single entity that owns a gaming platform is pretty synonymous with monopoly.
Notch speaks again about Minecraft not being on Steam
- Thread starter Omikaru
- Start date
single entity that owns a gaming platform is pretty synonymous with monopoly.
jim-jam bongs
Member
you should probably chuck out whichever dictionary it was that told you that
Ok so he didn't say the word monopoly but he said the "platform being owned by a single entity". It's the same thing so let's not try to bullshit each other here, Notch is doing enough of that for everyone. I'm fine with him not bringing the game to Steam because he wants more money, I don't care for anything he makes and probably never will anyway unless he starts using his huge cash pile on big budget games. I just don't like him trying to dance around the real reason and try to paint Steam as the bad guy. There's not even a bad guy in this scenario.
MrNyarlathotep said:
I don't know why. The game's steamworks so they should have bought it on Amazon especially when Steam's deal was only 33% I believe.
You should probably refute the actual statement instead of thinking of witty comebacks. It's plain to see the context of notch's statement regardless of the wording.
jim-jam bongs
Member
er but I did?
a monopoly requires quite specific conditions which simply don't exist here. the negative outcomes of monopolistic business practices demand those conditions in order to exist. a successful business is not a monopoly.
he's encouraging competition, not suggesting that valve have a monopoly. there's quite a big difference.
A quick question for you. After acknowledging your excitement for the Witcher 2, which prompted you to buy it day one, had you:
1. Played the first Witcher game?
2. How much did you pay for the first Witcher game?
I'd be willing to bet that if you've had this mindset for any real length of time you got the Witcher on a significant Steam discount after it had well exhausted it's legs at higher MSRPs, but your enjoyment of it is what prompted your excitement for the next game.
So if you paid $30-$35 for The Witcher 2 after buying The Witcher for $5-$10 CD Projekt just made $20+ thanks to a sale.
Steam's discount rates extend the legs of games tremendously which keeps a small but steady flow of cash going to the developers (making the accounting easier than the boom/bust model of living off your first two or three months of sales only) and helps to expand the potential fan base for a sequel.
Its a whole lot better selling 1000 copies of a game for $2 as opposed to 100 copies of a game for $20 in a digital distro world. You've got ten times as many potential customers come the sequel's release.
ArtaxLives
Neo Member
Simple fact is if Minecraft was on Steam I would buy it tomorrow, since it isn't I still have not bought it.
So he has not lost 30% of my sale he has lost 100% of it...
And to me after all his success it seems petty and silly to worry that Steam is becoming this big monster monopoly.
The simple fact is that if it was on Steam he would reach more people and sell more games.
Steam is great I love it, but there will always be alternatives.
So he has not lost 30% of my sale he has lost 100% of it...
And to me after all his success it seems petty and silly to worry that Steam is becoming this big monster monopoly.
The simple fact is that if it was on Steam he would reach more people and sell more games.
Steam is great I love it, but there will always be alternatives.
Quixz
Member
Yep that's what I thought too.
jim-jam bongs
Member
now now, you need to work harder than that for an avatar quote
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
It's a pain in the ass to purchase or atleast it was last summer. You either need PayPal or a credit/debt card that can be used overseas. One of my banks wouldn't go through because it was overseas, luckily the other bank did and when my neighbor wanted to buy it, she couldn't either. I had to gift it to her which was a pretty convoluted process.
Maybe Notch should see about making it easier to process credit cards in the US? Oh, that might cut into his profits.
Bottom line, I wished it was on Steam when I bought it.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Can't he have it on both his site's store and Steam?
I mean, that right there is the solution.
I mean, that right there is the solution.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
If he did that I bet most people would choose to buy it off of Steam.
That depends on what you're trying to sell. For a smaller developer with relatively unknown IPs, it's a boon getting into as many hands as possible and in no way does it cheapen the game. If anything it sets you up to provide even more content - perhaps with a sequel - later on, because you're a known property by then.
But I imagine a giant publisher would see it as devaluation of their franchises unless the games in question were several years old and/or failed at other price points/service providers(PS3/360/other). Imagine how someone like Nintendo must look at Steam sales. They have many franchises selling 20+ millions of games at pretty high prices. For them selling through a Steam like model would be a huge devaluation of their franchises' worth.
Side question: With all the sales going on you would expect some games to sell massively on Steam. Does anyone know what the, say, top three best selling games are on there? Just wanna get an idea how a large publisher would view the money making potential on the platform. Has any game selling for 5-10 bucks ever hit more than ten million copies? Has anything at all hit that amount?
I thought I bought it through PayPal using a normal U.S. Visa card, but I could be mistaken.
I think Notch had some understandable concern about PayPal since at one point if memory serves me gith, they attempted to hold some...$200,000 of his money or so, hostage, suggesting the Minecraft purchases were suspect and the money might be confiscated. Notch publicized it and things got resolved. And I don't think Notch is the only one who has had PayPal issues over the years.
I don't have firsthand experience with the other payment method(s) that are supported, but I don't remember having gift issues since it should be as simple as entering an email address and/or giving someone a code to type into the website, like with Steam.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
But even then, he still would have some of them giving him 100% profit.
That's what happened with Witcher 2. I think the percentage CD Projekt gave was 80% Steam, am I right?
But I give them credit for at least giving us a choice. I wouldn't have bought Witcher 2 if it wasn't on Steam as I'm not going to feed into a select few's irrational hatred of it.
Also Amazon is frequently making more of their games have 2 purchase options: Steam and non Steam, even for games that don't normally have Steam keys. Having a choice is always the best choice.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
I think you completely missed the point. The problem isn't that he didn't take PayPal, it's that he ONLY took PayPal or you had to have a credit/debit card that could be used for an overseas purchase.
If you try to buy from Nintendo with your credit/debit card, it won't complain because you are trying to buy from Japan. The processing company is in the US and in US dollars. With Minecraft, the price was in Euro and had to be converted and your bank had to be cool with overseas processing.
Does that make more sense or less sense?
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
People prefer Steam. Even though I don't use it for anything more than a store and a game library, it's nice to have all my games in one place. I have bought games from other DD shops and they are all but forgotten about because there is no disc on a shelf and no library to view them in.
Starbuck2907
Member
I've never understood why non-Steam games don't just have an "import fee" or a slightly higher price.
For example, I can't buy Mass Effect 3 on Steam. Why can't Steam charge that extra 30% over the price of the game, so that EA does not lose that revenue (not considering the DLC policy problems). EA would not lose money, and Steam would not lose money. I would be paying a small premium for the luxury of using the game on Steam. EA, especially, is being short sighted.
Same thing for Minecraft. Just sell the game on Steam for a slightly higher price. Or, perhaps let Valve charge me a small fee for allowing me to activate a game key on the service because I bought the game through the web site.
Notch, EA, everybody is being very short-sighted here. Steam is much more than a store. It is a storage facility, a social site, a store, a community, and much more. Many people, would be more than happy to give Valve a small fee just to keep *one unified game library* using one piece of software.
Steam, as a service, has value to a lot of people. Many would probably pay a small additional fee, enough to make up the lost 30%, just to have ALL their games in that one library.
To top it all off Notch, EA, Valve, everybody is leaving money on the table here. I mean, how many people on here have bought Battlefield 3 through Origin, but would happy give EA/Valve and extra $5 to activate the game on Steam? Or, at launch, would people have paid $69.99 instead of $59.99 for a "Steam enabled" version of the game? ...EA were using BF3 as their foothold to get Origin started, but now that it is up and running, I don't see why such things couldn't be done in the future.
For example, I can't buy Mass Effect 3 on Steam. Why can't Steam charge that extra 30% over the price of the game, so that EA does not lose that revenue (not considering the DLC policy problems). EA would not lose money, and Steam would not lose money. I would be paying a small premium for the luxury of using the game on Steam. EA, especially, is being short sighted.
Same thing for Minecraft. Just sell the game on Steam for a slightly higher price. Or, perhaps let Valve charge me a small fee for allowing me to activate a game key on the service because I bought the game through the web site.
Notch, EA, everybody is being very short-sighted here. Steam is much more than a store. It is a storage facility, a social site, a store, a community, and much more. Many people, would be more than happy to give Valve a small fee just to keep *one unified game library* using one piece of software.
Steam, as a service, has value to a lot of people. Many would probably pay a small additional fee, enough to make up the lost 30%, just to have ALL their games in that one library.
To top it all off Notch, EA, Valve, everybody is leaving money on the table here. I mean, how many people on here have bought Battlefield 3 through Origin, but would happy give EA/Valve and extra $5 to activate the game on Steam? Or, at launch, would people have paid $69.99 instead of $59.99 for a "Steam enabled" version of the game? ...EA were using BF3 as their foothold to get Origin started, but now that it is up and running, I don't see why such things couldn't be done in the future.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
There is so much wrong with this.
- No one would pay an extra $18 on a $60 game.
- If they did, every publisher would want to do that.
I bought Minecraft two years ago and it's been sitting in my Steam library ever since. It's not rocket science to add it to your library despite it not being on Steam.
SafeinSound
Member
Really? People don't give Valve respect? Hilarious.
Maybe -- I really don't know enough of the details of the current Minecraft credit card providers to be able to say. I am pretty sure PayPal used to take a big cut of their part, and/or there was a big cut in the international transfer stuff and/or taxes, so it wasn't like purchases were going through without any cuts to begin with. And I thought PayPal would accept normal U.S. credit cards if you went that route...or maybe that's your objection, that it's no longer an option.
Even with Steam I think I once or twice had some very odd thing show up with a Valve payment handler in an unusual location (foreign country and/or odd state). But that was super rare and long ago, so maybe I was just crazy.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
That's fantastic. Here, have an Oreo.
I never said it was rocket science to add a game to Steam, I just choose not to. I run a clean computer and that extends to Steam. What I can't download/install through Steam, isn't in my Steam library.
Besides, how would adding games to Steam help me remember those games after a fresh Windows install? Does it remember the titles I added myself?
Starbuck2907
Member
If I bought a Battlefield 3 on Origin, EA gets ALL the revenue. If I pay $5-$10 to important the game into Steam, then EA and Valve split the new revenue. EA would get the full price of the game plus incremental revenue. EA loses no money. They only gain more profit. Steam gets new, important games that were previously withheld from the store. Even if Steam couldn't actually sell the game, being able to import the keys bought elsewhere would be a new revenue stream for EA and Valve.
You may not like it, but as a business model, I can see that happening.
For a game like Minecraft. Notch makes his $25, and then Notch makes another small fee when people pay to import the game into Steam. Valve was making zero revenue on the game, but now they are making money. Valve also maintains it's place as a one-stop storage facility for all of a consumer's games.
There are other ways, too, that games could be sold through steam with minimal price increases that would offset the 30% fee.
(edit: I know how to add games to my steam library, but adding a shortcut is different from actually having the key in your downloads library)
- Torchlight took two years and a XBLA version before it hit 1 million copies sold. Magicka sold 1.3M copies in a year. Neither of those were Steam exclusive, but both were some of the larger indie hits.
- Portal 2 sold 4 million copies in its first year including the console versions (which sold over 600k copies in the US alone during May 2011). Valve did say that the PC version passed the Console version in sales though so that is at least 2M for PC. Some of those PC sales were retail.
- The Left 4 Dead series was at 11M combined a year ago, but over 6M of that was on 360. PC versions would have also had decent retail sales outside of the US.
- Valve announced that Half-life 2 had sold over 12M copies total as of a year ago, but the game was at 6.5M non-Steam retail sales in late 2008.
Nothing has sold 10 million copies on Steam. There is a chance that Half-life 2 broke 5M on Steam, and I don't know how well the digital version of Counter-Strike has sold. The retail version was huge, but it was in decline before Steam really exploded in popularity. Team Fortress 2 is probably over 5M downloads by now, but it wasn't before going F2P.
Skyrim is by far the best selling third party game of all time on Steam (maybe the best selling game period after Half-life 2), but I sort of doubt it got anywhere close 5M copies on Steam alone. Maybe the PC version is around that number. Who knows. Bethesda rarely releases their sales beyond launch window. We know that Skyrim shipped 10M copies in its first month, and that the console versions were around 5M sold in the US alone by the end of December.
Minecraft has likely outsold every game on Steam. I think massive sales on Steam means 1-2M copies, with very few indie titles ever reaching that level. Lots of Steam success stories in the 500k+ range though.
All digital distribution services do this and 30% is the typical rate.
CosmicQueso
Member
I'm with you. Between this and Fish's bullshit, these indie guys pray to the money altar just as much as any major publisher. I'm a bit sick of seeing them placed on these pedestals just because they have indie game-dev beards.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
I have imported several Steam games to Origin for free. Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dead Space, Dead Space 2. Bought DAO and DA2 on Amazon and redeemed them on Origin and it works like that for Steam too. Why would I pay anyone extra for that? The standard has been set.
Starbuck2907
Member
Right. But many people would pay a few bucks to import games the other way. How many would pay to import Battlefield 3 into Steam?
People said the same thing "Why would anyone pay for that" when Microsoft charged for Xbox Live. It was a huge success.
People also buy albums from Amazon.com when they are occasionally free or cheaper elsewhere. Nine Inch Nails is an example of a band that has given away free music, or very cheap music, but charged for it on iTunes and Amazon. Some people are service-loyal and will gladly pay a premium to maintain that loyalty.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
If people paid to import BF3 into Steam, they would be hurting us all. Next thing you know those free transfers would not be free anymore. You know that if EA could monetize it, they would.
As for me, I won't pay to import anything so I wouldn't be part of that particular problem. I am just saying, quit trying to create a paid service out of a currently free one.
Comparing this to Live Gold is bad idea. When Live Gold came out, there was no competing service on consoles for free. There was no service on consoles at all. Today though, now that there is PSN, Live Gold is losing favor.
faceless007
Member
If it's a few bucks, probably some. But 30% of MSRP? Yeah, no.
It's an unbeatable business model, at this point.
People need to listen to this edition of TotalBiscuits mailbox on Steam fanboyism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp
There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.
There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.
You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp
There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.
There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.
You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
What does "clean computer" mean?
What is this? Are we really getting to the point where people will try and argue for games to go up in price?
Ridiculous.
And it's about three times what a developer gets at retail.
Starbuck2907
Member
As I said, there are likely creative business models that would help fix that problem; I can think of a few on my own. Valve, after all, is the king of unique business models. ...and, the 30% MSRP really only a problem with new titles. As Valve so proudly points out, their huge sales on older catalog titles does not cost publishers money, on the contrary, it's a way of breathing life into dying or dead products. It takes a dead product and makes it a moneymaker, even with Valve taking 30% of the cut.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Well we have already seen some of the cracks appear already and some of what TB says rings true.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
He writes true and valid concerns. Ones i have had with Steam forever.
Microsoft allows all XBLA developers to patch once for free.
After that, patches cost money, though some developers have negotiated additional free patches in their contracts.
The point is that MS doesn't want XBLA devs to "ship now, patch later," so they put in a financial incentive to get it right the first time. Sloppy coding requiring multiple patches is going to cost.
Part of the reason for this is the fact that most patches download to the cache and are then deleted if you clear the cache on the drive. The base program never changes on XBLA, even after a patch has been issued. So someone buying the game in five years, still downloads the same base binary, plus any patches.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Yeah, you and Joseph Merrick are definitely the go-to posters for non-irrational steam hatred.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
It just dawned on me that Gabe and Notch are like mirror versions of themselves. Gabe is a person that got into gaming because of business and Notch got into business because of gaming. They are both exceptional people but i find the comparison interesting. Thats like some True Neutral shit right there. You know... balance and all that jazz.
Or you can just buy it now and add a Steam shortcut. I don't understand whats stopping people.