6/28/12 Steam Weekend Deal: Warhammer 40k games 75% off

[damocles]

While true to some extent, a lot of these games that nose dive down 75% in 3 months had no business being released with their premium price tag either and the publisher is looking to make a quick buck one people that want it as soon as possible.

I agree, well received games like Skyrim tend to hold their price much better than most of the drivel that gets released these days.

Steam sales also have the benefit of enticing people to buy games they would never have otherwise bought (I say this looking at my backlog).

 

[CuriousMike]

BTW, Space Marines is kick ass.

The chain-saw sword weapon is slice-and-dice fun.

 

[Elcs]

I already have every DoW game (including the first DoW and Winter Assault on CD... Yes, Compact Disc) but I decided I'd buy them on Steam too. They're not likely to get any cheaper and Steam is so handy dandy.

Also purchased some of the Space Marine DLC's.

 

[Nintendesert]

Sales like these cheapens the Warhammer IP, fuck Steam.

You and anyone else supporting this position are dumb-dumbs.


Video games have a very finite shelf life. After a few weeks or months they are pushed off B&M store shelves to make room for the next hotness. They make most of their money on the front end and then taper off to almost nothing.

STEAM changed all that with these sales. They are enticing people to buy months and sometimes years old games and generating profits on products that would normally bring in nothing. These big sales also move huge volumes of products that again would have been bringing in nothing.

STEAM also creates repeat buyers that want digital versions of their already purchased products, just look at Elcs' post.

STEAM hasn't cheapened anyone's IP, they've instead saved PC gaming and given it the most long term value on a companies IP. STEAM fires up one 75% off sale on an old game and it sells again. No other service did that before and it's so damn successful that even EA is doing it on their digital distribution service, despite you vomiting up EA's bullsh*t talking points.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

STEAM hasn't cheapened anyone's IP, they've instead saved PC gaming and given it the most long term value on a companies IP. STEAM fires up one 75% off sale on an old game and it sells again. No other service did that before and it's so damn successful that even EA is doing it on their digital distribution service, despite you vomiting up EA's bullsh*t talking points.

This.

I will say, though, that I think there can be a point where putting games on sale too fast is a bad idea, but how do we know what that is? If a game sucked balls and isn't selling they may as well cut the price. Or if it sold well initially and demand dropped off, same deal.

I think what some companies don't like is that the price EVER drops. But my gut feeling is that most people will only buy a certain number of games per year that they really want at the $50 or $60 price point, dropping games that are a year or 2 or more old to rock bottom $5 prices is a way to appeal to people's sense of value and suck more dollars out of them. It benefits everyone - players feel like they get a deal, and they DO in fact get a bunch of games out of it, the devs get money out of otherwise dead games, and older games don't get forgotten.

I'm sure there are even more benefits than that.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

He has a point - it's sort of like how Wal-Mart can greatly expand sales for a company but can also cut their profits to the bone and even put them out of business.

So why not just not sell to Wal-Mart? That can not be viable when they own too much of the distribution.

Publishers are careful to only say nice things about Steam and how grateful they are for all the increased sales, but it often cuts the revenue per title to the bone.

And once that cat's out of the bag, it'd be hard for them to go back to charging $30 for the game they used to get instead of $10 and under $5 on sale.

And it drives customers away from the publishers' sites to Steam. for example, because of Steam, Spiderweb cut the price on all their games on their website - but Avernum 1 is now down to $20, the same game that was $3.39 yesterday on Steam, and lists for $9.99 there. Right now, the five Geneforge games are $45 on their website (down from the $75 I paid, on sale), and are $9.99 on gog.com on sale, $14.99 normal price.

In the short term, companies can make money from the increased sales, but it also has the effect of driving down prices even for companies who don't participate.

It's a tradeoff. Expand the customer base, reduce the prices. However, that can drive down budgets as the market for expensive games dries up.

There aren't many studios who can still sell at the higher price point.

In other words they are going to have to compete on prices, innovate with gaming mechanics, etc instead of shoveling out over hyped 60-70 dollar video card benchmark apps rather then actual games that provide optimal entertainment.

Oh the horrors!! Steam has made it good to be a PC player on the consumer end.

Edit: Also a vast bulk of these games would of been pull offt of B&M shelves a long time ago and generated ZILCH sales for producers. These price reductions for Steam are a trade-off that publishers accept to continue selling gaming software that would long since have of stop generating sales on regular B&M stores since they would not be allowed be on shelves for anything longer then 3 months if their sales numbers were not high enough to justify occupying said shelf space. In addition companies competing against Steam and it's service such as EA have also been forced to adopt Steam like price cuts for some of their products as well in order to bring in further sales and be able to compete with Steam and its sale events and price cuts so that is another bonus for the average PC gamer.

 

[wrbt]

I grabbed SpaceMarine as well, its surprisingly entertaining despite my complete inability to relearn that the space key isn't jump. Its got a nice little campaign, very linear but not too hard not too easy. Good times for $7.50.