish their game on Steam taking advantage of Steam's servers and anti piracy but they don't want to give Steam a thirty percent cut of their sales. Say they want to sell their game at about £24. They put it up on Steam - but at £30. Meanwhile they let Green Man Gaming have keys for £22. Green Man Gaming sells the keys at £25 - undercutting Steam by more than 15% The fact their cut is less than 15% is unimportant - they don't have the expenses of maintaining the servers etc. So Steam gets to host games, the vast majority of which aren't sold on Steam and make it no money. Until Steam gives publishers a maximum of "free" keys (review copies etc) and insists on taking it's 30% on all further copies downloaded via its servers it will be open to exploitation.

In the immediate term Steam should make sure there are at least a handful of offers in the summer sale that have real "Wow" factor. I think only a few die hards are still maintaining that prices aren't going up and that as a result even with similar discounts to previous sales the prices are higher. If Steam sales stop being an event that will hit sales hard.

S.x.

That is all nice, but i may be wrong on the matter, but i have a feeling Valve has in there agreement that you have to keep the price on Steam same as where else you sale it
Or else Developers where likely to sell on some cheap store that take a very small cut, and profit more on it, not selling at all, or selling in a much higher price on Steam

That will be illogical, so you can sell it any where you like, but i assume the price is limit, on how much it can be not like what Steam has on sale

That on any case is my guess

[Start_Running]

引用自 Black Blade：

That is all nice, but i may be wrong on the matter, but i have a feeling Valve has in there agreement that you have to keep the price on Steam same as where else you sale it

The base price. Yes. Discounted price. No. The thing is. Devs don't really care. 30% is not really as big a cut as you think they can lose as much as 60% on retail depending on order size. That's not counting processing fees.

Steam's 30% covers the transaction processing, hosting and distribution of files. as well as the store page. That's not too shabby.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Black Blade：

That is all nice, but i may be wrong on the matter, but i have a feeling Valve has in there agreement that you have to keep the price on Steam same as where else you sale it

The base price. Yes. Discounted price. No. The thing is. Devs don't really care. 30% is not really as big a cut as you think they can lose as much as 60% on retail depending on order size. That's not counting processing fees.

Steam's 30% covers the transaction processing, hosting and distribution of files. as well as the store page. That's not too shabby.

Hi Start Running,

I wasn't suggesting that Steam's cut was unfair (although with "paid mods" unless both Steam and the devs work it as DLC with full compatability guarantees it's a rather nasty cash grab).

However since other retailers habitually are undercutting Steam (not all the time and virtually never E.A. - even on their own games), European Union law makes some price fixing illegal, and people will avoid paying what's "fair" if they can get away with paying less (or nothing at all) it is a problem as the strength and visibility of independent key sellers increases the problem is likely to get worse.

It would also stop the Digital Homicide style shenanigans of giving away tens of thousands of keys to make money on card trades.

I think it would be entirely reasonable for Steam to agree a reasonable number of free downloads with developers - maybe 100 for the smallest, much, much more for a Rockstar or Bethesda but then say thereafter for each key we charge you 30% of your lowest Steam sale price (at least three consecutive days) in the last six months. Otherwise Steam customers are subsidising non Steam customers who are getting their downloads from Steam for free.

S.x.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

In addition my above suggestion would be a way of increasing revenue by hitting competitors, not customers.

S.x.

[Black Blade]

引用自 Start_Running：

The base price. Yes. Discounted price. No. The thing is. Devs don't really care. 30% is not really as big a cut as you think they can lose as much as 60% on retail depending on order size. That's not counting processing fees.

Steam's 30% covers the transaction processing, hosting and distribution of files. as well as the store page. That's not too shabby.

So what?
Its yet 30%

Think abut it like these a company like 2K or rockstar can easily sale there own games on there own sites
They all ready have a user base, and also have a cashing system, its just adding the games and Steam keys to that store
And if it dose not sell? Well who cares, they all ready pay the fees on the site and market, and sell they get there is likely a 95% profit (cash transfer fee is the 5% as well as advertising the store)
Why lose a 25% more if you can add it with no lose?
Even more if you can under sell your self (sell there AAA game on Steam for 60$ and for 50$ by them can get a nice amount of users buying Steam Keys from them, that will be lets say 15% more profit then selling on Steam)

But... they don't really do that, if they sell else where for the most part its the same price on nowmal price ot sale price

30% may not be that much, but its something, and losing on 25% is not worth just as you used to lose on 60% on retailer, honstly i don't think a dev is stuck in the past but look at the best deals they can do today, and hell with how it used to be

[Tito Shivan]

引用自 CharlestONE：

While there are a thousand factors that publishers use when setting sale prices, I could see the change improving sales some. If pubs feel they no longer have to worry about people snapping up cheap gift copies to later resell, then they might be more willing to either increase the discount or have more sales in general.

None of the factors that have lead to the actual sales situation have much to do with grey market resellers or regional pricing abuses. The fact is the gaming scenario has changed quite a lot in the last year's.

Developers no longer need to push aggressive sales for visibility. Twitch, YouTube and cursors bring lots of visibility to their titles without incurring in sales. That means they no longer need to scrap the deep end of sales to get their games to be seen.

Bundle sites blooming have fagocited the deep sales for themselves. Instead of a 80% off discount games now end on a dollar bundle.

Devs have noticed digital purchases have a longer tail. Gamers can pay bigger prices for longer, so the games can stay at higher prices longer (Activision is the king of it)

Pushes for refunds have made the sale environment less aggressive, which makes less need for pushing the line for aggressive sales.

None of that has much play on the latest gifting changes.

[Start_Running]

引用自 gallifrey：

However since other retailers habitually are undercutting Steam (not all the time and virtually never E.A. - even on their own games), European Union law makes some price fixing illegal, and people will avoid paying what's "fair" if they can get away with paying less (or nothing at all) it is a problem as the strength and visibility of independent key sellers increases the problem is likely to get worse.

There's a difference between how that's treated. If a retailer buys a given number of gasmes he's free to priuce them at whatever he wants. The publisher has already been paid.

It would also stop the Digital Homicide style shenanigans of giving away tens of thousands of keys to make money on card trades.

Only thing that'll stop that is basically consumers not buying it. The practice of giving away tons of keys and making cash off the micoros isn't a bad thing. That's why some games do limited time give aways and outright go F2P. Same logic, same effect.

I think it would be entirely reasonable for Steam to agree a reasonable number of free downloads with developers - maybe 100 for the smallest, much, much more for a Rockstar or Bethesda but then say thereafter for each key we charge you 30% of your lowest Steam sale price (at least three consecutive days) in the last six months. Otherwise Steam customers are subsidising non Steam customers who are getting their downloads from Steam for free.

S.x.

I'll assume the country that has a billion dol,lar revenue stream knows what it's doing. You don't do yourself a favour by squeezing your suppliers. Remember. Steam makes money off those micro's too.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 gallifrey：

However since other retailers habitually are undercutting Steam (not all the time and virtually never E.A. - even on their own games), European Union law makes some price fixing illegal, and people will avoid paying what's "fair" if they can get away with paying less (or nothing at all) it is a problem as the strength and visibility of independent key sellers increases the problem is likely to get worse.

There's a difference between how that's treated. If a retailer buys a given number of gasmes he's free to priuce them at whatever he wants. The publisher has already been paid.

It would also stop the Digital Homicide style shenanigans of giving away tens of thousands of keys to make money on card trades.

Only thing that'll stop that is basically consumers not buying it. The practice of giving away tons of keys and making cash off the micoros isn't a bad thing. That's why some games do limited time give aways and outright go F2P. Same logic, same effect.

I think it would be entirely reasonable for Steam to agree a reasonable number of free downloads with developers - maybe 100 for the smallest, much, much more for a Rockstar or Bethesda but then say thereafter for each key we charge you 30% of your lowest Steam sale price (at least three consecutive days) in the last six months. Otherwise Steam customers are subsidising non Steam customers who are getting their downloads from Steam for free.

S.x.

I'll assume the country that has a billion dol,lar revenue stream knows what it's doing. You don't do yourself a favour by squeezing your suppliers. Remember. Steam makes money off those micro's too.

But if a large number of developers choose to effectively "sell" their games via third party suppliers who have lower margins that billion dollar revenue stream will dry up pretty fast. It isn't "squeezing" suppliers - indeed Steam might decide to knock off a percentage of its charges for publishers who agree to the new system. If Steam wants to stay top it has to stay competitive on price.

S.x.