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STEAM announcements & updates 2011 Thread 3 | Buy now, play later.

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A

aeolist

Banned
SalsaShark said:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/steam-sales-pach-attack/722690

basically pacther saying that Steam sales arent profitable (except in the long run) and that they're just a promotion to get people on Steam..


.. yeah, gotta disagree there. The games that get crazy discounted just dont sell anymore in any other way. For a developer/publisher to have an old-ass game and sell it for $5 during one day must be extremely profitable for them considering its a product they dont worry about too much anymore.. its like giving back some life to games they probably consider "dead" in retail.

I just think he either doesnt know the userbase number really well or that he thinks newer games go for that cheap, wich isnt true.
Click to expand...
Possibly fishing for info. He wants someone to pop up and say "Nuh uh they're profitable here are some numbers".

I imagine Valve's lack of data sharing drives him fucking crazy.
 
G

Gravijah

Member
i agree with patcher how do you make money off selling a game for 2 euros what they should do is mark their games up to like 200 dollars before a sale and then the sale can be like 25 pounds
 
M

MRORANGE

Member
I think steam sales are most effective for indie developers, large publishers such as EA & Activision may just see it as boosting there profit number for the quarter. A lot of indie develop have stated if it wasn't for steam they wouldn't be able to make more games.
 
A

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
SalsaShark said:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/steam-sales-pach-attack/722690

basically pacther saying that Steam sales arent profitable (except in the long run) and that they're just a promotion to get people on Steam..


.. yeah, gotta disagree there. The games that get crazy discounted just dont sell anymore in any other way. For a developer/publisher to have an old-ass game and sell it for $5 during one day must be extremely profitable for them considering its a product they dont worry about too much anymore.. its like giving back some life to games they probably consider "dead" in retail.

I just think he either doesnt know the userbase number really well or that he thinks newer games go for that cheap, wich isnt true.
Click to expand...

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/defcon/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=2512

Valve okayed the promotion and even though it didn’t focus on DEFCON we were happy that we had achieved our core objective. This was the game-changer. When we started Introversion we’d had a string of successes and believed we were undefeatable, but it was a long time since we’d had a victory and we really needed one. Right on cue, Valve delivered. The promo exceeded all of our expectations and when combined with our low burn rate (no office or staff now) we had gone from being fearful about paying our mortgages to having a year’s operating capital in the bank. This was good, but paled in comparison to the fact that we were working together as a team again. Just like the old days. Just me Chris, TJ and Johnny – laptops, bedrooms and plans for global domination. The difference this time was we have a lot more knowledge and experience about what works and what doesn’t. On the face of it we are less capable than we were six months ago, but personally I believe that we are ready to rebuild the company bigger and stronger in a different mould.
Click to expand...

Pacther lol
 
C

confused

Banned
MRORANGE said:
I think steam sales are most effective for indie developers, large publishers such as EA & Activision may just see it as boosting there profit number for the quarter. A lot of indie develop have stated if it wasn't for steam they wouldn't be able to make more games.
Click to expand...

It has to be profitable for big publishers, too. Otherwise they wouldn't have blowout publisher sales 6 times a year. Those games probably make more money in that single day than the rest of the year combined. Almost every game that goes on sale reaches the top of the top seller list for the day, and publishers have mentioned that momentum on the titles continues on after the sale has ended, fue to people just missing out and buying anyway and such.
 
P

plc268

Member
It's widely known that Pachter is full of shit 90% of the time. He does a lot of speculation, and while some of it's right, most of it is wrong.

The fact that he has his own show on gametrailers and that gaming blogs give him coverage is ridiculous.
 
A

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/valve-are-games-too-expensive

"We sold more in revenue this last weekend than we did when we launched the product," says Newell. "We were driving a huge uptick in revenue and attracting new customers." And while people believe that we're "screwing" retail, Newell showed that brick-and-mortar sales were unaffected by the online discount.
Click to expand...

Still skeptical? Newell said that a weekend sale of one third-party title drove that game's sales up by 18,000 percent and units-sold increased 36,000 percent. It energized the user base, says Newell. When the sale ended, baseline sales were double what they were prior to the weekend discount.
Click to expand...

Pacther lol
 
S

Salsa

Member
Its really profitable for big publishers as well, there's not a single doubt in my mind about that.

You can see Titan Quest as a top seller during a sale.. do you think tha game sells in any other way on this day? fuck no, they're not making a dime off that game now anywhere else, they just need to put it there, with no investment, for $5, and money comes.

Id say any money is better than no money, how is that not profitable?
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
So I bought Space Marine with that $1 onlive promotion and this is pretty much a great example of the demo giving you the whole game basically. I've played a couple of hours and a few chapters and I'm still running down tight linear corridors mashing X and Y and shooting orks. This game is pretty much the definition of generic and mediocre, I don't even know if I can make myself finish it.

About how long is the single player?
 
O

Of All Trades

Member
Sort of a generic Paypal question that also applies to Steam:

What's the benefit of using Paypal for purchases instead of a credit card? I recently downloaded the Origin client (to use the 60% coupon) and since I didn't have a cc registered with EA, and particularly after the theory of EA/FIFA12 being the cause of the XBL hacks or whatever, I decided to use Paypal to pay for the games. Doing so then brought me to the Paypal login where I used my registered cc to send payment. To me it seemed that Paypal was simply adding another layer of interference between (in this case) EA and my credit card (via a service which also has access to other accounts, which I think I'm going to change). Is that why people use Paypal in Steam, or XBL? I'm in the US if that matters.
 
G

goodfella

Member
Of All Trades said:
Sort of a generic Paypal question that also applies to Steam:

What's the benefit of using Paypal for purchases instead of a credit card? I recently downloaded the Origin client (to use the 60% coupon) and since I didn't have a cc registered with EA, and particularly after the theory of EA/FIFA12 being the cause of the XBL hacks or whatever, I decided to use Paypal to pay for the games. Doing so then brought me to the Paypal login where I used my registered cc to send payment. To me it seemed that Paypal was simply adding another layer of interference between (in this case) EA and my credit card (via a service which also has access to other accounts, which I think I'm going to change). Is that why people use Paypal in Steam, or XBL? I'm in the US if that matters.
Click to expand...

When you give your details to origin, you run the risk that they will get hacked, like sony did. By using PayPal you can buy from various websites without accumulating risk.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Of All Trades said:
Sort of a generic Paypal question that also applies to Steam:

What's the benefit of using Paypal for purchases instead of a credit card? I recently downloaded the Origin client (to use the 60% coupon) and since I didn't have a cc registered with EA, and particularly after the theory of EA/FIFA12 being the cause of the XBL hacks or whatever, I decided to use Paypal to pay for the games. Doing so then brought me to the Paypal login where I used my registered cc to send payment. To me it seemed that Paypal was simply adding another layer of interference between (in this case) EA and my credit card (via a service which also has access to other accounts, which I think I'm going to change). Is that why people use Paypal in Steam, or XBL? I'm in the US if that matters.
Click to expand...

One of the reasons why people use Paypal is to avoid exposing any information to the companies they're buying from. Another is that you can hook your bank account up to Paypal so you don't actually need to use a credit card at all. Another is that you can receive payments by paypal, so it's easy to sell something, get paid in paypal, and then directly use that currency to pay for things yourself rather than having to shuffle it around.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Archie said:
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/valve-are-games-too-expensive

Pacther lol
Click to expand...

Well, you have to keep in mind that people jump on the sales because they see them as a relative discount to the 'normal price'. If a game comes out at $15, people won't necessarily just jump on it, they'll view it as a game worth $15. They'll jump on it when it is discounted 75% from that $15. So I doubt just cutting prices across the board would work well for game companies. But sales work just like they do in the normal retail world.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
confused said:
Daily deal :

Virtua Tennis 4, 66% off
Click to expand...

Not something I'm interested in, but it's good that sports games are being put on sale. PC would be a great platform for sports (custom teams? roster updates? lots of different control methods?! awesome!) and unfortunately I guess due to lack of commercial interest, non-simulator sports have really eroded on PC. Putting them front and center on Steam and trying to lure in people who wouldn't normally try is a good thing, and would hopefully help lead to publishers doing more PC versions or putting more effort into them.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Stumpokapow said:
Not something I'm interested in, but it's good that sports games are being put on sale. PC would be a great platform for sports (custom teams? roster updates? lots of different control methods?! awesome!) and unfortunately I guess due to lack of commercial interest, non-simulator sports have really eroded on PC. Putting them front and center on Steam and trying to lure in people who wouldn't normally try is a good thing, and would hopefully help lead to publishers doing more PC versions or putting more effort into them.
Click to expand...

This is one of many reasons that I hate the exclusivity agreement between the NFL and EA. 2K have been releasing their MLB and NBA games on Steam over the past few years (NBA2K12 was only $30 launch!), and if it wasn't for that agreement between NFL and EA, we'd probably be seeing their football games on PC as well. It's pretty clear that EA doesn't plan on doing that anytime soon, and considering the way they handled that Tiger Woods game, we're probably better off without them.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
I heard VT suffers from random save file corruption. I remember reading that they submitted a patch to MS a month or two ago, but I don't know if it ever got certified.
 
F

Flunkie

Banned
Wasn't there just a sale on VT a couple weeks ago? Anywho, I was looking at it just last night so I kind of want to pick this up.
 
E

Erasus

Member
Stallion Free said:
Singularity is so underrated it's ridiculous. It was easily one of the best FPS campaigns released in recent years.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this, got it on last christmas sale and I loves it!
 
I

inky

Member
graywolf323 said:
what's Pachter have to do with an article written by Mary Jane Irwin which doesn't even mention or quote him?
Click to expand...

He was responding to Pachter's comments on the GT video posted earlier in this very page.

Also, the question was about $1 games. I guess Pachter meant specifically games close to that price point, not that sales overall were unprofitable.
 
Y

YianGaruga

Banned
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
 
D

Dizzy-4U

Member
Nabs said:
I heard VT suffers from random save file corruption. I remember reading that they submitted a patch to MS a month or two ago, but I don't know if it ever got certified.
Click to expand...
Apparently not according to the steam forums. Shame.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...

Yep. Same error, and they still activated.

To further examine this issue by replicating the error, I'm gonna need you guys to send me 4-5 gifts k thanks.
 
Y

YianGaruga

Banned
Snuggler said:
Yep. Same error, and they still activated.

To further examine this issue by replicating the error, I'm gonna need you guys to send me 4-5 gifts k thanks.
Click to expand...
I'd be willing to be a test subject too. I think I'll need a larger sample though.

I'm not sure if you're actually having this problem or just making a joke D:.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
YianGaruga said:
I'm not sure if you're actually having this prolem or just making a joke D:.
Click to expand...

Heh, I wasn't joking with the first part. I've had the same error with the last few items that were gifted to me.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...
Yup, had the same thing earlier today. Seems to be a common thing, but didn't affect my game either.
 
N

Nelo Ice

Banned
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...

Been getting the same problem as well any gift I redeem works fine but it always says "gift has already been activated".
 
T

Tomodachi

Member
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...
I get that along with every single gift I receive. Weird, isn't it? I'm guessing it's a bug for when you get a gift from a different store region?
 
P

PaulLFC

Member
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's happened to me the last few gifts I've received too. Games still work fine so it seems to be nothing to worry about.
 
X

xenoflux2113

Member
YianGaruga said:
I have a strange problem with Steam.

Everytime I recieve a gift, I can accept it without a problem and it instantly appears in my games library, but I still get an error message saying "gift activation failure".

It says that the gift has already been activated or has been revoked or something. This happened the last few times I got gifts. Does anyone else get this?

I can play the games I got without a problem though, just wondering.
Click to expand...
I get that as well. Its like the gift is trying to activate twice.
 
E

elrechazado

Banned
Does steam usually have a black friday "cyber monday" esque sale, or do I need to wait for the christmas sale? Just built a new gaming pc, and itching like crazy to buy a ton of games. I have a feeling I'll be buying multiple complete developer packs this year.
 
G

goodfella

Member
Snuggler said:
This is one of many reasons that I hate the exclusivity agreement between the NFL and EA. 2K have been releasing their MLB and NBA games on Steam over the past few years (NBA2K12 was only $30 launch!), and if it wasn't for that agreement between NFL and EA, we'd probably be seeing their football games on PC as well. It's pretty clear that EA doesn't plan on doing that anytime soon, and considering the way they handled that Tiger Woods game, we're probably better off without them.
Click to expand...


There is hope!

The new FIFA 12 game is now on par with the console version. It seems likely that is due to the target region (Europe) or the individual studio, but it is at least possible that EA is at least open to the idea of putting resources into a good pc sports game.
 
C

ChoklitReign

Member
I was going to buy Hard Reset, but I remembered that my credit card was deactivated after losing it...

No credit card for a week...

1234931504682.jpg
 
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