How about a "Store Amnesty"?

[Tau Settee]

I've got games from other stores that - especially now I have a 512 Steam Deck - I would quite like on Steam too, but I really don't want to pay full price for JUST to have from this store.

I think it'd be a pretty good idea for Steam to either offer a steep discount to "steamify" games I already own for elsewhere or to outright allow me to download "steamified" versions of stuff that I have from other stores.

How is this not a thing already?

[Crazy Tiger]

You don't need to pay full price. Wait for the games to be on discount.

Owning the game on other platforms/stores in no way means you are owed a Steam version. But individual game developers/publishers can provide you with a Steam key, though most (if not all) don't.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Steam doesn't set the prices, developers do.

[Brian9824]

Tau Settee님이 먼저 게시:

How is this not a thing already?

It is a thing, if developers wish to do so as its their games. Like Bethesda gave you copies of Fallout games on Steam if you owned them on their launcher.

Steam can't give you licenses to other people's products.

[Aachen]

Tau Settee님이 먼저 게시:

.... How is this not a thing already?

Christmas is a great holiday — why don’t we simply declare every day to be Christmas?

[MagicMight]

So you want something like Gog connect. Not saying that it will happen, but if it did it would have to be the case of each game developer opting-in, of course.

So let's suppose that there are developers that are willing to give you a Steam copy if you have, say, a GoG copy. Of course there is the possibility of the developer just providing a key if they want to like suggested on the first reply. But I believe that the point of the OP's suggestion is to alleviate the burden of having a developer performing that check by having the actual platform (Steam) do the heavy-lifting.

But the question is: why would Valve buy into something like this? Well, on the one hand, people who are using other platforms could be attracted towards the Steam ecosystem, which means that there is a higher chance of staying within that and spending more money.

On the other hand a detractor could easily claim that Valve would never do this because many many people are already double or triple-buying their favorite games on different platforms, launchers, etc. They would lose revenue from such people.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Eiswolfin님이 먼저 게시:

For the Steam Deck, If you have games on Epic or GOG, use the heroic launcher. Heroic launcher includes multiple versions of Proton and Wine.


https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

He's wanting to migrate his library from other places to Steam by Steam giving discounts on the games he already owns. Not just have an all-in-one launcher.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

KittenGrindr님이 먼저 게시:

He's wanting to migrate his library from other places to Steam by Steam giving discounts on the games he already owns. Not just have an all-in-one launcher.

Well it's such a boneheaded idea (I bought the game somewhere else, give me a huge discount here), OP may not realize that it's an option.

GoG did have a system that allowed you to redeem GoG games on Steam that were attached to your GoG account. AFAIK though, it's essentially been dead for years.

[Satoru]

MagicMight님이 먼저 게시:

So you want something like Gog connect. Not saying that it will happen, but if it did it would have to be the case of each game developer opting-in, of course.

Note that GOG Connect hasnt' been active in like a year or more

Functionally these things are marketing tools. Epic gives away games because their metric of "Cost Per New User" is insanely low when doing so. As such it totally makes sense for them to do so. They are also tracking of those new users, how many of them make purchases on Epic and for how much. These are also key metrics that will tell Epic how successful these marketing of free games are correlates to actual sales on Epic. Epic is obviously doing quite well in converting the free game users into actual paying customers

The fact that GOG Connect is functionally dead, means that
1) GOG is not giving devs an incentive to do so
2) GOG is finding that the cost of doing this is not pulling in enough new users
3) GOG is finding that the conversion rate of new customers to new paying customers is too low. Which is why GOG Connect had Stellaris for all of like 2 hours before they realized the terrible mistake that was and killed it, and never brought it back for 'technical' reasons.

GOG is also, again, vastly unprofitable. Sure it got a bump in 2020 because of CP2077. But in 2021 it dropped yet again to vast $6 million USD loss. Which shows that functionally the major thing that drives actual revenue to GOG is the sale of their own games. Without Witcher or CP2077 GOG basicaly doesn't exist. Which is why GOG and GOG Galaxy have more or less stagnated. GOG is functionally unprofitable. Any smart people are going to be shuffled over to CDProjket. Any actual resources will be spent on CDProjket. GOG can keep the lights on but that's pretty much it. If CDProjekt ever bombs a game the entire organization will go into a tailspin and GOG will be the first casualty of that.

[gareeth]

I read you can launch some games the other day. I can never keep Epic and GoG straight in my head so I know one of them I have a fair number of games on but even if I embed launchers it's too much of a hassle,

Thanks to the post above as far as I wondered about Stellaris which I have but due to an illness impacting my upper body adding to my already not great lower I have never really managed to play a game fast enough for it to be reasonable for me to try to get a refund.

It's good information as I read a Steam Deck review that made it seem like it made it easier to play games from these holdouts. You'd think they would learn from EA that stagnating by not being on Steam may not be the way to go.

While issues may not change how much I think the Steam Deck may help me play games period it's good information given it contradicts a review I read yesterday that suggested it was much easier to play those games Granted still with a launcher.

[Gwarsbane]

Tau Settee님이 먼저 게시:

I've got games from other stores that - especially now I have a 512 Steam Deck - I would quite like on Steam too, but I really don't want to pay full price for JUST to have from this store.

I think it'd be a pretty good idea fir Steam to either offer a steep discount to "steamify" games I already own for elsewhere or to outright allow me to download "steamified" versions of stuff that I have from other stores.

How is this not a thing already?

Its not a thing already because developers like to have money to pay their bills and feed their families.

Its 100% up to the developers of those games if they want to hand out Steam Keys for those games if you buy them on other platforms, but generally they don't.

GOG was trying something like this... and they did it for a few games, but that was only because thats what those developers were ok with. But it hasn't done anything for a long time and its not every game or even most, its just a small select few games.

Your only option is to wait for sales or look for the games on bundle sites to buy them dirt cheap. Heck you can even find a few groups around here that provide notices for free games that pop up now and then. vermintide 2 is free on steam right now if you like that kind of game, the developers put it up for free for a limited time for some reason.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Tau Settee님이 먼저 게시:

How is this not a thing already?

Because no developer/publisher with half a brain is going to do that.

[[?]legit]

Judgmental Amaterasu님이 먼저 게시:

Tau Settee님이 먼저 게시:

How is this not a thing already?

Because no developer/publisher with half a brain is going to do that.

I don't think most customers would. Who would purchase a game twice just to play it in another launcher?

[Satoru]

legit님이 먼저 게시:

Judgmental Amaterasu님이 먼저 게시:

Because no developer/publisher with half a brain is going to do that.

I don't think most customers would. Who would purchase a game twice just to play it in another launcher?

How many times have people bought Skyrim? For many That number is higher than 2. It’s literally a meme

[[?]legit]

Satoru님이 먼저 게시:

legit님이 먼저 게시:

I don't think most customers would. Who would purchase a game twice just to play it in another launcher?

How many times have people bought Skyrim? For many That number is higher than 2

I guess you mean another version of Skyrim, like Skyrim special edition or Skyrim VR? That's obviosly something completely different.

[null]

Assume you bought a game on Playstation Network(PSN). Here's why your suggestion is silly

1. PSN must agree to give steam information on games you own. (PSN and Steam has to develop and maintain additional services)
   
2. PSN and Steam have to map every one of their game IDs between their systems, so when you own a game on PSN, steam know it's exactly that game and not something different. Before you ask, no - no store will use the game name/description to determine what you own.
   (manual labor)
   
3. You moving from PSN to Steam means you're less likely to buy DLC on PSN (PSN is likely to lose profits).
   
4. As per your suggestion Steam has to take paycut, because it's selling 2nd (devs might not agree to that).
   
5. Exact same thing has to happen between all OTHER platforms (i.e. multiply development by platform count).

It's a lot of work with very low payoff for whoever is selling the game 2nd/3rd.

Best you can push for is devs doing that, because devs actually have the power to sell you keys on platforms cheaper, BUT it also comes with a lot of technical risks for developers/publishers, with little to no payoff compared to just doing sales.