Steam sales: How deep discounts really affect your games

I spent well over £100 this sale, I think one sale I spent about £300. These is income/revenue they never would have got from me as I wasn't interested in buying those games at full retail but seeing them at a cheap price I thought they were worth a punt.
 
It's a shame Valve are so secretive about Steam's performance, I'd really love to know how many games were sold during the sale and how much money that equates to.
 
I don’t see how it’s bad for anyone, I bought GTA pack for £5 during the sell but I am almost 100% sure I would never ever buy any of those games otherwise (I already bought some in the past), surely the developer and steam get some money from that £5. Something is better than nothing. Also I will most likely not play 50% of those games in this pack at all.
 
I used to pirate games when I was younger (lack of money). Then steam launched and I never pirated again.. I now have an incredibly large collection of games, most of which I haven't even played yet :p
 
An expensive game is more likely that i'll pirate it especially if it doesn't have a demo

But i've purchased a lot in the steam sale because the prices were perfectly acceptable and well within my price range. £30+ especially towards the 40 is a rip off and i'll probably pirate it
 
What's better business??

100,000 units @ full price assume £20 = £2000000
2,000,000 @ 75% discount assume £3.74 = £7480000

Take away Valves 30% it still leaves a lot of money on the table I wonder how many copies of Fallout 3 GOTY & Fallout NV were sold @ £3.74 & how many would otherwise be sold years later now @ normal price! (virtully zero).

For sure a lot of these sales are ex-pirates who like the game enough at that price point but a couple of million copies @ 75% discount is a whole lot better than nothing!!

I can see why some publishers do not like it as it devalues to a certain extent new games on release but if the game is good enough it will always sell regardless of DRM or anything else like Uplay/Origin/GFWL which may not be popular with everyone.
 
Unless a new game is one I really want I can happily wait until a sale comes along. Between what I bought in the Summer sale and games already on my system, there's plenty to last me unitll the next sale :D The sales stimulate sales imo

Can't condone pirating though :rolleyes:
 
I think where Steam is great is for indie games, the indie bundles in the same were by and large fantastic and ive really been impressed with stuff like Edge and the bit trip games, id never pay £6.99 for them on their own but £6.99 where you get 6 or 7 games, finding one or two out of that you will play is great way to sample things.

I have over 200 games on steam now, Ive got about 50 that I keep on my hard drive, the other 150 id never play, i would love it if steam would give you an option to recycle games or donate them for a small donation to charity or whatever to keep your steam folder a bit more manageable.
 
as long as there is profit in it for the devs i see no reason to worry.
Its the old dilemma of selling loads of units for a little profit or not many sales for a more expensive product.
Like others though, if it wasn't for steam sales i would never own so many games. Bargain prices are always worth a punt!
 
How often is this going to come up? seriously?

Steam have been doing this for quite awhile, their research must be REALLY extensive, so that is why its not 75% off everything, some are 66% or 50% or 33%.

It's not just randomly generated now is it?
 
Pretty good article.
I would never have paid full price for three games i bought in the sales.

Developers also benefit after the sales by people who missed out and have friends playing it. L4D2 was one such game a few years ago, and Dayz is doing it today.
 
It does devalue games in a sense, people become acustomed to paying less for more.

That's probably why publishers are pushing DLC + subscriptions, which benefit the gaming community little.
 
Thing is every game will have a break even point (bep) after that each incremental sale will be virtually pure profit. Therefore after3 years of release it is likely that the game has broken even and now you can try to get a few incremental bucks by putting it out at a low low price .

It gets people playing your game, word of mouth passing it on oto the community and keeping your brand in the limelight which will probably help whenyour sequel comes out.

Like dvds of films when they come out and 12 months later are Andaman£1.97 in the bargain tray. Doesn't stop the release of newer titles at above ten quid.
 
Games will be de-valued if they continue to become more and more digital, if people can't see it physically then there is no attachment to it.
 
They seem to be specifically targetting sales of PC games and a lot of the flac appears to be aimed at steam, as long as the supliers/devs are happy to be in sale then that's all that matters tbh.

I mean look at console games, majority of peoplr I know refuse to buy at release simply for the fact a lot of games because most of them are sub £20 in a matter of weeks now.
 
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