5 ms·

To be fair, Steam has been in a race to zero for quite some time. I know multiple people to refuse to buy games unless they are hugely (80%+) discounted. Their

by com2kid 13y ago

To be fair, Steam has been in a race to zero for quite some time. I know multiple people to refuse to buy games unless they are hugely (80%+) discounted. Their new expectation of price is "cheap". This seems to be regardless of what the regular retail price is. $60? Wait until it is $10. Oh it is normally $10? Wait until it is $3. Steam helps this along with its nice email reminders when a game on one's wishlist is on sale. That said, Valve's earlier policy of "we can put you on sale whenever we want" was interesting. A lot of developers objected, but from what I read (admittedly not much more than a handful of blog entries) Valve's knowledge of how to do pricing meant that their seemingly chaotic sale methodology (generally? always?) resulted increased revenue for games which had been put on sale.

DrJokepu 13y ago
Is it not possible that this is just market segmentation? Like, the people you are referring to would never pay for those games otherwise. With the discount mechanism in place Steam gets to take their money too. People who are more flexible regarding game prices are not going to wait months for a discount and just pay the full price.
- rodgerd 13y ago
  It would certainly be interesting to understand if it's a functional long tail. For me personally, I often end up picking up games on sale or in Humble Sales (which have Steam keys) because my two gaming PCs are ancient by modern standards, so I'm generally buying games which are a few years old to run on them. The former point may well factor into Valve's thinking; they have very good information on people's hardware, after all.
- ansible 13y ago
  When the price drops enough, I sometimes buy something because of the "ooh, that's a good deal, I might play that someday". And... sometimes I don't get around to playing those games, because something more interesting comes along before I get around to it. So yes, the developer isn't making as much per user, but I believe the increased volume would often make up for it.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    This is how I buy Kindle books. $10? I'll wait until its $2-$3 for when I'm on vacation and binge.
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    I love Steam sales but I feel pain for the developers. The number of AAA titles in my steam library that I've barely played is pretty high. I could go without buying any games for at least a year before I would consider buying another one. My time for playing games has become so small that I'm well behind the release curve, so games that I do want to play are frequently < $15.
- adamors 13y ago
  > Is it not possible that this is just market segmentation? Like, the people you are referring to would never pay for those games otherwise. I can't speak for other people, but as someone who lives in Eastern Europe where the monthly minimum wage is around $200 (two hundred USD), I definitely fall into this segment of the market. Before Steam became this widespread I didn't buy games at all, even when I started working. $60 is a lot here.
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> Their new expectation of price is "cheap". This seems to be regardless of what the regular retail price is. $60? Wait until it is $10. Oh it is normally $10? Wait until it is $3. That's the expected behavior with Steam's shitty EULA, which is "no refunds, ever". Bought a game and didn't liked it? Your loss. Bought a game that crashes all the time? Your loss. Bought a game that runs at 10 FPS because it uses some shitty engine? Your loss. Bought a game and there are no servers with an acceptable ping to play on? I'm repeating myself... It's only logical that people are then averse to sink money on unknown titles unless it's cheap enough to be an non-issue.
- nilved 13y ago
  I don't think this is correct. The majority of people never have those problems. Note too that they do give out refunds, but admittedly not as much as I'd like. However, they did refund Splinter Cell: Conviction (which didn't work well on my hardware not due to an incompatibility but do to the performance) and Mirror's Edge (which I tried to play through WINE unsuccessfully.)
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    >The majority of people never have those problems. I disagree completely. The majority of people I know who use Steam have a huge library of games that have never been played because they bought most of them as an impulse purchase when they were on sale, and then realized the game wasn't worth playing for one reason or another. It's kind of telling for the market when in a large amount of cases the most reasonable thing to do is to just not use Steam altogether, but their promotions have to it that people forget about that. It's just the same sleazy, destructive sales tactics that we've seen a million times over. It's no surprise that their software prices are trending towards zero in an Apple/Google-esque spiral.
    - nilved 13y ago
      That isn't really a refutation of what I said. I'm saying that most people don't have the problems GP described: buying a game that is unplayable and not being able to get a refund. Not only are most people able to play their entire game library (even if not permitted by time or interest,) I've been able to get refunds even in exceptional circumstances. e to below: no I didn't?
brownbat 13y ago
> I know multiple people to refuse to buy games unless they are hugely (80%+) discounted. I'm probably in that camp. Some might even dismiss it as entitlement, but really I just have a lot of sources of free entertainment (including all the games I bought over the last five years that still work just fine). I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore. I've got to imagine it's tough to compete in a market where customers can use the product forever and there's no obsolescence.
- jtfrench 13y ago
  >> I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore. I wonder if the fact that we're talking digital downloads (vs shelf space at Walmart) has been the driving factor behind "race to the bottom". As a developer, I don't like the "race to the bottom" because it means I have to charge less to remain competitive. As a consumer, I like it because I get quality games (sometimes) for free or like $5. Thinking about how I used to have to beg for mommy to buy me a $60 game when I was 10 yrs old. This would be a $5 effort now. Could I have gotten away with being a more disobedient kid? Nah, prolly not. Thing is, now the race to the bottom has just (irreversibly?) skewed price expectations so I still hear consumers complaining "oh it costs $5? I'm not going to play that. SKIP" And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?"
  - brownbat 13y ago
    > And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?" Yeah, but, I don't know many people who will harvest, ship, and roast coffee beans just for fun. I'm mostly just thrown by everyone casting this as some insane race condition, some producer lunacy that's confusing irrational consumers. Maybe consumers are the smart ones, and they're sending a deliberate signal to producers. Maybe we're saying, "Hey, we have distraction mostly covered as a human problem. And there are a lot of these other human problems to work on. If you're smart and can pitch in other places where we have greater needs, where it's harder to attract talent because the fields aren't as inherently rewarding, then we'll toss you better returns. (If you can go without good returns, then no big deal, just do what you love.)" I don't think markets are always (or even usually) rational. But if we're pitting today's game prices against the monopolistic rents charged by consoles a couple decades ago... I don't first assume today's prices are the irrational ones.
ovulator 13y ago
Eventually everything will just be "on-sale" all the time. Want to sell your little puzzle game for $5 a pop? List it at $20 and put it on sale nearly permanently for 75% off. You immediately get the benefit of this being a "$20 game" in the eye of the consumer as well.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  This really is an expected outcome, since people do fall for this effect. It'll be interesting how Steam will handle that, since that practice is explicitly illegal in many places as misleading advertising - i.e, you can advertise something as x% off only if it really was offered at that higher price for some fixed period; and those laws can interpret Steam as the store responsible for it.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>Their new expectation of price is "cheap". This seems to be regardless of what the regular retail price is. $60? Wait until it is $10. Oh it is normally $10? Wait until it is $3. I do this, but it depends on the game. There are three categories of games for me: those that are first-day buys, those that I become curious about (via review sites and friends) but am not dying to play, and those I am just not interested in. I almost always pay full price for games in the first category. I wait for the games in the second category to go on sale. And the games in the third category I don't play even if they are deeply discounted.

by com2kid 13y ago

DrJokepu 13y ago

Is it not possible that this is just market segmentation? Like, the people you are referring to would never pay for those games otherwise. With the discount mechanism in place Steam gets to take their money too. People who are more flexible regarding game prices are not going to wait months for a discount and just pay the full price.

rodgerd 13y ago
It would certainly be interesting to understand if it's a functional long tail. For me personally, I often end up picking up games on sale or in Humble Sales (which have Steam keys) because my two gaming PCs are ancient by modern standards, so I'm generally buying games which are a few years old to run on them. The former point may well factor into Valve's thinking; they have very good information on people's hardware, after all.
ansible 13y ago
When the price drops enough, I sometimes buy something because of the "ooh, that's a good deal, I might play that someday". And... sometimes I don't get around to playing those games, because something more interesting comes along before I get around to it. So yes, the developer isn't making as much per user, but I believe the increased volume would often make up for it.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  This is how I buy Kindle books. $10? I'll wait until its $2-$3 for when I'm on vacation and binge.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I love Steam sales but I feel pain for the developers. The number of AAA titles in my steam library that I've barely played is pretty high. I could go without buying any games for at least a year before I would consider buying another one. My time for playing games has become so small that I'm well behind the release curve, so games that I do want to play are frequently < $15.
adamors 13y ago
> Is it not possible that this is just market segmentation? Like, the people you are referring to would never pay for those games otherwise. I can't speak for other people, but as someone who lives in Eastern Europe where the monthly minimum wage is around $200 (two hundred USD), I definitely fall into this segment of the market. Before Steam became this widespread I didn't buy games at all, even when I started working. $60 is a lot here.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> Their new expectation of price is "cheap". This seems to be regardless of what the regular retail price is. $60? Wait until it is $10. Oh it is normally $10? Wait until it is $3. That's the expected behavior with Steam's shitty EULA, which is "no refunds, ever". Bought a game and didn't liked it? Your loss. Bought a game that crashes all the time? Your loss. Bought a game that runs at 10 FPS because it uses some shitty engine? Your loss. Bought a game and there are no servers with an acceptable ping to play on? I'm repeating myself... It's only logical that people are then averse to sink money on unknown titles unless it's cheap enough to be an non-issue.

nilved 13y ago
I don't think this is correct. The majority of people never have those problems. Note too that they do give out refunds, but admittedly not as much as I'd like. However, they did refund Splinter Cell: Conviction (which didn't work well on my hardware not due to an incompatibility but do to the performance) and Mirror's Edge (which I tried to play through WINE unsuccessfully.)
- spacelizard 13y ago
  >The majority of people never have those problems. I disagree completely. The majority of people I know who use Steam have a huge library of games that have never been played because they bought most of them as an impulse purchase when they were on sale, and then realized the game wasn't worth playing for one reason or another. It's kind of telling for the market when in a large amount of cases the most reasonable thing to do is to just not use Steam altogether, but their promotions have to it that people forget about that. It's just the same sleazy, destructive sales tactics that we've seen a million times over. It's no surprise that their software prices are trending towards zero in an Apple/Google-esque spiral.
  - nilved 13y ago
    That isn't really a refutation of what I said. I'm saying that most people don't have the problems GP described: buying a game that is unplayable and not being able to get a refund. Not only are most people able to play their entire game library (even if not permitted by time or interest,) I've been able to get refunds even in exceptional circumstances. e to below: no I didn't?

brownbat 13y ago

> I know multiple people to refuse to buy games unless they are hugely (80%+) discounted. I'm probably in that camp. Some might even dismiss it as entitlement, but really I just have a lot of sources of free entertainment (including all the games I bought over the last five years that still work just fine). I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore. I've got to imagine it's tough to compete in a market where customers can use the product forever and there's no obsolescence.

jtfrench 13y ago
>> I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore. I wonder if the fact that we're talking digital downloads (vs shelf space at Walmart) has been the driving factor behind "race to the bottom". As a developer, I don't like the "race to the bottom" because it means I have to charge less to remain competitive. As a consumer, I like it because I get quality games (sometimes) for free or like $5. Thinking about how I used to have to beg for mommy to buy me a $60 game when I was 10 yrs old. This would be a $5 effort now. Could I have gotten away with being a more disobedient kid? Nah, prolly not. Thing is, now the race to the bottom has just (irreversibly?) skewed price expectations so I still hear consumers complaining "oh it costs $5? I'm not going to play that. SKIP" And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?"
- brownbat 13y ago
  > And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?" Yeah, but, I don't know many people who will harvest, ship, and roast coffee beans just for fun. I'm mostly just thrown by everyone casting this as some insane race condition, some producer lunacy that's confusing irrational consumers. Maybe consumers are the smart ones, and they're sending a deliberate signal to producers. Maybe we're saying, "Hey, we have distraction mostly covered as a human problem. And there are a lot of these other human problems to work on. If you're smart and can pitch in other places where we have greater needs, where it's harder to attract talent because the fields aren't as inherently rewarding, then we'll toss you better returns. (If you can go without good returns, then no big deal, just do what you love.)" I don't think markets are always (or even usually) rational. But if we're pitting today's game prices against the monopolistic rents charged by consoles a couple decades ago... I don't first assume today's prices are the irrational ones.

ovulator 13y ago

Eventually everything will just be "on-sale" all the time. Want to sell your little puzzle game for $5 a pop? List it at $20 and put it on sale nearly permanently for 75% off. You immediately get the benefit of this being a "$20 game" in the eye of the consumer as well.

PeterisP 13y ago
This really is an expected outcome, since people do fall for this effect. It'll be interesting how Steam will handle that, since that practice is explicitly illegal in many places as misleading advertising - i.e, you can advertise something as x% off only if it really was offered at that higher price for some fixed period; and those laws can interpret Steam as the store responsible for it.

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>Their new expectation of price is "cheap". This seems to be regardless of what the regular retail price is. $60? Wait until it is $10. Oh it is normally $10? Wait until it is $3. I do this, but it depends on the game. There are three categories of games for me: those that are first-day buys, those that I become curious about (via review sites and friends) but am not dying to play, and those I am just not interested in. I almost always pay full price for games in the first category. I wait for the games in the second category to go on sale. And the games in the third category I don't play even if they are deeply discounted.