EA: Origin won't copy Steam 75% off sales

[Barfo]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-06-ea-origin-wont-copy-steam-75-percent-off-sales

Finally someone does it right. Steam and their stupid sales just serve to cheapen games. They just enable all these poor people to buy games when they should be looking for a job.

I hope Valve goes out of business and Origin emerges as the digital gaming platform of choice.

 

[railven]

Haha, that made me laugh. Kudos bro!

 

[Childs]

What possible benefit could EA gain by going on the record like that?

 

[railven]

What possible benefit could EA gain by going on the record like that?

None outside of Barfo's unique spin. I'd just see this as hurting their public image.

 

[Barfo]

None outside of Barfo's unique spin. I'd just see this as hurting their public image.

I guess they expect to sell you 4 year old games for $40, because fuck their customers.

 

[pontifex]

i think this guy is an ATer

Dear ea
Even if you were to do 100% sale I still wouldn't buy anymore of your games. I only have origin because of bf3.
Regards
Nismo400r84

bitches about hw he won't buy an ea game but still buys them anyway.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Then I guess not buying anything from Origin will save me even more money.

It's very short-sighted of them. I got Borderlands 1 at 66 or 75% off, and liked it enough to pre-order Borderlands 2 at full price. The same for Torchlight 2.

There are many games I'll never take a chance on without the discount. Saints Row 3 at 66% last weekend was an impulse buy I'd never have made at 20-30% off. I liked it enough to add the (66% off) Season Pass DLC pack a day later.

Steam gets my money, Origin gets nothing.

 

[Kalmah]

The game makers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target. We're trying to be Nordstrom. "When I say that, I mean good value

Ummm, if the game sucks you aren't getting 'good value' because you are paying more. Norstrom has 'better value' than Target because they provide customer service while Target does not. EA does not provide anything what I would consider to be good customer service. You send problem ticket, they respond with a copy/paste of generic information.

Their analogy is flawed in every aspect. It is what I would call... am I pronouncing it right; bullshit?

 

[KaOTiK]

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Then I guess not buying anything from Origin will save me even more money.

It's very short-sighted of them. I got Borderlands 1 at 66 or 75% off, and liked it enough to pre-order Borderlands 2 at full price. The same for Torchlight 2.

There are many games I'll never take a chance on without the discount. Saints Row 3 at 66% last weekend was an impulse buy I'd never have made at 20-30% off. I liked it enough to add the (66% off) Season Pass DLC pack a day later.

Steam gets my money, Origin gets nothing.

This. EA is becoming THE model for money grubbing with day one DLC, BF premium(as a prepaid DLC plan it's a value but it's scummy to use things like server queue priority, pure sales tactic), paid unlock packages, etc.

Remember that EA investor conference where they talked about getting you for reloads in the middle of a firefight. It's coming, hopefully Valve becomes the model in one way, and hopefully SOE doesn't screw up PS2 and becomes a better model for microtransactions. Case in point: Battlefield is $60 AND they are moving towards microtransactions, whereas PS2 is no money down plus microtransactions, and, unlike Battlefield games, MMOs are intended to be supported for 5 or more years, so something you bought in year one, you'll have 4 years later, whereas something you bought in Battlefield 3, doesn't help you in BF4.

Many people don't even play half the games they impulse buy on Steam. EA would do well to realize that.

 

[JamesV]

These EA execs need gold shower curtains just like other executives at other companies. How are they ever supposed to justify $10 million bonuses if they can't sell a 5 year old game for full price?

Have a heart people.

 

[Maximilian]

EA plan to do +75% sales instead.

Get BF3 now for only £69.98! +75% this weekend only!! Dont miss out, come monday it will back to £39.99, you dont want your friends to call you a cheapskate do you?

 

[Golgatha]

Good, Origin can go out of business and then we can buy EA games for 75% off from Steam.

 

[Aikouka]

I guess they expect to sell you 4 year old games for $40, because fuck their customers.

So, they're taking the XBOX Live approach?

 

[Red Storm]

EA plan to do +75% sales instead.

Get BF3 now for only £69.98! +75% this weekend only!! Dont miss out, come monday it will back to £39.99, you dont want your friends to call you a cheapskate do you?

LOL

 

[sandorski]

I have a feeling that some Games and their Publishers/creators get a nice buttload of Cash when these Sales happen. A lot of people will pick up games on these Sales that they likely wouldn't even consider buying normally. I'm sure there are some people who purposely put off buying New Titles and instead wait for a Steam Sale, some might even just be cheap bastards who could easily afford Full Price, others might be to broke to justify Full Price, but I suspect those who were not even interested is a fair chunk of Steam Sale sales.

Recently I have snagged a couple games on Steam I normally would never have considered. 1 was approx 80% off, the other approx 90%. 1 of them I would have been furious to pay full price for as it was really poorly made, the other was a Budget title to begin with (regular price $15)that I normally wouldn't have given a second look at. The Developers didn't get much from those Sales, but at least they got those Sales.

 

[EDUSAN]

Im sure they do a lot of money on the sales. the more the % of the sale, the more money they make

 

[SMOGZINN]

The game makers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target.

Won't someone please think of the developers!

 

[ImpulsE69]

Honestly think their tune will change once Origin is the only place you can buy EA games and they are wondering why no one is buying them (oh wait..I guess we still have piracy as a scapegoat!).

 

[MiataNC]

If publishers like EA are worried about the devaluing of their product, they need to start putting out a quality product that doesn't require patching or paid DLC at launch.

As a gamer I am better off waiting a few weeks or months for a sale, and picking up that title patched and bundled with the DLC.

 

[Martimus]

I have a feeling that some Games and their Publishers/creators get a nice buttload of Cash when these Sales happen. A lot of people will pick up games on these Sales that they likely wouldn't even consider buying normally. I'm sure there are some people who purposely put off buying New Titles and instead wait for a Steam Sale, some might even just be cheap bastards who could easily afford Full Price, others might be to broke to justify Full Price, but I suspect those who were not even interested is a fair chunk of Steam Sale sales.

Recently I have snagged a couple games on Steam I normally would never have considered. 1 was approx 80% off, the other approx 90%. 1 of them I would have been furious to pay full price for as it was really poorly made, the other was a Budget title to begin with (regular price $15)that I normally wouldn't have given a second look at. The Developers didn't get much from those Sales, but at least they got those Sales.

I have probably 300 games Steam. I have played maybe 40 or 50 of them. Many of those I only played once for 5 minutes. I am one of the reasons that Steam sales do well. I use the opportunity to try out new stuff that I never heard of before. I often never get around to actually trying it out as well.

I expect that EA will make purchasing games give bonuses in unrelated games as a carrot instead of lowering prices. The problem with this method is that it only hooks the hardcore gamer rather than the casual gamer that the sales hook.

 

[greenhawk]

Recently I have snagged a couple games on Steam I normally would never have considered.

I am finding that I have been leaning towards independant developers that make games in genras (sp?) that I like and find the market as a whole ignores, just so someone makes games I want.

 

[Via]

So is 50% off their line in the sand? iirc they had ME3 half price a week or two ago.

 

[ImpulsE69]

This kind of reminds me of when my wife attempted to do her own on the side crafting business. She spent all this money and made all this stuff to sell. Her prices were probably 30% over what she actually had into them, not including the time involved.

Good or bad doesn't matter, fact is lots of people raved about it, but few bought it. The biggest comment being just cost too much for what it was. I mentioned she should lower her prices a bit and she said basically "if people aren't willing to pay what I think it's worth then I won't sell them". So, she didn't and they sat and went to waste.

I pretty much told her she's not allowed to do anything like that again because she doesn't understand that prices aren't what YOU think they are worth, but what people are willing to pay and if you really want to move product, you have to be willing to adjust.

Other companies should learn from this. *cough EA*

 

[sandorski]

This kind of reminds me of when my wife attempted to do her own on the side crafting business. She spent all this money and made all this stuff to sell. Her prices were probably 30% over what she actually had into them, not including the time involved.

Good or bad doesn't matter, fact is lots of people raved about it, but few bought it. The biggest comment being just cost too much for what it was. I mentioned she should lower her prices a bit and she said basically "if people aren't willing to pay what I think it's worth then I won't sell them". So, she didn't and they sat and went to waste.

I pretty much told her she's not allowed to do anything like that again because she doesn't understand that prices aren't what YOU think they are worth, but what people are willing to pay and if you really want to move product, you have to be willing to adjust.

Other companies should learn from this. *cough EA*

This goes doubly or much more when Digital Distribution comes into play. There's no additional Cost to Selling product through Steam/Origin, the cost of the product has already been spent any additional revenue incurs zero cost.