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News Valve: Steam is making us rich

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 20 Feb 2009.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. StephenK

    StephenK Sneak 'em Upper

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    Still, shame about the euro prices. I love Steam and believe that it's a good model for future services. The 25%-50% more expensive than high-street makes buying games on steam a bitter pill to swallow though.
     
  3. naokaji

    naokaji whatever

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    I've always said it, if you want to sell the games in high numbers and reduce pirating you have to meet certain conditions:

    1: Quality Game
    2: No hassle to get it running
    3: Keep the patches / content updates comming
    4: Lower the price

    It's what customers want, valve gets 3.5 of those 4 points (price one only sometimes), so it is really no surprise that steam is a huge success.
     
  4. C0nKer

    C0nKer What's a Dremel?

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    Steam could be the next Google I suppose.
     
  5. bogie170

    bogie170 What's a Dremel?

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    Steam has come a long way in a little time. They just need to sort out their pricing as sometime it is much more expensive to buy in pounds as opposed to euros or dollars.

    It is an awesome system and I hope companys like EA learn some of Valves policies and start treating customers better.

    Bring on BF1943 and BF3 to Steam!
     
  6. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    Discount offers over short periods have a huge impact too, apparently. That recent half-price weekend on Left 4 Dead? That caused a 3000 percent increase in sales, plus a 1600 percent increase in Steam registrations.

    Astonishing figures!
     
  7. Tokukachi

    Tokukachi Minimodder

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    This is almost certainly DoW soulstorm, as when it was first put on steam (6+ month after it had come out) I cant imagine a lot of people picked it up. But when they said if you had it you got early access to the DoW II beta and reduced the cost to 99p, I can imagine sales skyrocketed!
     
  8. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  9. Tyrmot

    Tyrmot Minimodder

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    The dollar-pound conversion is annoying but certainly not restricted to steam... What is really stupid is that a boxed copy of eg Dawn of War II is £23 on Amazon and £35 on Steam!! What kind of logic is that? To persuade me to buy a non-physical copy of a game (ie one that I could lose any time Valve say so) I would expect that price difference to be the other way around...
     
  10. WildTangent

    WildTangent What's a Dremel?

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    Steam has come a long way in it's short life. I'd venture to say that it is the ONLY successful DRM system out there in as much as it doesn't impose unfair restrictions, and provides a host of benefits over traditional distribution and rights management systems. And now, with these numbers, even the haters can't deny it's success.
     
  11. Psytek

    Psytek What's a Dremel?

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    Valve's own games are fairly priced, but most 3rd party games are listed above the recommended retail price in the UK. COD4 is still full price iirc.
     
  12. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    I remember back when Steam was introduced how me and all my mates stayed with WON as long as there were enough servers. We didn't like Steam, the stability issues, the updates that would fail at 99% most of the time, it lagged a lot worse than WON and the way it was forced upon us. But today I have to agree with everybody saying it is the most advanced distribution platform we have, arguably the best DRM solution and after all just an impressive bit of software.
     
  13. Kylevdm

    Kylevdm The Mod Zoo Podcast Host

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    Steam is excellent, I am quite happy to pay an extra few quid to get the game on steam where I don't have to worry about patching etc. Although it would be cool if they had a subscription(say £15 a month or whatever) and you could download what ever games (limited to 3 at a time) but this is just my opioin. I love the January sales though BioShock for £3!!!!
     
  14. V3ctor

    V3ctor Tech addict...

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    I like steam, i use at least 3 pc's in 3 different locations... i just login to steam, download the game and play... I just don't like some prices... It's cheaper to spend diesel, time, and go to a store buy a physical game instead of buying on steam...
     
  15. tank_rider

    tank_rider What's a Dremel?

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    what a refreshing view that at least one of the game platform teams is looking at why people pirate and come up with a sensible reason, rather than the your all the spawn of satan approach most developers take.
     
  16. Tyrmot

    Tyrmot Minimodder

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    I'm amazed at how willing people are to only 'own' the game in digital format...
     
  17. UrbanMarine

    UrbanMarine Government Prostitute

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    Only problem with Steam is their fixed retail pricing. I can get the Orange Box for $20 in a store but they want $30 on Steam. If they did better price adjustments, I'd buy more stuff from them.
     
  18. Leitchy

    Leitchy Minimodder

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    I really like the Steam platform, and the good quality games they (Valve) churn out.

    As was mentioned above I wish they would be more competitive a month or two after the initial release of any game on Steam, to reflect what you can the physical media for at sites such as Amazon and Play.com!

    Roll on HL2:Ep 3 and a film afterwords!!!!!
     
  19. cyrilthefish

    cyrilthefish What's a Dremel?

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    I really love steam, best thing to happen to PC gaming in a long time :D

    Only 2 things about it annoy me:

    -The price on some games: I'll happily pay a few £ extra to never have to worry about CDs/no-cd cracks/patches and so on. but sometimes the pricing on some games is downright silly
    take X3 for instance, £13.99 on steam, £5.48 on play.com, the difference is a little too much to swallow, so i'm holding back on buying it until it's cheaper

    -Regional restrictions: without doubt the single most annoying thing on steam for me. I know it's forced on them by 3rd parties, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating :wallbash:
     
  20. B1GBUD

    B1GBUD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Accidentally Funny

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    I hated Steam initially... I bought a retail copy of HL2 and had to register a steam account and wait for servers to process the activation. This was mainly down to the success of HL2 and Steam's short-sightedness. I think I had to wait 3 hours to play the game.... annoying... yes, easily forgotton.... not really. But I think they've learned from it

    Since then, Steam has improved 10 fold and I'm only too happy to ***** my hard earned spondoolies on the latest and greatest Valve product.

    Keep it going guys, great job
     
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