I know Steam is kind of an enemy around here. But there are sales of games like up to 90%, till July 4th.
be surprised what you can get for like $5.
Impulse i want new games under $15 too.
That would be free on Steam. Runic (Torchlight) and the makers of Natural Selection 2 are doing this. They sell Steam keys through their own website and keep 100% of the money.
The THQ pack on Steam sadly blows away the Impulse one. Impulse has SupCom 1 and its expansion, but Steam throws in DoW2 and its expansion and Saint's Row 2. I know there's nothing Impulse can do about that one since DoW2 is a steam exclusive, but you'd think they'd lower the price since the value is not on par. I'd probably go for it if I didn't already have CoH and DoW 1.
But yeah, Impulse desperately needs to fire back here.
impulse was running 15% off with a code last week i think. not that it stopped me from spending 20$ at valve. sorry stardock.
Too bad 15% is nothing compared to the massive 75-90% price reductions over at Steam. I'll admit that 15% off of the pre-release price for Disciples 3 is pretty tempting, but since I've got a huge backlog of Steam games to play through, I think I can wait for that game.
Interesting timing for the Sales. Impulse has it's birthday sale, and Steam has the largest run of discounts in the platforms history.In any case, I have to agree that there are some fantastic deals on here that you'd be crazy to miss out on.
I don't know, their Christmas sale this past year was pretty large. I would say it's on scale with that, and around as long too. I am sure one is slightly longer or had more titles but the Christmas sale was pretty darn massive.
It is sad to see Stardock's sale, once agian, pretty much pushed under the rug though.
It's a Steam exclusive because Stardock is unwillig to sell it on Impulse. Steamworks doesn't mean it can't be sold anywhere else, in fact Direct2Drive carried Steamworks games like Dawn of War 2 and Empire: Total War for a long time until they (and GamersGate and Impulse) started to boycott Steamworks in the uprising of the Modern Warfare 2 release. Their boycott failed, more publishers then ever are making Steamworks games (Fallout: New Vegas, Kane & Lynch 2, Worms Reloaded, Civilization 5, etc.). There is no point in continuing the boycott besides forcing their own customers to buy at Steam if they want a digital distributed version of the game. And i have yet to understand why Brad Wardell and the others are doing this.
I do fully understand their situation, i just think they are making a big mistake.
No, Impulse is forcing customers to use Steam when they are not offering the game on Impulse. They can't change the fact, that developers love Steamworks and are going to continue to use it. As i said, their boycot failed. Now they have two options. A: They can pretend that their is no Steamworks, their are no Steamworks games and try to hide the biggest games of the year from their customers. Or option B: Sell the games and try to compete with Steam by offering lower prices.
From a customers perspective:
Option A: If Impulse doesn't offer Civilization 5 i just go to Steam and buy it from there, leaving all my money at Valve.
Option B: If Impulse is offering Civilization 5 and i get the exact same version with Steam Cloud, Achievements, Auto-Updates and so on, the deciding factor will be the price. And why would i buy Civ 5 on Steam if it is 3 or 5 bucks less on Impulse?
Brad Wardell always talks about competition and that's exactly what competition should look like. Of course, their is alway plan A. Just bury your heads in the sand and maybe Steam is going away on its own. This sounds like a very wise business decision...
You don't see the bigger picture:
- Developpers/publishers use Steamworks since there isn't any competiting product for handling multiplayer in other offered pictures
- Steamworks requires to be bundled with the Steam store, reuquirind to have a Steam account
That is why Stardock is developping Impulse::reactor, that will offer similar functionnalities than Steamworks without requiring an Impulse account. You could use a facebook account or a twitter account.
Currentlty there is no competition on the features offered by Steamworks. And that is the root problem.
Guest83,
Here's a simplified example to illustrate why Impulse, GamersGate and others are taking a stand against Steamworks games.
Imagine you go to Mom & Pop Electronics Store and buy WidgetX. As soon as you bring WidgetX home and begin to use it, a Mega Electronics Store opens up across from your house that also sells WidgetX, along with many of the same products you could get at Mom & Pop Electronics. On top of that, every time you use WidgetX, Mega Store might toss a promotion at you for WidgetY or WidgetZ. All of a sudden, you have a store that offers you many of the same products as Mom & Pop, only it's right there across the street. They even promote products directly to you from time to time.
Would you still drive over to Mom & Pop, or would you just go across the street to Mega Store?
What incentive is there for anyone but Mega Store to sell WidgetX if this is what always happens?
Selling a Steamworks game, that bundles the Steam client (and store by extension) might get us sales in the short-term, but it would be harmful in the longrun. Why buy a Steamworks game anywhere but Steam if every other store just sends you there in the end anyway? Would Target sell product vouchers to redeem at WalMart?
Also, your continued assertion that we should just sell a Steamworks title for a few bucks less than Steam simply doesn't work. Publishers and developers set the pricing of their games to be consistent across all sales locations (retail, digital etc). We could not simply cut a few dollars off of the price, that's now how things work.
I understand that from the outside, these kinds of things can appear arbitrary, especially to those who aren't actually involved in the process, but these decisions are not reached lightly, and we don't sacrifice long-term stability for short-term dollars.
Impulse needs sales like these to be more appealing.
And how will NOT selling Steamworks games help you in the long run?
But that's exactly the situation right now. You are sending everyone who wants to buy a Steamworks game to Steam. Again, you are acting like your customers don't know Steam exists and if you are not offering Steamworks games, they will never know. This is just not the case. People are buying on Impulse because of the exclusives, and the hardcore group because of loyalty. None of this will change if you are going to sell Steamworks games.
Than publishers dictating the prices are the problem. Brad Wardell keeps talking about how important competition is and i fully agree. But why having multiple digital distribution services at all if customers are never going to profit in terms of lower prices?
The bit that can seem weird is the fact that people are going to buy the game anyway, they are going to have a steam account anyway, they are going to get the sales and promotions designed to upstage you anyway, they are going to have everything you describe the only difference is that you dont get those short term dollars.
Personally I think all those market reasons are unimportant because of the above. I don't want to see steamworks games anyhere else (other than retial boxes obviously) because if I buy I game through impulse I expect impulse or some product specific thing to download/maintain/update it. Having to install (in most users case Im think not so much 'install') and use a seperate platform is annoying. So I think its a good stance.
Yes, but I don't think Stardock or any other online distributor can make their own price for a Steamworks game. A steamworks game, developed with steamworks with Valve's licensing and distribution arrangements can't just be priced by anyone arbitrarily. Any other distributor would be basically be some kind of big Steam Affiliate member, like those Put our banner in your site and earn affiliate points per click!!! schemes. They'd be driving traffic, clicks and revenue to the Steam store. And, unlike those affiliate programs, it would be for free.
How are they sending traffic to steam?
Lets say Mr X wants to buy Civ5.
Senario A: Mr X has impulse. He sees it on impulse and buys it, it gives him a key for steam, he loads up steam and is now in the steam path.
Senario B: Mr x has impulse. He dosn't see it on impulse so checks steam, there it is. BUY. He is now in the steam path.
I don't want A to ever happen, but why is this driving traffic to steam? I don't understand.
Just having the app on one's machine has little to do with it. When you run a steamworks game, you've got Steam front and center every time you play, with "news" (their term for sales promotions) popping up when Steam starts unless otherwise disabled, Steam branding in the MP/Achievements interfaces, etc. Selling a title that promotes a competitor's store and maintains customer awareness like that is very bad business--rather than simply not gaining customers, it may cause you to actually *lose* customers.
Steam doesn't mind at all if those games are sold elsewhere because *every* copy has Steam advertising built in, so they win either way. The "least loss" option for competitors right now is to simply not play along at all; the only winning option for us is to get publishers on board with a reseller-neutral platform, which is exactly what we're working to do.
I'm entirely serious when I say this:
I think you should pick up on some of Steam's business model. Impulse is out of the way and completely non-intrusive. That's nice, but it stays that way, meaning I never open it (except for Elemental beta updates, of course). I have games on Steam, and I have Steam set to auto-launch because a lot of my friends are on there. It bombards me with sales twice a week, and every day during their sales events. I can't help but buy games I don't even need, because for $2-$5, why not?
I hear Reactor is going to be out of the way, too, launching only when you log onto a game's multiplayer. Another missed opportunity at building community, because, to me, Steam is not just a digital store: it's what I think of when I think PC gaming now.
I'm not sure how strong Stardock's stance on being out of the way and non-intrusive is, but I'd highly recommend reconsidering it. Even you must admit that it's strange to have your tagline be "you won't even notice us when you use our product!" from a marketing standpoint.
Not at all, considering a lot of people don't like Steam simply because it's intrusive, not because they don't like its functionality.
just seeing a slightly appealing game for under $10 makes me want to buy it and try it out.
And im a bargain shopper. If i want a 360 or PS3 game, i wait and i buy it used. Just bought Assassins Creed 2 for $20 on amazon. Plan to get Uncharted 2 when it reaches $20.
Problem with buying used games, is that the devs or publishers dont see anymore money. But having a sale on Steam/Impulse for a 2 month old game for $30 means the pub/dev will see at least a few bucks, and get more sales if buyers were on the fence about it buying it in the first place.
In my experience, most people don't like being ad-bombed on their own machine. Many just don't realize that they can disable it and wind up tolerating it anyway.
They price slow-moving products below the impulse-buy (ha) threshold (with a couple of first party titles or older third party AAA games to make it less obvious what they're doing), and people gobble them up just because they're cheap, not because they want them, or even care to play them. You feel that you got a great deal because of the low price, but you've basically handed Steam $5 for nothing.
That's the power of marketing--get people to think they're getting a steal while you whittle their money away. Good move for Steam's bottom line, but only superficially good for the consumer.
I don't like being ad-bombed on my own machine. For sales like these, I LOVE it.
Look at these:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/cj62t/so_i_just_got_a_call_from_the_fraud_detection/http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/cing3/steam_is_on_a_sale_rampage_everything_really/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/ck7p3/steam_sale_day_6_commandos_collection_team/
Skim over some of the top comments. We are all working adults, who have a bit of money, and like to play games. I'm not the only one who solely looks at sales to buy things. I rarely buy any product on launch these days, when I can simply wait a few months for the sale. As such, I actually actively LOOK for ads. And all those comments on reddit? Thousands of people all looking forward to the daily sale, discussing which games are good, which games are worth buying.
The truth is, most games are slow moving titles because gamers don't have time to research every title, and don't have time to play every title, not because they are bad games. Games are quickly becoming like the music industry: there's an infinite amount of good stuff, but consumers have a finite amount of money and a finite amount of time. The former is the biggest factor, and when a good deal comes up, it's hard to pass up.
Impulse's problem is almost self perpetuating: even if you did advertise, the deals aren't that great ($9.99 each for Gothic II and III. Steam had them at $2 for BOTH). And if the deal is great, you don't have enough advertisement for people to know about it. When you can take care of both of these at the same time, Impulse will see great success.
Sadly, you can't really fight Steam using their tactics: they have an important lead. You really need another ground for the battle.
I think you are mistaking Steam sales with Impulse sales. There are some very nice NEW games that show up in Steam sales, not just indie games. Every game I've purchased from Steam sales, Trine, L4D, Borderlands, X-com... still playing. In fact, as soon as a few folks return from work, we'll be playing borderlands again tonight.
"I want game X but it costs too much, so I'll wait for a sale" is a perfectly logical and valid stance; you're looking out for your own interests as a consumer.
"Game Y is only $5! I don't really care about it but I'll buy it anyway because it's so cheap!" is the sort of behavior that is common in these huge sales, and are what they're counting on. They're taking advantage of the classic shopping fallacy of "saving by spending". Seeing something for far below market price skews its value in the mind, and you wind up buying something you won't use anyway (without respect to whether it's good or not; as you say, people may just not have time for it, and it being cheap won't change that)--quite the opposite of saving.
From your own links:
EDIT: Alright if TF2 does not go on sale for $5.00 or less I may give away a few copies.
-----
What the hell could you plan to do with 17 copies of TF2?
I don't know but it was $2.50.
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