How are steam games so cheap?

[smallsusej]

Ok, I know a lot of you have been complaining that the price has risen blehblehbleh. But where I live, steam games are so much cheaper than the games in the stores! Like how can 75% off sales still be profitable? Someone please explain to me how it works. Thankss

[Eludium]

It's exactly the opposite in my country. Almost all games are cheaper on stores than on Steam. That, when there's no sale here, of course

[ナルゴ]

Because digital distribution requires less resources than making and selling physical copies of games.

[Wargasm81]

For one Digital is always cheaper but many of the games are fairly high considering age or how long they have been on the market but once in awhile they get a huge price cut. I'm sure the sales are brought up with the game owners before hand.

[Ambivalent]

Originally posted by the white girl in all of us:

Ok, I know a lot of you have been complaining that the price has risen blehblehbleh. But where I live, steam games are so much cheaper than the games in the stores! Like how can 75% off sales still be profitable? Someone please explain to me how it works. Thankss

Because they gain money from DLCs. Most games are nothing then DLC downloders these days.(Like RPG maker's modules or something)

[Wargasm81]

Originally posted by Matthew Sobol's Daemon:

It's very simple: letting someone download a game to someone costs next to nothing. If you sell a game at 25% of the base price, that's still mostly profit. And it's much better to make SOME money than no money.

Agreed far cheaper than selling 200,000 copies that today are dvd or blu-ray in size.

[smallsusej]

Originally posted by Ambivalent:

Originally posted by the white girl in all of us:

Ok, I know a lot of you have been complaining that the price has risen blehblehbleh. But where I live, steam games are so much cheaper than the games in the stores! Like how can 75% off sales still be profitable? Someone please explain to me how it works. Thankss

Because they gain money from DLCs. Most games are nothing then DLC downloders these days.(Like RPG maker's modules or something)

I thought the majority of the money made from DLCs went to the game producers as well? Or does Valve pocket most of it?

[Ambivalent]

Originally posted by Matthew Sobol's Daemon:

Originally posted by the white girl in all of us:

I thought the majority of the money made from DLCs went to the game producers as well? Or does Valve pocket most of it?

I think what TWGIAOU was trying to say was that DLC sells like hotcakes. Valve still "only" gets the rumored 30%-ish cut for DLC, but that's more than enough when you're selling like crazy.

Correct.

Season passes, DLC skin packs, map packs were already included in game in first place, now they tend to sell these stuff. Which means less price for base game but a whole a lot more for GOTY, Gold, Collection etc editions.

And yeah, AFAIK Valve gets around 25-30% per sale.

[shoopy]

I'm sure there's creative accounting involved as well. Like how some film studios rig the books on certain movies so as to claim they make no profit and therefore contractually they avoid paying out a lot of money in royalties, even though the actual movies make millions of dollars in profits.

Such as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which they CLAIM lost $160 something million. Yeah right.

[697830]

How are steam games so cheap?

I like the perspective this person puts on the market for these digital goods. and have to agree.

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/620712364026144888/#c620712364030879817

[kpt121]

It's less money than making physical copies.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by ‎‏Patrick:

How are steam games so cheap?

I like the perspective this person puts on the market for these digital goods. and have to agree.

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/620712364026144888/#c620712364030879817

Oh its me...
Actually somewhere on these forums is a far more indepth argument. But basically it boils down to a kind of "quantitative easing" for an economy devoid of the normal controlling factors.

[Wryyy]

In mother Russia everything is free.

[Bennythebuff]

A key is cheaper to produce, store and sell than a physical copy.

[Roaku]

They steal peoples souls to make games, hence it becomes cheaper through African's child labor.

[joemintball]

i dont know how they are so cheap maybe cause hard copys cost a lot more to produce all i know is they should keep it up