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Galyonkin (SteamSpy) blog post about Steam Summer Sale
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
ashecitism
Member
I haven't even bought anything this year and didn't participate in the clicker game lol
Messofanego
Banned
An average discount is 66%, but the bigger the discount, the less money youll make.
Now, that's interesting. Seems there are some limits.
Now, that's interesting. Seems there are some limits.
Blue Ninja
Member
Yeah, me neither. I've reached the point where I own most of the games I still want to play somewhere down the line, and don't need to buy anything else until it gets a significant discount.
Really cool to see how much software gets moved during Steam sales.
The revenue vs discount percentages stat is not really useful on its own due to the fact that newer, more pricey games got smaller discounts. For some of them, it was the first time they were discounted, so people snapped up copies that were only 20-35% off regular price.
I'm sure that a 5 year old game offering 20-35% regular price would be met with negligible sales.
it's not really interesting it's expected with scaling sales.
your game comes out at 0-10% off usually
after a few months you get it to 33% off
a bit after that 50% off
a bit after that 66% off
a bit after that 75%+ off.
people who really want the game will buy it in either the 0-10% or the first decent sale so 33% off.
people who are interested in the game will typically buy at 33-50% off.
the discounts beyond that are to get people with a passing interest who will likely add it to their backlog and never play it. The majority of people who wanted your game would have bought it before it got below 50% off, thus why it would have a higher revenue compared to the lower sales.
the better comparison is revenue of the game before the sale and after, where the 66%+ discounts will almost always have more money coming in than the game at normal price before that (which is why discounts get so low as the revenue of sales to people with only causal interest in the game at a cheaper price will easily outweigh the revenue of sales to people who want your game at full price months after release)
I lost interest in the mini-game almost immediately. Amusingly enough, though, despite this sale being my most lucrative, I've still yet to receive a sale foil. Two years and counting!
You didn't attempt to get the 100,000,001 badge like some of us
read: Me
I've never cared about badges outside of increasing friends list space. Truth be told, the mini-game badge level I have bothers me as it's inconsistent with game badges. Maybe one day I'll get a job at Valve and fix it.
I've never cared about badges outside of increasing friends list space. Truth be told, the mini-game badge level I have bothers me as it's inconsistent with game badges. Maybe one day I'll get a job at Valve and fix it.
Job title: Buys ALL the Steam games.
Steam profile: "Professional game collector @ Valve."
It'd probably be more a curse than a blessing in some cases. Like, it'd be easy enough to avoid HL3, but curiosity would get the better of me when it comes to, say, Firewatch.
eot
Banned
Personally I rarely use the wishlist feature, I close all the popups when you start Steam and don't really browse the front page, so unless I happen to read about a particular discount on for example GAF I'll probably miss it. It's easier to just focus your attention on the big sales and find deals there.
Awesome stuff per usual, although I do have to nitpick
in that I think it's hard to draw any conclusions about overall pricing strategy and effects from the entirety of sales data with the number of variables in game budget (i.e. AAA or not), marketing, full price, release date proximity, etc. CS:GO has been up to 75% off before, for instance, and would've done some skewing if it was in the 66-75% off range. Same story in the other direction with games like ARK, The Witcher, and Dark Souls 2 inevitably skewing things in the other direction regardless of what their discount was.
Edit: although 'median', yeah
I'm sure that Galyonkin is aware of this, but it'd be nice if the sale results on SteamSpy let you do things like lop off the top 20 or filter results by full price and release date in order to get a better sense of the games with more elastic demand.
in that I think it's hard to draw any conclusions about overall pricing strategy and effects from the entirety of sales data with the number of variables in game budget (i.e. AAA or not), marketing, full price, release date proximity, etc. CS:GO has been up to 75% off before, for instance, and would've done some skewing if it was in the 66-75% off range. Same story in the other direction with games like ARK, The Witcher, and Dark Souls 2 inevitably skewing things in the other direction regardless of what their discount was.
Edit: although 'median', yeah
I'm sure that Galyonkin is aware of this, but it'd be nice if the sale results on SteamSpy let you do things like lop off the top 20 or filter results by full price and release date in order to get a better sense of the games with more elastic demand.
charlequin
Banned
Couple of points here that I wanted to dig in on.
I don't agree with this at all. If anything, we saw a period of expansion up through a few years ago (2012, maybe?) and we're in a retrenchment phase now. Compared to previous sale periods, the average discount on recent AAA and top-tier indie games is less than it once was, the proportion of overall games on sale is smaller, and the time window from launch to complete bargain-basement pricing is longer (as a random example, Assassin's Creed 4 still hasn't hit $5 and in fact was discounted less than in the previous Winter Sale.) This time around, there were a number of games that were noticeably worse deals than were available previously, or elsewhere (again, to pick an arbitrary example, Shadow of Mordor, where a Steam key for the GOTY Edition was on sale even at the same time for $5 less on Bundle Stars.)
To a certain degree I think this is the result of an effort at restraint after seeing how aggressively sale culture can depress the value of individual games, and that's positive in a sense, but I think the use of scammy pricing and the subpar discounting compared to the same games on other storefronts tarnish the brand a little.
There's really two different categories of people who buy games on Steam. There are "Steam users" -- people who may not be super dedicated gamers or huge spenders, but at least have Steam boot up with their computer, play some games throughout the year, and know what they like enough to either wishlist it or potentially notice if it gets a midweek madness/weekend sale.
There's another, I would wager larger, group of people who do play games but don't really engage with Steam as a platform outside very specific circumstances. I was out drinking with a former coworker last night who typically isn't much of a gamer at all, but who had picked up Bioshock Infinite and Cities: Skylines during the sale. This is a super-technical guy and someone with a sharp eye for deals, but Steam exists as a purely utilitarian, extremely occasional tool for him. Random weekly discounts might as well not exist for his purposes; The Steam Sale as an all-caps cultural event is how he's going to engage with the service because it's impossible to miss (any remotely nerdy place on the internet will talk about it enough to bring it to your attention) and it lets him pick up anything he's heard about in the last six months without having to exert much effort in checking in on all of them frequently. I would wager there are a lot more people in this category than the first one.
I don't agree with this at all. If anything, we saw a period of expansion up through a few years ago (2012, maybe?) and we're in a retrenchment phase now. Compared to previous sale periods, the average discount on recent AAA and top-tier indie games is less than it once was, the proportion of overall games on sale is smaller, and the time window from launch to complete bargain-basement pricing is longer (as a random example, Assassin's Creed 4 still hasn't hit $5 and in fact was discounted less than in the previous Winter Sale.) This time around, there were a number of games that were noticeably worse deals than were available previously, or elsewhere (again, to pick an arbitrary example, Shadow of Mordor, where a Steam key for the GOTY Edition was on sale even at the same time for $5 less on Bundle Stars.)
To a certain degree I think this is the result of an effort at restraint after seeing how aggressively sale culture can depress the value of individual games, and that's positive in a sense, but I think the use of scammy pricing and the subpar discounting compared to the same games on other storefronts tarnish the brand a little.
There's really two different categories of people who buy games on Steam. There are "Steam users" -- people who may not be super dedicated gamers or huge spenders, but at least have Steam boot up with their computer, play some games throughout the year, and know what they like enough to either wishlist it or potentially notice if it gets a midweek madness/weekend sale.
There's another, I would wager larger, group of people who do play games but don't really engage with Steam as a platform outside very specific circumstances. I was out drinking with a former coworker last night who typically isn't much of a gamer at all, but who had picked up Bioshock Infinite and Cities: Skylines during the sale. This is a super-technical guy and someone with a sharp eye for deals, but Steam exists as a purely utilitarian, extremely occasional tool for him. Random weekly discounts might as well not exist for his purposes; The Steam Sale as an all-caps cultural event is how he's going to engage with the service because it's impossible to miss (any remotely nerdy place on the internet will talk about it enough to bring it to your attention) and it lets him pick up anything he's heard about in the last six months without having to exert much effort in checking in on all of them frequently. I would wager there are a lot more people in this category than the first one.
michaelius
Banned
I've noticed that too. It's much harder to buy AAA game that isn't few years old for < 7 euro those days while it was common not so far ago.
EatinOlives
Member
Indeed. The "under $10", and especially the "under $5" crowd had very slim pickings this year. Most everything that was under $10/$5 was already at that price in past sales.
What I found most interesting is the large increase in gameplay time for "other" games during and after the sale. I guess buying games and not playing game is really just something which happens for us, not any normal people
That's just the adjusted card drop times taking effect.
I did a quick check on Steam Summer Sale 2012, and I would agree that at least in AAA space, discounts have lessened.
In general, the crazy discounts during summer sale 2012 that you could expect from AAA games that are 7-12 months old, essentially releasing the fall of previous year, you currently have to wait for minimum 13-18 months at least. So, the spring of previous year, or sooner. I'm not including some of the crazier sales of summer 2012 in that, here's a few examples of those:
Max Payne 3 was released roughly 6 weeks before the sale. It went 50% off
Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released August 2011, so 11 months prior. It cost 6 euros to buy, and I think the regular price had lowered already at that point.
Saints Row the Third and LA Noire were both released November 2011. 7,49
WH40K Spacemarine, released in September, was 5
Some crazy shit went down in 2012, lemme tell ya.
I would consider myself a very heavy Steam user and until recently I almost never used the wishlist.
I only use it now to track sales on very low visibility co-op games or similar such things where I wouldn't see them featured as a daily deal ever.
Basically I always had a general sense of what I wanted so I'd just see if it came up on the sales. The wishlist was no where near important to me until there were simply too many items around.
zerokoolpsx
Member
The deals this summer sale wasn't as heavily discounted like the ones in 2012. They had those indie bundles, where some of the listed games weren't indie at all.
I regularly use the wishlist to keep track of what I want. Adding to that backlog, so I can literally wait until it reaches a discount that is very good for me.
I noticed some prices on previous daily deals was cheaper on a few games when compared to their summer deals.
I guess more people played games during the summer sale because it just wasn't discounted enough to warrant a purchase.
Its gonna be years before GTA V hits 75% off at this rate.
I regularly use the wishlist to keep track of what I want. Adding to that backlog, so I can literally wait until it reaches a discount that is very good for me.
I noticed some prices on previous daily deals was cheaper on a few games when compared to their summer deals.
I guess more people played games during the summer sale because it just wasn't discounted enough to warrant a purchase.
Its gonna be years before GTA V hits 75% off at this rate.
Eventually you get to the point where you have all the old games you want, so what you're left with are newer games, or games you only wanted at 75% off and will pass otherwise.
I only picked up four things this summer sale- a game I was interested in but only at 50% off, another game where I was waiting for it to be finished, but it got a surprise 60% so I took it, and two batches of DLC.
There is a huge oversupply of games on Steam due to the fact games never "leave the shelf", and so many wannabe indie developers. It's a tough market.
I only picked up four things this summer sale- a game I was interested in but only at 50% off, another game where I was waiting for it to be finished, but it got a surprise 60% so I took it, and two batches of DLC.
There is a huge oversupply of games on Steam due to the fact games never "leave the shelf", and so many wannabe indie developers. It's a tough market.
You're right about AAA games, but Steam has much more indie games right now and they're the ones that usully get discounted a lot
A valid point, thank you
Kind of like Black Friday in a miniature