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[Barack Lesnar]

Here's the problem with their response: for most of us it applies to the best of the best games, the day one must-haves and GOTY contenders. What I mean is, yes I'll buy a game I really want day one at full price regardless but only the god-tier must haves. All the other games that are middling or even well above average in quality I'll "wait for the Steam/Amazon sale at a fraction of the cost". That's probably what EA meant.

 

[xelios]

Great reply and very coherent.

 

[HK-47]

Now, counter the fan accusation that you can't count to 3.

Dont worry, I'm sure L4D 3 will be coming soon.

 

[Mupod]

Sale prices hit gamers with a higher price elasticity of demand for the game in question. Once played, many of these cheap game purchases turn into day-one full price pre-orders for the sequel or next game from that developer.

Definitely. I got Killing Floor ages ago for 5 bucks and in my mind it's the best 5 dollars I ever spent, let alone on a video game. I won't be able to click the preorder button fast enough if they announce a sequel.

Likewise THQ has practically been giving away Metro 2033 and Darksiders in cereal boxes. Hell, they might have even done that at some point, I wouldn't put it past them. But I bet preorders for Darksiders 2 are a hell of a lot higher than what 1 had.

 

[NullPointer]

Steam super sales also mean I'm checking Steam for deals at least a couple of days a week and just about every weekend, just to see whats available. That habit drives me to find and purchase games I wouldn't have otherwise.

Everybody wins.

 

[Romir]

Sale prices hit gamers with a higher price elasticity of demand for the game in question. Once played, many of these cheap game purchases turn into day-one full price pre-orders for the sequel or next game from that developer.

I wouldn't be backing Defense Grid 2 if not for buying it during some sale in 2009. Those guys have earned my support.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Steam super sales also mean I'm checking Steam for deals at least a couple of days a week and just about every weekend, just to see whats available. That habit drives me to find and purchase games I wouldn't have otherwise.

Everybody wins.

Finding ways to keep people interested in, and looking at, your service is like the holy grail of every company. Eyes on product = $$$$$ one way or another.

Look at how much the entire internet has locked its gaze on Valve at merely the anticipation of a major sale that has no date set.

 

[MintLemonade]

I find it humorous that people on these boards support Valve as if they're some kind of underdog, rooting for them as they try to fight some sort of evil corporate "boogeyman". Some of the responses on this topic are quite....

...laughable.

Anyone who supports Valve with such fanfare are simply being openly nescient. I can only imagine how frightening some of your views are when it comes to issues of actual importance...

Like I said, laughable.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I find it humorous that people on these boards support Valve like they're some kind of underdog trying to fight some sort of evil corporate boogeyman. Some of the responses on this top are quite....

...laughable.

Anyone who supports Valve with such fanfare are simply being openly nescient. I can only imagine how frighting your views are when it comes to issues of actual importance...

Like I said, laughable.

I mostly just see just one guy yelling about stuff and constantly being wrong.

 

[Shambles]

I find it humorous that people on these boards support Valve as if they're some kind of underdog, rooting for them as they to fight some sort of evil corporate boogeyman. Some of the responses on this topic are quite....

...laughable.

Anyone who supports Valve with such fanfare are simply being openly nescient. I can only imagine how frightening your views are when it comes to issues of actual importance...

Like I said, laughable.

It sounds like it's time to take a step back, take a deep breath, and repeat the mantra. "They're just video games. They're just video games. They're just video games."

 

[CyclopsRock]

very idiotic answer overall; it doesn't matter whether more people buy more games overall, it matters how much they spend in the end on it; by their line of reasoning, iOS $0.99 is orders of magnitude better than theirs, cause much much more people buy more games there

But a lot of those sales may well not have happened without the reduction in price. I think he's right: Valve have all the data that exists, and yet they still put their own games into the sales. You think his answer is 'very idiotic' so I guess the only question I have is what do you know about this situation that Valve doesn't?

 

[spwolf]

Here's the problem with their response: for most of us it applies to the best of the best games, the day one must-haves and GOTY contenders. What I mean is, yes I'll buy a game I really want day one at full price regardless but only the god-tier must haves. All the other games that are middling or even well above average in quality I'll "wait for the Steam/Amazon sale at a fraction of the cost". That's probably what EA meant.

absolutely - it creates a market where 10 games are must haves and everything else - gotta wait for huge price drop, because you know it is coming.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I find it humorous that people on these boards support Valve as if they're some kind of underdog, rooting for them as they to fight some sort of evil corporate "boogeyman". Some of the responses on this topic are quite....

...laughable.

Anyone who supports Valve with such fanfare are simply being openly nescient. I can only imagine how frightening some of your views are when it comes to issues of actual importance...

Like I said, laughable.

That's a lot of words....

...considering you didn't say a fucking thing.

 

[SteveWinwood]

But a lot of those sales may well not have happened without the reduction in price. I think he's right: Valve have all the data that exists, and yet they still put their own games into the sales. You think his answer is 'very idiotic' so I guess the only question I have is what do you know about this situation that Valve doesn't?

Edit: Didn't mean to quote this guy ^^^^ I R BAD AT COMPOOTER

absolutely - it creates a market where 10 games are must haves and everything else - gotta wait for huge price drop, because you know it is coming.

So you guys have data to back this up right?

I don't.

But I have a fun story where I passed on almost every AAA game the last few months and instead bought stuff like endless space and tiny & big and quantum conundrum and dynamite jack and warlock etc etc.

Personal anecdote better than nothing at all.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

What long term? EA shuts down their servers long term. EA releases more annualized titles than anyone in the business long term. EA shuts down more of their developers than any other publisher long term. EA changes corporate and franchise strategies every year or two long term. There is literally no one at EA who is making even the slightest overture towards the long term.

And you know what else cheapens intellectual properties? Releasing positively putrid XBLA (Dead Space), iOS (Mass Effect), and Facebook (Dragon Age) titles in a terrible attempt to advertise your product. Bulk-garbage discounting your entire iOS catalogue to 0.99 regardless of original price simply to monopolize the top 100 sales on iOS during a sales chart freeze. Killing off developers (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, UK, Japan, Pandemic, Bright Light). Reviving classic franchises in totally unrelated properties (Syndicate). Masking tons of content behind DLC paywalls (Well, pretty much everything, but I'll pick Family Game Night because I haven't slagged their family stuff yet). Killing a product's secondary market lifespan by introducing project $10 (Dragon Age: Origin, Saboteur, ... every game released since then). Streamlining the shit out of your game design with absolutely no regard to the heritage of the IP (Dragon Age II). Making abominably bad licensed content to turn a buck (Monopoly, Harry Potter 7/8). Turning your multiplayer into Gachapan (FIFA, Mass Effect) or using IAP as powerups to break game balance (Flight Control 2). Pushing out your 3rd party titles with no marketing support whatsoever (Shadows of the Damned, Alice, Syndicate). Launching your own PC DD service that's not ready for prime time and abandoning a vastly superior platform, creating a fragmented less coherent marketplace for a few ounces of lucre (Origin).

The emperor has no clothes and a tiny penis.

A monument to the hypocrisy that is Electronic Arts, worst company of the year or not. On point as usual, stump

 

[M3d10n]

Wow, some of you guys (arguing against sales) must really hate Netflix then.

 

[RurouniZel]

Yes, but there are many other ways than selling your game at $5 that can get people to play them; that's what demo are for

Just as a personal anecdote, the demo for Bioshock did not sell me on the game.

The recent Amazon sale of the game for $4.99 however, did.

That's $4.99 that the developer would have never seen from me before, even with a demo.

 

[CyclopsRock]

So you guys have data to back this up right?

I don't.

But I have a fun story where I passed on almost every AAA game the last few months and instead bought stuff like endless space and tiny & big and quantum conundrum and dynamite jack and warlock etc etc.

Personal anecdote better than nothing at all.

I wasn't really asserting anything other than that it's in Valve's best interests to get that right for their own games, as the very least. You don't have information, and I don't have information, but they do. Now, of course, they could be misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the data, but that seems fairly unlikely and is, at least, a response to data that exists.

The only other thing I said was that a lot of sales are made during reductions in price that wouldn't happen otherwise. I have no data, but every year's Gaf thread for the summer sale bears that out. Gaf hive-anecdote better than nothing at all, etc.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I wasn't really asserting anything other than that it's in Valve's best interests to get that right for their own games, as the very least. You don't have information, and I don't have information, but they do. Now, of course, they could be misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the data, but that seems fairly unlikely and is, at least, a response to data that exists.

The only other thing I said was that a lot of sales are made during reductions in price that wouldn't happen otherwise. I have no data, but every year's Gaf thread for the summer sale bears that out. Gaf hive-anecdote better than nothing at all, etc.

lol whoops I didn't mean to quote you. Multi quote must have been accidently been clicked on and then I saw I had two posts and wrote you guys, but I was really only responding to his thing.

 

[dollartaco]

Here's the problem with their response: for most of us it applies to the best of the best games, the day one must-haves and GOTY contenders. What I mean is, yes I'll buy a game I really want day one at full price regardless but only the god-tier must haves. All the other games that are middling or even well above average in quality I'll "wait for the Steam/Amazon sale at a fraction of the cost". That's probably what EA meant.

I don't have bottomless pockets. Sales are the difference between me buying and playing one game for a while or 3 games. You people are acting like it's retailers who are to blame for nearly fixed launch prices across catalogs of varying quality. There's just far too little demand and limitless supply, so something's gotta give.

 

[dollartaco]

Just as a personal anecdote, the demo for Bioshock did not sell me on the game.

The recent Amazon sale of the game for $4.99 however, did.

That's $4.99 that the developer would have never seen from me before, even with a demo.

Furthermore, even if a game demo is good, it might not be "I'm willing to spend 59.99 on this" good. I'm all for supporting developers -- and I certainly do everything I can when I'm able -- but this is entertainment we're talking about here.

 

[chickdigger802]

if I don't want day 1, i wait for deal.

If I want day 1, I prepurchase at GMG because I can usually get up to 30% off.

Really few games can get me to buy day 1 full price these days.

 

[Big-E]

Stump and Palette Swap pretty much perfectly explained what the hell is going on and why companies who bitch about this are fucking pathetic and completely out of touch and deserve to fail for being too stupid to realize what the hell is going on.

 

[SouthernDragon]

It's already been written 10 times but there's a whole unhealthy ecosystem which is way more damaging than sales:

A) Set up a huge budget project because that's the name of the game and there's obviously no other way to make good games.
B) Make a highly derivative game because said budget has obviously made you risk adverse. Additionally, hire focus groups.
C) Use every possible PR mechanism to hype your game, along the other 100 AAA games released this year. Glowing previews will help, even though previews are always flattering anyway. This will help balance out any creative shortcomings from B.
D) Set up retailer exclusives because assuaging retailers is the only way to have them push your game rather than one other of the dozen released this month.
E) Set up shitty DLC which will amount for 5% of the content of the game. Set its price at 15-20% that of the game. To hedge your bets, develop it with the game and put it on the disc.
F) Moan a bit about server costs, people having children to feed and retailers being crooks with their second hand market. Announce an online pass.
G) Launch the game, to reviews averaging above 75 because they have to.
H) Sell it for 2 weeks and forget about it until the next batch of shallow DLC.

Either go back to A) to make a sequel or proceed to I) depending on sales.

I) Your game has sold like shit despite your expectations and you realize the zero-sum game you're playing across your company won't cut it. Fire a few dozen people, blame the developers, piracy, the second hand market, sales, facebook, the mobile market, the players or the weather and move on to A).

Excellent.

I've also not seen someone be as consistently wrong as walking fiend. Well, perhaps I have, but not in recent memory.

 

[Snowden's Secret]

Unless I'm mistaken, EA's argument is essentially the same as Iwata's GDC keynote where he warned that selling your game for less than it is worth is bad for everyone, correct?

Also, for what it's worth, I'm Team EA on this one (does that make me a bad person?), inasmuch that in my own personal experience I can say that Valve has trained me not to buy games on launch day unless I know it's an evergreen AAA game that will hold it's value (in the same way Ubisoft has trained me not to buy their games until two months out when they are half price).

 

[HK-47]

What long term? EA shuts down their servers long term. EA releases more annualized titles than anyone in the business long term. EA shuts down more of their developers than any other publisher long term. EA changes corporate and franchise strategies every year or two long term. There is literally no one at EA who is making even the slightest overture towards the long term.

And you know what else cheapens intellectual properties? Releasing positively putrid XBLA (Dead Space), iOS (Mass Effect), and Facebook (Dragon Age) titles in a terrible attempt to advertise your product. Bulk-garbage discounting your entire iOS catalogue to 0.99 regardless of original price simply to monopolize the top 100 sales on iOS during a sales chart freeze. Killing off developers (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, UK, Japan, Pandemic, Bright Light). Reviving classic franchises in totally unrelated properties (Syndicate). Masking tons of content behind DLC paywalls (Well, pretty much everything, but I'll pick Family Game Night because I haven't slagged their family stuff yet). Killing a product's secondary market lifespan by introducing project $10 (Dragon Age: Origin, Saboteur, ... every game released since then). Streamlining the shit out of your game design with absolutely no regard to the heritage of the IP (Dragon Age II). Making abominably bad licensed content to turn a buck (Monopoly, Harry Potter 7/8). Turning your multiplayer into Gachapan (FIFA, Mass Effect) or using IAP as powerups to break game balance (Flight Control 2). Pushing out your 3rd party titles with no marketing support whatsoever (Shadows of the Damned, Alice, Syndicate). Launching your own PC DD service that's not ready for prime time and abandoning a vastly superior platform, creating a fragmented less coherent marketplace for a few ounces of lucre (Origin).

The emperor has no clothes and a tiny penis.

You are the best person.

 

[NullPointer]

Unless I'm mistaken, EA's argument is essentially the same as Iwata's GDC keynote where he warned that selling your game for less than it is worth is bad for everyone, correct?

Also, for what it's worth, I'm Team EA on this one (does that make me a bad person?), inasmuch that in my own personal experience I can say that Valve has trained me not to buy games on launch day unless I know it's an evergreen AAA game that will hold it's value (in the same way Ubisoft has trained me not to buy their games until two months out when they are half price).

Makes me wonder what all those free to play games are training us to do.

 

[SouthernDragon]

P.S. I've likely given in excess of 100 dollars to League of Legends, a free-to-play game.

 

[HK-47]

Unless I'm mistaken, EA's argument is essentially the same as Iwata's GDC keynote where he warned that selling your game for less than it is worth is bad for everyone, correct?

Also, for what it's worth, I'm Team EA on this one (does that make me a bad person?), inasmuch that in my own personal experience I can say that Valve has trained me not to buy games on launch day unless I know it's an evergreen AAA game that will hold it's value (in the same way Ubisoft has trained me not to buy their games until two months out when they are half price).

Why would anyone agree with EA on anything after Stumpy's post?

 

[Deleted member 30609]

What long term? EA shuts down their servers long term. EA releases more annualized titles than anyone in the business long term. EA shuts down more of their developers than any other publisher long term. EA changes corporate and franchise strategies every year or two long term. There is literally no one at EA who is making even the slightest overture towards the long term.

And you know what else cheapens intellectual properties? Releasing positively putrid XBLA (Dead Space), iOS (Mass Effect), and Facebook (Dragon Age) titles in a terrible attempt to advertise your product. Bulk-garbage discounting your entire iOS catalogue to 0.99 regardless of original price simply to monopolize the top 100 sales on iOS during a sales chart freeze. Killing off developers (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, UK, Japan, Pandemic, Bright Light). Reviving classic franchises in totally unrelated properties (Syndicate). Masking tons of content behind DLC paywalls (Well, pretty much everything, but I'll pick Family Game Night because I haven't slagged their family stuff yet). Killing a product's secondary market lifespan by introducing project $10 (Dragon Age: Origin, Saboteur, ... every game released since then). Streamlining the shit out of your game design with absolutely no regard to the heritage of the IP (Dragon Age II). Making abominably bad licensed content to turn a buck (Monopoly, Harry Potter 7/8). Turning your multiplayer into Gachapan (FIFA, Mass Effect) or using IAP as powerups to break game balance (Flight Control 2). Pushing out your 3rd party titles with no marketing support whatsoever (Shadows of the Damned, Alice, Syndicate). Launching your own PC DD service that's not ready for prime time and abandoning a vastly superior platform, creating a fragmented less coherent marketplace for a few ounces of lucre (Origin).

The emperor has no clothes and a tiny penis.

listen to the best man

 

[Jake Tower]

absolutely - it creates a market where 10 games are must haves and everything else - gotta wait for huge price drop, because you know it is coming.

They have data that says the opposite. Pre-orders have increased.

 

[NullPointer]

It's already been written 10 times but there's a whole unhealthy ecosystem which is way more damaging than sales:

A) Set up a huge budget project because that's the name of the game and there's obviously no other way to make good games.
B) Make a highly derivative game because said budget has obviously made you risk adverse. Additionally, hire focus groups.
C) Use every possible PR mechanism to hype your game, along the other 100 AAA games released this year. Glowing previews will help, even though previews are always flattering anyway. This will help balance out any creative shortcomings from B.
D) Set up retailer exclusives because assuaging retailers is the only way to have them push your game rather than one other of the dozen released this month.
E) Set up shitty DLC which will amount for 5% of the content of the game. Set its price at 15-20% that of the game. To hedge your bets, develop it with the game and put it on the disc.
F) Moan a bit about server costs, people having children to feed and retailers being crooks with their second hand market. Announce an online pass.
G) Launch the game, to reviews averaging above 75 because they have to.
H) Sell it for 2 weeks and forget about it until the next batch of shallow DLC.

Either go back to A) to make a sequel or proceed to I) depending on sales.

I) Your game has sold like shit despite your expectations and you realize the zero-sum game you're playing across your company won't cut it. Fire a few dozen people, blame the developers, piracy, the second hand market, sales, facebook, the mobile market, the players or the weather and move on to A).

What long term? EA shuts down their servers long term. EA releases more annualized titles than anyone in the business long term. EA shuts down more of their developers than any other publisher long term. EA changes corporate and franchise strategies every year or two long term. There is literally no one at EA who is making even the slightest overture towards the long term.

And you know what else cheapens intellectual properties? Releasing positively putrid XBLA (Dead Space), iOS (Mass Effect), and Facebook (Dragon Age) titles in a terrible attempt to advertise your product. Bulk-garbage discounting your entire iOS catalogue to 0.99 regardless of original price simply to monopolize the top 100 sales on iOS during a sales chart freeze. Killing off developers (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, UK, Japan, Pandemic, Bright Light). Reviving classic franchises in totally unrelated properties (Syndicate). Masking tons of content behind DLC paywalls (Well, pretty much everything, but I'll pick Family Game Night because I haven't slagged their family stuff yet). Killing a product's secondary market lifespan by introducing project $10 (Dragon Age: Origin, Saboteur, ... every game released since then). Streamlining the shit out of your game design with absolutely no regard to the heritage of the IP (Dragon Age II). Making abominably bad licensed content to turn a buck (Monopoly, Harry Potter 7/8). Turning your multiplayer into Gachapan (FIFA, Mass Effect) or using IAP as powerups to break game balance (Flight Control 2). Pushing out your 3rd party titles with no marketing support whatsoever (Shadows of the Damned, Alice, Syndicate). Launching your own PC DD service that's not ready for prime time and abandoning a vastly superior platform, creating a fragmented less coherent marketplace for a few ounces of lucre (Origin).

The emperor has no clothes and a tiny penis.

Because it needs to be quoted again.

 

[Regginald]

I hate EA but I see no reason to buy a $60 game anymore when they drop in price usually a week or so after launch. Not necessarily on Steam, mind you, Skyrim is still 60 bucks there.

The only exception I make is Nintendo games because they hardly ever go on sale. I certainly would never buy an EA game at full price, and I wouldn't feel bad buying them used either (if used actually meant substantially cheaper).

People aren't dumb so EA is mad at that. They know that games are really not worth $60 and WILL be on sale.

 

[Terra_Ex]

That EA has the gall to accuse anyone of cheapening intellectual property is perhaps the most amusing part of this exchange.

 

[Seance]

Now, counter the fan accusation that you can't count to 3.

Episode 3?

 

[Easy_D]

If I use myself as an example the fact that there ARE so many sales on Steam makes it easier for me to justify buying something full price.

Like when I bought Dragon Knight Saga "Well..it might be full price but I've gotten so many good deals I wouldn't really be losing money anyway (it also comes with the expansion pack!"

So then I purchased it.

And it was

Spoiler

fucking awesome

 

[Game Guru]

What long term? EA shuts down their servers long term. EA releases more annualized titles than anyone in the business long term. EA shuts down more of their developers than any other publisher long term. EA changes corporate and franchise strategies every year or two long term. There is literally no one at EA who is making even the slightest overture towards the long term.

And you know what else cheapens intellectual properties? Releasing positively putrid XBLA (Dead Space), iOS (Mass Effect), and Facebook (Dragon Age) titles in a terrible attempt to advertise your product. Bulk-garbage discounting your entire iOS catalogue to 0.99 regardless of original price simply to monopolize the top 100 sales on iOS during a sales chart freeze. Killing off developers (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, UK, Japan, Pandemic, Bright Light). Reviving classic franchises in totally unrelated properties (Syndicate). Masking tons of content behind DLC paywalls (Well, pretty much everything, but I'll pick Family Game Night because I haven't slagged their family stuff yet). Killing a product's secondary market lifespan by introducing project $10 (Dragon Age: Origin, Saboteur, ... every game released since then). Streamlining the shit out of your game design with absolutely no regard to the heritage of the IP (Dragon Age II). Making abominably bad licensed content to turn a buck (Monopoly, Harry Potter 7/8). Turning your multiplayer into Gachapan (FIFA, Mass Effect) or using IAP as powerups to break game balance (Flight Control 2). Pushing out your 3rd party titles with no marketing support whatsoever (Shadows of the Damned, Alice, Syndicate). Launching your own PC DD service that's not ready for prime time and abandoning a vastly superior platform, creating a fragmented less coherent marketplace for a few ounces of lucre (Origin).

The emperor has no clothes and a tiny penis.

It's already been written 10 times but there's a whole unhealthy ecosystem which is way more damaging than sales:

A) Set up a huge budget project because that's the name of the game and there's obviously no other way to make good games.
B) Make a highly derivative game because said budget has obviously made you risk adverse. Additionally, hire focus groups.
C) Use every possible PR mechanism to hype your game, along the other 100 AAA games released this year. Glowing previews will help, even though previews are always flattering anyway. This will help balance out any creative shortcomings from B.
D) Set up retailer exclusives because assuaging retailers is the only way to have them push your game rather than one other of the dozen released this month.
E) Set up shitty DLC which will amount for 5% of the content of the game. Set its price at 15-20% that of the game. To hedge your bets, develop it with the game and put it on the disc.
F) Moan a bit about server costs, people having children to feed and retailers being crooks with their second hand market. Announce an online pass.
G) Launch the game, to reviews averaging above 75 because they have to.
H) Sell it for 2 weeks and forget about it until the next batch of shallow DLC.

Either go back to A) to make a sequel or proceed to I) depending on sales.

I) Your game has sold like shit despite your expectations and you realize the zero-sum game you're playing across your company won't cut it. Fire a few dozen people, blame the developers, piracy, the second hand market, sales, facebook, the mobile market, the players or the weather and move on to A).

I think we're done here. I can't see anything that can be added to or can counter these two posts.

 

[Card Boy]

They sure came up with that counter argument in Valve time.

 

[CambriaRising]

They sure came up with that counter argument in Valve time.

 

[Snowden's Secret]

Why would anyone agree with EA on anything after Stumpy's post?

Stump didn't refute anything EA said (even though it was a good post); at best he proved that EA is engaged in worse IP-devaluing shenanigans, at worst it was a simple ad hominem (discredit the messenger, not the message).

Or: just because there are other ways to devalue an IP doesn't mean that fire sales aren't one of them.

psuedo-edit: Why am I defending EA? Is this real life?

 

[Deleted member 30609]

I think animlboogy did a decent job earlier in the thread as far as that's concerned, though.

 

[Aaron]

Or: just because there are other ways to devalue an IP doesn't mean that fire sales aren't one of them.

psuedo-edit: Why am I defending EA? Is this real life?

Except Valve has the numbers to prove this doesn't happen. Fire sales don't have an adverse effect on an IP. They expand it instead by expanding the awareness and interest in the product, and hook more people who are unwilling to wait for the next game in the series to drop in price. Pre-orders are up. Sales are full price are up. EA are down because they are so talented at sabotaging their own brands.

 

[arglebargle]

Here's the thing about the Supply and Demand curve;

It's a curve.

There are few people who will demand something at a high price, there are many people who will demand something at a low price.

By moving along the price curve with regular sales at increasing discounts, you pick up additional customers when their own attached value to a product equals the price it is sold for.

Price and value are not automatically equivalent. It's foolish to think they are, or that you can equivocate a 10 hour tv show and a multiplayer game as being worth the same to all potential customers.

beat me to it. valve does seem to understand economics and is able to convert potential consumer surplus or lost sales to producer surplus very effectively. i basically think about steam in terms of supply and demand graphs. they get people who are willing to pay 60 for a game to pay 60, people who are willing to pay 30 to pay 30, all the way down to marginal cost. i guess the argument is that in the long run people who are willing to pay 60 may still wait if they know it will eventually be 10, but the numbers dont seem to bear that out. maybe we as gamers arent smart enough to realize it.

edit:

Would you please elaborate on this? You are saying publishers are doing something which makes them less money?

saw this post and wanted to reply because i just read the new yorker article on this and the doj suit. basically under the old ebook system, publishers sold books to amazon at wholesale prices and amazon could sell to consumers at any price they wanted. because amazon is awesome and apparently doesnt care about profit they often sold these to consumers at less than their cost. various people tried to accuse them of predatory pricing, but in general predatory pricing cases are really difficult to make. the publishers got apple to agree to an agency model, wherein the publishers set prices and then apple gets a cut of each sale. they forced this model on amazon as well. the publishers achieved their goal of cutting into amazon's near monopoly share of the ebooks market (ibooks and nook are legit competitors) and potentially saved bookstores. however, since they now pay a percentage of each sale to amazon, instead of amazon selling at or below wholesale prices, amazons profits increased and just about everyone elses, publishers included, decreased. now the dept of justice is investigating the publishers and potentially apple for price fixing. which is funny because they fixed prices in order to lose money.

 

[Chinner]

i'd actually argue that a lot of AAA games, especially EA's games, are overpriced to begin with.

 

[JaseC]

Episode 3?

That or Half-Life 3.

 

[Vagabundo]

i'd actually argue that a lot of AAA games, especially EA's games, are overpriced to begin with.

And you'd be right.

The thing with the steam is that they are like drift net fishing. They catch everyone eventually. The catch the day 1 consumers, they catch the price conscious consumers and all the different size fish in between. Games not only compete with each other but with other forms of entertainment. If it wasn't for the sale my money would probably be spend on other things, the sales allow me to buy things on impulse. EA are fools and really should be paying more attention to the finer details in how Steam works.

Anyway they are, probably, never getting any more money from me on the PC as I doubt I'll ever install origins.

 

[patapuf]

it's like people don't realise that most people end up spending more money as a whole when there is a sale, and people don't stop normal purchases because sales exist.

Valve has the numbers to back it up, they have said multiple times they sell more normal priced stuff after a big sale than they do before one. They said in this statement pre order numbers are up.

almost every publisher and dev on Steam participates in the sales.

If the system wouldn't work people wouldn't particpate.


EA themselves use the same tactics on their own store and they did so a week after they said that it was a bad idea to do so and nearly every other DD store emulates valve's pricing strategies by now.

one statement fits with reality and one doesn't. It has nothing to do with fanboying, sometimes economics are not intuitive

 

[StoppedInTracks]

God damn @ Stump's post.

Truth bombs.

 

[Derrick01]

I'm saving stump's post for the few people who still think EA is awesome. It can be added to as well.

 

[specialguy]

If you're a fan of a game or a property, and you want it when it comes out, you want it. It's very valuable to you because you're a fan. You want to play it then, just like you want to see your favourite rock back when they come around.

This is why I dont understand how PC gamers can wait weeks or months for console ports, rather than buying the console version day one. Just cant understand how a real gamer can do that.