2 ms·

Steam has figured it out because they're the rake; it's like being the house at a casino where you let people gamble against each other at poker. You don't care

by cwyers 11y ago

Steam has figured it out because they're the rake; it's like being the house at a casino where you let people gamble against each other at poker. You don't care who wins or who loses, because you're taking a cut of everything. Meanwhile, the user experience on Steam is getting worse all the time, and developers aren't really happy with them either. And yes, Valve profits off you. But if you were the only game consumer there was, Steam would cease to exist.

jerf 11y ago
"Steam has figured it out because they're the rake" While that is not literally false, it is incomplete and leads to false conclusions. I've seen indie game developers report that they also see revenue bumps from seeing their games go on sale that they would not otherwise see, so it's not just Steam profiting. I have no reason to believe that the movie studios would not also see non-trivial profits from scraping the long tail. Pretty much everybody seems to win on Steam with those prices, which is why they've been going on for so long. I have also seen indie houses report that they discounted too far sometimes [1], but all in all what I can see is that the indie houses have found that time-based pricing works quite shockingly well. By "shockingly well" I do not merely mean a rhetorical flourish... I mean, I personally have been surprised at what they've reported. [1]: http://www.carpefulgur.com/drakblog/?p=9 http://www.carpefulgur.com/drakblog/?p=9
Retric 11y ago
It's really hard to sell a physical game for 5$ and make any profit. Pre steam ~90% of games had approximately 0 sales within 2 years of release. Steam / GoG / etc are a great additional revenue source for an incredibly competitive market. Remember, steam sales are approved by the publisher because they make them more money.

2 ms·

Steam has figured it out because they're the rake; it's like being the house at a casino where you let people gamble against each other at poker. You don't care

by cwyers 11y ago

jerf 11y ago
"Steam has figured it out because they're the rake" While that is not literally false, it is incomplete and leads to false conclusions. I've seen indie game developers report that they also see revenue bumps from seeing their games go on sale that they would not otherwise see, so it's not just Steam profiting. I have no reason to believe that the movie studios would not also see non-trivial profits from scraping the long tail. Pretty much everybody seems to win on Steam with those prices, which is why they've been going on for so long. I have also seen indie houses report that they discounted too far sometimes [1], but all in all what I can see is that the indie houses have found that time-based pricing works quite shockingly well. By "shockingly well" I do not merely mean a rhetorical flourish... I mean, I personally have been surprised at what they've reported. [1]: http://www.carpefulgur.com/drakblog/?p=9 http://www.carpefulgur.com/drakblog/?p=9
Retric 11y ago
It's really hard to sell a physical game for 5$ and make any profit. Pre steam ~90% of games had approximately 0 sales within 2 years of release. Steam / GoG / etc are a great additional revenue source for an incredibly competitive market. Remember, steam sales are approved by the publisher because they make them more money.