News Digi distribution destroys old pricing models

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/11/18/digi-distribution-destroys-old-pricing-mode/1

Valve has revealed how digital distribution is shaking up the industry in terms of online sales and pricing.

 

I love valve, but their weekend deals do seem to spend my money for me.

 

I always look forward to their weekend deals and I rarely purchase games from retail now.

 

Same here, i've actually come to dread the weekends a little.

"it's that cheap? How can i not buy it?"

 

Is it still socially allowed to buy a game unless it's on a Steam weekend deal?

 

From the article: "You can have sales that are dramatically low and bring the price back up and people don't care. They don't care at all. You can do them instantaneously and you can experiment with them"

That really seems to translate as: "We think our buyers are such idiots that they'll pay whatever price we set. We've seen lab rats with more smarts."

Given that Steam are currently offering Dragon Age for the "bargain" price of US$49.99 (Amazon.com's price is currently US$39.99), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at US$59.99 (US$41.48 from RJCEntertainment at Amazon Marketplace) and Aion at US$49.99 (US$22.44 again from RJEntertainment) and given that Steam avoid all the costs of physical product (manufacture, storage, shipping) it is perhaps understandable to see where they are coming from.

Weekend deals? Get real - its mostly older games that are offered and these are heavily discounted elsewhere. Steam's last special (50% discount on Mass Effect, priced at €15.99 = US$23.90 when I viewed that page, making a discounted price of US$11.95) isn't so special compared to the all-week price of US$16.49 at Amazon, and I don't doubt that the likes of eBay could better that (US$15.00 was the best "Buy It Now" price when I checked). But then, shopping around is such a burden for some...

(edit: looks like the eBay link is for a returned item, "key status unknown" making it a bit of a crapshoot - the joys of online activation....).

 

And just to show Infinity Ward/Activison is further screwing us in New Zealand (And I assume Australia) they are selling MW2 for $89.99US. $149.99 in retail, that works out to be $110US. So I guess in NZ it is cheaper to get it through Steam, but we are getting majorly ripped off.

 

I may as well call my main PC a "Steam Computer" because 99% of my gaming occurs through it.

Weekend deals (and now midweek madness) are happy days.

Shameless plug: www.steampowered.com ... install the client, look for freebies, download game demos and movies, create a friends list, install Vent and get involved in REAL online gaming. BUY Left 4 dead 2. Oh and sell your Xbox 360's.

 

Oh yes it's done alot but it certainly hasn't cut the old pricing model, if anything it's reinforced it as digital copies (at launch) cost as much as physical copies and sometimes for ALOT longer it's cheaper to by retail.
To me thats screwed and has to be fixed - anything else from this article is purely marketing to sell Steam to more publishers, nothing more or less.
DON'T BE SUCKED IN.

 

If you want the game within the first 6-12 months, you're paying full price. His examples were dated games that have been out a while or already passed with a sequal.

 

The last time I looked at video game economics it seemed that a high % of the sales price ended up going to the console manufacturer as a license fee. Of course, you don't get any 'console manufacturers' in PC gaming so why are the prices for games similar? (it's a rhetorical question).

 

What does he mean the halloween weekend wasn't advertised? It was plastered all over the TF2 blog.

 

Jesus some people are never happy

Steam offers you a huge selection of games for immidate play (no waiting for the post) at good prices and some of you still bitch and moan.
Some of their games are a little more expensive, some are a lot cheaper, if you find it elsewhere cheaper then buy it there, but for gods sake dont complain about the good job steam is doing, Imagine a world without it! Games for windows live ruling the roost! eek!

 

1). Steam don't offer good prices - given the savings they are making in only providing downloads, new games shouldn't be priced higher than £15-20 and most should be under £10.

2) Valve ties you to an activation system that gives them the ability to wipe your entire Steam software collection. If you have a dispute with a normal shop over a purchase, you usually (for orders over £100 paid for by credit card) have the option of seeking a refund from the credit card issuer. Try that with Valve and see how long your account lasts.

And what is there to stop Valve from making a money grab in the future and imposing annual (or even monthly) fees to keep accounts open?

3). The automatic updates for the Steam client (and purchased software) can result in incompatibilities with previous savegames, mods and even OSes (for example, Steam no longer supports Windows 98 so what has happened to those who purchased games that don't work on later Windows versions, and when will this happen with XP/Vista/Win 7?).

It also means that any breach in Valve's security could allow crackers to push malware to millions of users - Valve of course, cover themselves in section 9C of the Steam Subscriber Agreement which could be paraphrased as "Our system isn't secure, our software isn't secure, your account isn't secure".

With other systems, you apply updates as they suit you, avoiding those that seem unnecessary or may cause problems.

Conversely, Steam is often behind in providing the latest game updates - likely due to the need to embed their activation system.

4). Digitial distribution can be done right - Gog being the best example. DRM-free, generally well-priced with no need of additional software (though they provide a downloader for those that want one).

 

Valve is my new Church, Gabe Newell the High Priest and Steam the Holy Communion!

In the name of the Gabe, the Steam and the Holy Valve, mmm-mmmm.

Valve has done more to move digital distribution forward than the next 9 companies below them, and they have done so with unremitting excellence and fairness.

Yours in Steaming Plasma,
Star*Dagger

 

Astral, which games don't work on later versions of Windows?

 

I would usually prefer to get a physical copy of the game as my bandwidth gets capped way to quick to be downloading full games. But as L4D2 was only $45 and it being $50-$55 retail around here I just couldn't resist

I think part of the reason for the success of these deals has to do with peoples mindset that the game isn't worth the price but it is worth the wait. That is how I was with Braid. Awesome game that I wanted to play, so I just waited a little longer, then bought a few for my friends as well

 

Anything relying on WinG, the precursor to DirectX. Anything relying on Win9x drivers which won't work on WinNT/2K/XP. Anything adversely affected by "recent" graphics drivers (e.g. Nvidia made significant changes in their Forceware drivers after 81.95 that left numerous older games such as MDK unplayable in their DirectX incarnations).

 

Weekend deals all the way, but I'm afraid that I would actually care if the price of something increased after I'd bought it. Don't know where he's coming from with that.

 

I don't think that Steam's average pricing is particularly poor value when compared to high street stores in particular. Yes they are saving money on not providing a phsyical copy of the game, but they have other overheads such as providing the capacity to support multiple downloads, making sure games are patched within a reasonable timescale (so you don't have to go hunting for version 1.97 or wonder if you've installed all 9 stalker patches in the right order...) etc.

Maybe they will disappear into the ether at some point in the future, but i'm pretty sure i'll have stopped worrying about games by then.