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Gaming Steam Sales and Devaluation

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 1 Aug 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

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  2. Project_Nightmare

    Project_Nightmare What's a Dremel?

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    You are forgetting that selling digitally is cheaper than a physical copy. Yet publishers still rip of the digital consumer by requiring them to pay just as much for the digital copy as the physical counterpart. You also need to consider the physical counterpart for used games, since digital games cannot (yet) be sold used. So the game isn't as devalued as much as you are stating.
     
  3. sHr0oMaN

    sHr0oMaN What's a Dremel?

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    What do you mean by devalued?
    Is the game playing experience "devalued"? Are games art, and somehow "devalued" if everyone owns a copy?
    I guess you mean "devalued" in the sense that developers / publishers lose money? Do they have no control over whether their games are "devalued" by being put on sale by Steam? Do they even lose money? Do sales not enlarge the potential market for games?
     
  4. pantalaimon

    pantalaimon What's a Dremel?

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    What Nightmare said. It's devaluing something that is overpriced to begin with.
     
  5. Mentai

    Mentai What's a Dremel?

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    I buy more games than I would otherwise because of Steam sales, games that aren't the greatest ever or not in my usual genre. The purchase risk is greatly reduced when they're $10US instead of the $80US publishers charge on day 1 in my region. Previously I would have just pirated them instead of taking that risk, and purchased the sequels if it turned out to be a series I really enjoyed.

    I still buy games brand new if I get caught in the hype, like with Skyrim or anything put out by Valve, so my brand new purchases actually haven't decreased. It used to be that I would put most of my time into a decent multiplayer game, but now I try to get through my backlog of single player games instead, simply because I can't resist a good deal on Steam. I spend more money today on gaming than ever entirely due to Steam sales, so I think it's a positive thing for both consumers and the industry.
     
  6. barrkel

    barrkel What's a Dremel?

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    Like Nightmare says, Steam games are only competitively priced in comparison to even Amazon when on sale, never mind residual value of resale.
     
  7. Adnoctum

    Adnoctum Kill_All_Humans

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    Consumers will pay for what the product is worth to them, even if they don't have much choice in the matter.
    If people are only buying games at Steam sales, then they are paying for what they believe the games are worth.

    Secondly, I am getting ripped off by publishers compared to consumers in the US and UK (hard to believe, I know). Due to economic woes around the world, exchange rates have gone all screwy and making the value of my currency higher against the US dollar than normal. Has the price of games/software gotten lower? Of course not! Therefore I am being asked to pay 100% more than US gamers.
    During the Steam summer sale, Skyrim was 50% off its normal price, but it still cost more than it would have to buy via grey imports from the UK/US. COD MW3 was 66% off at one point (I think, because I still wasn't interested) but was still 50% MORE than a grey import because the normal price for MW3 is STILL $99 on Steam. F**k you, Activision.

    Why should I be made to pay for publisher greed? The last game I bought at full local prices was The Witcher 2, because I wasn't being asked by the publisher to pay more than US gamers would. The rest I have grey imported from the UK for 50% less including Skyrim, Max Payne 3 and Rage.
    Steam sales are the only way I don't get ripped off.
     
  8. FvD

    FvD What's a Dremel?

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    I'll happily buy a game that interests me during a sale.
    The fact that major titles are usually more expensive on steam than brick&mortar shops or amazon while not on sale is quite baffling to me as server upkeep should be less expensive than the publishers costs for shipping/packing the game to the distributers.
    That and the f'ed up pricing regions. Even Valves in-house titles tend to have bad pricing.
    Imported Portal2 for 30EUR including shipping from the UK while it was on "sale" in the steam store for ~34EUR.
    I think this was about half a year after release.
    Alice: 50EUR/20USD

    Moral of the story: shop around. At least I refuse to buy a game for 59EUR on first day, regardless of how good it is.
    I still do not own ME3 for that very reason (considering the mandatory first day DLC).
     
  9. fooboi

    fooboi What's a Dremel?

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    I generally use the sale to buy extra copies for friends, or games that I am keen to try but don't want to pay full price for. That said there a still games today that I pre-order, So I don't see this as devaluing but rather increasing the target market. I would have never playe the original Batman game as I felt it wast my kind of genre but ended up buying it in sale a while back and then pre-ordered Arkum City because of it.
     
  10. atlas

    atlas What's a Dremel?

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    The article doesn't mention that games are overpriced in the first place so perhaps a little devaluation is exactly what they need. 60 euro for a game is a little ridiculous and the steam sale tends to knock these down to about half that which makes them far more reasonable. I would never have bought Max Payne 3 otherwise for instance.
     
  11. chimaera

    chimaera What's a Dremel?

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    This is a toughie. There is a merit to the argument presented, but on the flip side I generally think the prices for third party games are a little on the high side on Steam relative to the rest of the market - maybe not so much at release (although sometime) but once a game has been around for a few months. For example I just looked at Darkness 2 (mainly as I was tempted to pick it up in the sale) - On Steam its currently £39.99. On Amazon? £14.99

    Sale or not if a game is coming that I really want I'll buy it - for example Arkham City. The sales I tend to buy either DLC (which I think is way overpriced normally) or games I'm not so sure I'd enjoy - this time round for example I didn't buy much at all (Frozen Synapse RED DLC, AC Harley Quinn DLC and ArmaII).

    I do wish I'd picked up Max Payne 3 though... maybe at Christmas :)
     
  12. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    To put it simply, I buy games in the Steam sale to 'try out' that I would never have bought otherwise.

    I also buy the occasional full price game for titles I'm very excited about. Did want to try out Oil Rush at £12.99? No not really. Did I want to try it out at £2? Yes I do.

    I want to buy L4D2 for a friend so we can play together. Do I want to pay £20 for this? No I don't. Do I want to gift it to a friend at £3.74? Yes I do.

    The bottom line is, the games industry would have a lot less of my money if Steam sales didn't exist.
     
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  13. MachineUK

    MachineUK What's a Dremel?

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    Exactly right imo. Games that I want to buy on day one release, be it PC / console I will probably get. When I browse the steam sale, its normally not for games I have waited to buy, its for a game I may not have bought because I was on the fence when it came out. Metro 2033 for example.

    On the other hand:
    The majority of opinion would be that most games are bought on console, so the steam sales might not make a huge difference to the gaming market. Perhaps then, should I be more worried for PC games? Will it be PC games that suffer from game company neglect as a result of the sales? Will this push even more companies towards the console market?
     
  14. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Very well said - my sentiments exactly.
     
  15. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    I buy stuff in Steam sales that, like many others in this thread, I'd never buy otherwise.

    In fact, looking back, that's about all I buy off Steam, with a handful of exceptions.
     
  16. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    Lest we forget, part of what we are paying for when we buy through Steam is Gabe's next KFC family bucket the convenience of being able to play a triple-A title within a short time of purchasing it, without even getting off our arses.

    Like it or loathe it, as broadband speeds increase in the UK Steam and other digital download platforms allow us unrivalled convenience, and many of us are willing to pay a little extra for hat service. Not me though. I'm tight as **** :D
     
  17. badders

    badders Neuken in de Keuken

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    Personally, games have been devalued for me due to life circumstances - the arrival of our daughter in October last year means I have maybe an hour or two a week at the most to spend playing games.

    This means that it's much easier for me to justify waiting for a game to drop in price significantly before I buy it, as I would get no benefit playing it as soon as it comes out, or even shortly after - if the equivalent time between full price and heavily discounted is only 10-20 hours of play, then I can very well play something else while I'm waiting.
     
  18. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    I think £30 is fair for a new game. Given how much more time I will get out of it compared to say a movie or worse, a cinema ticket. Although that poses an interesting question for books considering I will give them considerably more time than a film, yet expect to pay no more than £8 as I don't buy hardbacks.

    For some reason though, I don't like paying more than £20 for a game that is over a year old. Even though I am not an online gamer, I feel that I have missed the party. I don't want to pay full whack now. This may be the result of some conditioning on the part of retail anyway and I personally feel, that the price that is settled on after the initial release has milked the cow for all it is worth, is a more fair price.

    I think we all know how this stuff works, they want to squeeze the most cash out of you in nice little segments; maximising the sales at each level. And the price retailers pay, and indeed the industry, for such a practice is conditioning us to expect to pay less for something that is brand new just because it is old.
     
  19. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    If I feel a game is going to be worth paying retail, I will buy it. I used to never buy games unless it was the creme de la creme (Valve games). I'd pirate everything. Thanks to Steam sales, I've actually bought a few of these pirated games I thought well worth it in the past. Penumbra, STALKER, etc. Actually, a few of these games I bought at the normal non-discounted Steam price, like Amnesia. I wouldn't have bought them if not for my pirating/Steam mix. I bought a few that I hadn't tried during Steam Sales as well, but smaller titles, like Braid.
     
  20. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    I disagree that devaluation could stop developers being 'less inclined to innovate'.

    What's the FPS that is incredibly successful at whatever price, but is the antithesis of innovation?

    So the opposite may be true there Joe. Innovate, or be unsuccessful.

    Admittedly I may well have bought MW3, if it was a fiver.


    As Parge rightly said and its the same with me, there may be 40 games in my steam I wouldn't own if it weren't for the sale. Some of which I've really enjoyed and when or if a sequel comes along, I may well buy at full price - thanks to the steam sale.

    (Though that doesn't always work out, I bought Cliffs of Dover on pre order)


    More importantly, who else now plays arty farty music in the background when reading something by Joe? :D
     
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