Steam's success in 2009

[brblx]

empire total war was the last game i bought off of steam at full price. after that crapfest, now i'll spend about $15 a game, tops.

 

[JD50]

win/win ? what about the used game market you point out - that is how many people buy games, i see this as a lose since probably 75%+ of the games are still shit

Then only buy the games when they are discounted, that's what I do. You make out just as good if not better then you would if you bought the game brand new and then sold it a year or two later.

 

[BladeVenom]

Steam by itself seems to be equal to be a solid 4th place after the consoles.

Pc gaming is a lot more spread out in what's sold than consoles though. Big budget titles can't make it on the PC alone, but smaller titles seem to have a much better chance.

The 360 and PS3 have lost money. That would place Steam in 2nd place.

 

[bob4432]

Then only buy the games when they are discounted, that's what I do. You make out just as good if not better then you would if you bought the game brand new and then sold it a year or two later.

i have personally had nothing but problems every time i have tried to use steam in the past, w/ the last attempt being coh:valor or whatever it was called. should have just bought the dvd, which is what i will continue to do.

besides, i normally miss the sales anyway.

 

[zerocool84]

The 360 and PS3 have lost money. That would place Steam in 2nd place.

What do you mean they lost money?

 

[shortylickens]

What do you mean they lost money?

I think what he means is the units are sold for less than it costs to make them. They are sold at a loss with the understanding they will make it all back once the games start selling. So far as I know this has been working out OK for Sony and Microsoft. Not too hard considering the games generally cost 20 bucks more than they are actually worth, and they come down in price slowly compared to computer games.

By contrast the Wii is sold at a small profit and the game prices tend to come down a little faster. But I dont know what Nintendo's overall profits are.

Last I heard the PSP and DSi have relatively massive sales compared to the home consoles.

 

[TheVrolok]

Mmmm... Steam.

 

[Mike Gayner]

empire total war was the last game i bought off of steam at full price. after that crapfest, now i'll spend about $15 a game, tops.

LOL so you buy one game you don't like and therefore refuse to buy new games again? Ever heard the expression "cutting off your nose to spite your face"?

 

[coloumb]

Anyone saying PC gaming is dying is crazy

It's not dying... it's just those damn console ports are killing what PC games use to be... 🙂

I see STEAM getting bigger and fatter as broadband is made more accessible and cheaper.

 

[Lonyo]

LOL so you buy one game you don't like and therefore refuse to buy new games again? Ever heard the expression "cutting off your nose to spite your face"?

No, he buys one game for full price he finds out he doesn't like, and is stuck with it, because he can't sell it on, or hell, even give it away, so he decides that to avoid such a situation in future, he won't spend more than $15 buying a game with such restrictions.

I don't see where he said he wasn't going to buy new games again, just that he would spend $15 tops on (implicitly) Steam games.

 

[zerocool84]

I think what he means is the units are sold for less than it costs to make them. They are sold at a loss with the understanding they will make it all back once the games start selling. So far as I know this has been working out OK for Sony and Microsoft. Not too hard considering the games generally cost 20 bucks more than they are actually worth, and they come down in price slowly compared to computer games.

By contrast the Wii is sold at a small profit and the game prices tend to come down a little faster. But I dont know what Nintendo's overall profits are.

Last I heard the PSP and DSi have relatively massive sales compared to the home consoles.

Well yea it's generally known that systems cost more to make than they sell for and they make it back with licensing and peripherals.

 

[tviceman]

I just added up my steam purchases that I made for myself in 2009 and it tallied up to $370. I also spent $90 in gifting steam games to my brother and a few random people.

Steam loves me.

 

[tviceman]

empire total war was the last game i bought off of steam at full price. after that crapfest, now i'll spend about $15 a game, tops.

I will not pay full price for a game unless it's a sequel to an amazing game made by the same developers OR there is a playable demo.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

i have personally had nothing but problems every time i have tried to use steam in the past, w/ the last attempt being coh:valor or whatever it was called. should have just bought the dvd, which is what i will continue to do.

besides, i normally miss the sales anyway.

lol.

 

[BladeVenom]

I think what he means is the units are sold for less than it costs to make them. They are sold at a loss with the understanding they will make it all back once the games start selling. So far as I know this has been working out OK for Sony and Microsoft. Not too hard considering the games generally cost 20 bucks more than they are actually worth, and they come down in price slowly compared to computer games.

By contrast the Wii is sold at a small profit and the game prices tend to come down a little faster. But I dont know what Nintendo's overall profits are.

Last I heard the PSP and DSi have relatively massive sales compared to the home consoles.

The 360 and PS3 haven't made it back. I think the PS3 has lost over $4 billion so far, and the 360 has lost over $2 billion. I doubt either one will be breaking even. The Xbox ended up losing over $4 billion.

 

[Gothgar]

I fully plan on buying the new Aliens Vs Predator on release for full price.

Last game I bought for full price was DOW2, previous to that... not even sure.

Oh, Killing Floor, which was 20, but still full price...

 

[Arkaign]

I don't like Steam personally, I prefer the old way of getting a physical disc as it's so easy to reload or give to a buddy when done with the game.

That said, I acknowledge that the Steam model is the future, and sooner rather than later physical distribution of media will cease altogether, with perhaps HD movies being the final holdout (uncompressed 1080p is damned large even for 30mb fios connections).

 

[Imp]

I blame publishers for gimping the physical retail copies. They use to come with nice boxes, big manuals and extras. Now, they come in a DVD box with a slip for a manual, or a slip telling you to download the PDF manual. Some take it a step further and make you have to run the game off Steam anyways *cough* Total War.

And that's how Steam "won" me over... That and they have sales, I don't pay taxes for purchases, and it auto-downloads updates.

 

[frostedflakes]

Steam is a pretty nice service, but I still don't like the idea of not being able to sell games. But for better or worse, this is the direction everything is moving in. First-sale doctrine seems to be dead for digital media.

 

[HeXen]

I always hated steam. Not sure about it being the future due to the fact that sizes of games keep getting bigger faster than the typical broadband speed to price ratio. I can pick up a game at Gamestop and be home in about 18 minutes if its not crowded out, to download that game would take me half a day or better, screw that. The future of games is probably "cloud" based.

 

[Kur]

Because Steam == All PC game developers.

 

[HeXploiT]

Just bought Psychonauts on steam for $2.
Suckers!

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Can people finally shut the fuck up about PC gaming being dead? It's getting old.

 

[crownjules]

Both the Freedom Force games and 5 X-Com games for $4 this past weekend. I doubt I'll even play half of the games, but even getting 3-4 hours total out of those 7 games is good. Certainly better than paying $60 for 6-8 hours of enjoyment. But the weekly sales like this are what make Steam so popular. Plus it's all digital.

 

[Golgatha]

When most of these games will be heavily discounted on Steam at some point (most within a year), why buy used?

I somewhat agree. All the sub $10 games I've purchased on Steam, I really couldn't care less about resale rights for. Now for consoles or PC, I have a rough time laying down anything more than $20 for a game due to the lack of resale rights. For new release games, I just won't pay $50-$60 for something I can't resell. Newest game I own is Bayonetta on XBox 360, but I can resell it anytime I want. If Bayonetta was released on the 360 as digital download only for $60, I wouldn't have purchased it.