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.
And then that person gives away those 17 copies to friends. 8 of those friends wind up using Steam all the time. Great success.
You're making a decent argument of why it's not that great to the consumer, but I'm sure you know that it's great for the developers, publishers, and Steam. Wouldn't you kill for discussions like these to be happening about Impulse?
"Hey guys, SoSE was at 2.50 yesterday, so I bought 10 copies. Anyone want to hop onto multiplayer with me with a free copy?"
Boom. 10 more people are introduced to Impulse.
For Steam, sure. Don't bet there'll be much pie left over for the code monkeys once everyone else has had their share, though. It works fine for first-party sales--all you have to do is come out ahead on price x quantity. But for normally published third-party titles, there are an awful many hands that money has to go through, and not every cut is going to be a flat percentage of unit revenue.
I understand Kyro's argument well enough, and sure, maybe some people are opening up their wallets to buy a game for a dollar. It's a dollar. I don't know that it's a great idea to compete with Steam by offering relatively weak sales to people who were already going to buy the game to begin with. I mean the conversation about Impulse's sale was pretty much buried the minute Steam's sale went live. You can't buy that kind of marketing, and to say that they're only selling games that are low volume right now... is a stretch and not at all supported. We're not just talking just small indie titles and maybe one or two Valve games here.
I was going to add something like this myself, but you've summed it up well. I rarely look at Steam, but these mega-sales have everyone talking and checking Steam daily. Whether they end up buying or not, Steam is #1 on people's minds the next time the want to look for a game to buy. While I've gotten a few of my friends games as gifts over Impulse, none of them had ever heard of it until they got the email saying where to download it from. And if consumers aren't talking about Impulse, Publisher's management teams aren't going to consider Impulse:Reactor over Steamworks. As DeCypher said, Impulse not only needs more attention but needs to 'wow' people when they get that attention. Being the reliable, silent guy in the background is not a good plan when you're offering the same thing as the loud attention-whore.
Good Old Games has a niche to make up for this, Impulse does not beyond their own titles. It's an easy decision for publishers to choose Steamworks over Impulse:Reactor if they think their customers haven't heard of Impulse.
You'd be surprised. Most traditional development model titles (focused on new releases, rather than long-term additions and support) make the bulk of their sales early in life and taper off pretty dramatically once the initial rush is past.
They're not picking Steamworks because of branding--they're picking it because it saves them development money and there's no other comparable option (yet). There's plenty of room for alternatives, it's just a matter of getting them out there.
Rather than sales on games nobody needs, Impulse should work on the availability of their titles. It just drives me mad when I see a game on Impulse which I want to buy, but can't because of stupid regional restrictions. Steam has The Witcher on sale and I'm tempted to buy it, not because it's just 5€ cheaper than on Impulse, but just because it's available on Steam, while Impulse locks me out. Best example: The THQ bundle on Impulse. Available world wide, exept Germany (again, no problem on Steam). That stupid war is over 60 years over and you are still hate us so much? That's not fair! Everybody talks about globalisation, the global village and open markets and the only place all this hasn't reached is the internet?
This is a big one too. I'd generally prefer to support Impulse over Steam, but if I can't buy on Impulse Steam wins by default.
[quote who="kryo" reply="55" id="2666824"]You'd be surprised. Most traditional development model titles (focused on new releases, rather than long-term additions and support) make the bulk of their sales early in life and taper off pretty dramatically once the initial rush is past.[/quote]
Well I can certainly believe that. I mean just looking at numbers that are available shows that MW2 type games sell massive amounts in the first few months. What exactly does that have to do with a Steam sale? I mean you're talking about an industry wide issue. A lot of developers/pubs do that, and their latest craze is to sell as many boxes as possible and then try and squeeze out more with rushed, short DLC.
So you want Steam to do what, sell a a brand new game (month old) at 50% off or more and then you'll give them some credit for being able to do a great sale. Impulse certainly doesn't do that. The BM stores don't even come close most the time either.
yah egads x 1, it's still early though.
I hope Impulse gets a sale for Dragon Age before Steam does. Trying to get my friend to buy it on Impulse. We all have Steam and only 2 of us have Impulse so this will help cause I am trying to make them get Elemental when it comes out.
The point is that Steam isn't selling things for cheap out of benevolence; Steam is just looking out for Steam. If they can get people to buy things they otherwise wouldn't, that's only a gain for them--even more so if people feel they've benefited from getting stuff cheap that they don't actually have time for or don't feel strongly enough about to ever play. And if it gets people to leave the competition and bring a Steam monopoly closer to reality, that's just gravy on top.
Maybe we'd make more by adopting such tactics, maybe not. Sure, we like money (who doesn't?). But we try to take a more measured approach, considering how things are for the consumers, for the market, and for the platform, not just now but in the long term.
Having more diverse products and revenue sources than other outlets gives us a lot of latitude in that regard. That all might mean that Impulse (which is just one aspect of what we do) may grow a bit slower than it could if we were properly ruthless businesspeople, but people do appreciate someone who looks out for more than their own immediate bottom line.
Wait, are you saying you don't do mega sales because people might buy things they don't need?
I'm saying that the reasoning a lot of people seem to have--that Steam is selling things for cheap because they're superawesome and love gamers and just want to generously give you the chance to play all these games--is fallacious. It's purely business to them, leveraging their already massive market and advertising power to take advantage of impulse shoppers and kick the competition in the gut in one shot.
The more power Steam gets, the more leverage they have over the industry, and the worse it'll be for everyone who isn't them. Lots of competition among similarly-sized outlets, with vendor-neutral solutions for achievements, community, etc., is a far more ideal situation for consumers and producers. See here for more about our philosophy in this regard.
Aww, Impulse is such a sweetheart. I'll be sure to come here and complain about the way Steam treats me. And then go back to Steam and buy 10 more games I'll never play.
Sorry, couldn't resist the analogy.
And yes, we know Steam is making tons of money. The bottom line is this: I bought Gothic II and III for $2.
I'm only being hard on Stardock because I do appreciate you guys. I buy all your first party games because they are good games. I just don't use the Impulse store otherwise because of all the aforementioned reasons.
As I'm sure you know, the problem is that the games have different publishers in different regions. Stardock has to cut deals with each regional publisher, as they are encroaching on their territory.
Stardock has talked before how they are working on availability of titles. Having titles available to sell and working on sales are two separate parts of the business, and are not leaching resources off of each other.
We've heard this before, pretty much from any store that tries to compete with Walmart. The fact is, most people are not going to spend twice as much for a game at Impulse when they can get it at Steam at such a bargain. Morales aside, money talks. Your sale was buried before it even started thanks to Steam. I have no illusions that they are doing anything for the good of gamers. I have certainly voiced, on a number of occasions, things I don't like about Steam. I also know Steam is DRM despite what some of their biggest fans suggest. I am still going to buy their four packs and enjoy gaming like it should be done, with my friends for hours and days and weeks on end with games we weren't willing to shell out 50 bucks for but find entertaining and worth it at 20.
You might want to take the blame the consumer role, and try and pretend like the only people who buy from these amazing sales are just throwing their money at games they won't play or enjoy, but I am not buying it. My first purchase from Steam was during the big Christmas sale, and now I am working on five or six games and the list is growing. I've sense referred Steam to 3 or 4 people who have also purchased from and now use Steam based solely on price. You know how many people I can get interested in Impulse, almost zero. The sales are not exciting at all. Most people haven't ever heard of Stardock (although to be fair Valve isn't as well known as Steam either). The selection is severely limited here. And despite the software and methodolgy of distributing games and the ability to use non-impulse expansions (at least i think this works), few people care enough about the morale high ground to choose Impulse over Steam.
Given the choice between the two, at the same price, Impulse wins with me, but that rarely happens mostly because of these sales. I think Steam is smart giving a great sale to get new and existing customers talking about them all over the internet. Kudos to them for that. This sale as me checking Steam daily now for the duration of their sale. And let's see, oh yes, I have Impulse to start on startup so I could get in on those great promotions that stopped coming weeks ago, and the only reason I know there was a 15% sale going on is a I happened to see it mentioned on CAG. So i guess there is no reason to have Impulse be a startup application anymore because clearly the promotions reminder is now non-existent.
Steam sales are good for consumers.
If the sale is agreed upon by the maker of the game and Steam, I don't see any problem with it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Steam's sales, and I certainly don't feel that there is anything wrong with taking advantage of them. I picked up The Witcher last night for AU$17.00. That's a terrific deal! I don't think anyone is trying to argue Steam's sales are just something Steam does because Steam is run by a swell bunch of people. The more games someone has in Steam, the longer Steam will be open on their computer. I, personally, use Steam as a discount store. Everything I've ever purchased on Steam - with the exception of Half-Life 2 - has been discounted. Impulse, however, has probably made more money off of me and I only own two titles because I'm happy to pay full price for Titles. Steam is in the 'get people to install Steam' phase of their master plan for domination. The only issue I can foresee is what happens when Steam moves from that phase to the 'Ok, now let's make some serious god damn money' phase.On a side note, I received an email from Impulse giving me a discount off of anything on Impulse because I'm apart of their Elemental Army. The only email I've received from Steam, apart from the purchase confirmation ones, is one telling me my technical issue with Splinter Cell not working wasn't their issue, and the fact that the issue is known and not advertised on Steam's page isn't grounds for a refund as Steam does not offer a refund under any circumstances.
If people get things they want for cheap that's great. But personally it bothers me when people buy things (in general) just because they're cheap that they didn't have any real interest in; others taking advantage of that human tendency even more so. And every time a sale comes up like this I see comments from people about having bought things just because they're cheap that they probably won't play or don't care if they like, or even buying *everything* that was on sale because it was on sale.
It's probably a good thing that I'm not a salesman. I know if I *were* selling something I'd like it to be used, not just packratted (a whole other subject that spend-to-save feeds into) because it was on sale.
I was very tempted with The Witcher too, but I have a number of games I am enjoying now as it is and opted to finally get Trine. I sure did enjoy the demo of Trine.
So Stardoc, when can we sales like this on Impulse?
It's capitalism baby
Steam is a discount store for me too. There are some games that are actually titles I would like to play, not just titles im not interested at all but they are just so cheap I have to buy them. I wouldn't pay more than $4 for a steam sale nonetheless. Impulse had sales like these too. Why were they discontinued. I bought GalCiV II this way, the complete pack for $2. Awesome deal, and that game I wanted to play too.
The whole point of these kind of sales is to sell to people that otherwise wouldnt buy so its no loss from the sellers point of view. It's very unlikely youll see a game pop up in one of these that you were actually planning to buy anyway, it's usually the weekend after
Like everything in this world, its all just evil mind games i tells ya.
Having said that, i did buy Ghost Master for 57pence (a friend recomended it) but the servers are too busy to let me download it!
Actually almost every game I was thinking of buying has popped up in a steam sale this last month!
I've had mass effect, left4dead, oblivion, defense grid, space rangers 2 Dragon age awakening, Max Payne, DoW2: Chaos Rising and Civ 4 all on my list of games to maybe get if I had enough money and they were really cheap - there are only a couple of other games not on there that I'd also had my eye on (which aren't on steam anyway), so almost every game I was interested in buying got discounted to some degree in the steam sale, most of them by a hefty amount (of course I didn't have enough money to buy all of those, but the steam sale has certainly left me with a fairly hefty hole in my pocket and a stack of games I wanted)!
There were a few other games that caught my eye that I wouldn't normally have been interested in buying but which I thought I'd try out given how cheap they were, but not many since my money was going on all the games I had wanted before the sale even started.
In short it seems like every game in the steam catagolue is getting/has already got some kind of discount, and for the majority of them it's 50-75% (with the rest 25-33%)
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