Because they cause us to go on a binge-buying spree. In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, GOG managing director Guillaume Rambourg went so far as to state that Valve’s numerous 75% Steam Sale discounts were on a whole, damaging to the gaming industry, particularly to gamers:
“Heavy discounts are bad for gamers. If a gamer buys a game he or she doesn’t want just because it’s on sale, they’re being trained to make bad purchases, and they’re also learning that games aren’t valuable. We all know gamers who spend more every month on games than they want to, just because there were too many games that were discounted too deeply. That’s not good for anyone.”
He then goes on to explain GOG’s reasoning behind their discounts:
“We provide a lot of value in our games that goes beyond just the price. This is one of the key ways we fight against piracy, after all: providing gamers with more value than a pirate does. We actually generate more than half of our revenue from full-price sales, simply because we keep our prices reasonable in the first place. Our average sale tends to be around 40% – 50% off; that’s plenty of incentive to pick up a game if you’re interested or if you just think you might like to try it because you’re not sure about the game, but not some crazy 75% or 85% discount that damages the long-term value of a game.”
In other words, 40% Good. 75% Bad.
To be fair, I personally have several games just sitting on my Steam account without having been downloaded for over a year since purchase (I’m looking at you, Penny Arcade Adventures). However, I wouldn’t go so far as to blame Valve for that; it was my decision to buy them on sale in the first place. If I couldn’t control myself from an impulse buy, that’s my problem, not Valve’s.
So, anyone else suffer from this dire issue? Are Steam Sales too addictive? Do we need legislation to intervene and label them as an illegal narcotic?
Source:
Rock Paper Shotgun
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Hmm I always try to support Gamersgate and GOG before steam, but I’m not so sure this is accurate 😀
He does make a valid point, just that he words it seriously wrong. Meaning:
1. Sales make companies think that just about anything sells at some point and that people are willing to pay for shitty games if they are priced somewhere where they still make profit but not that big.
2. People need to learn that voting with your wallet means buying or not buying a game, period. No piracy, no paying 2 euros for it, no nothing. Just don’t buy POS (for whatever reason) games (unless ofc you just don’t want to pay 50 euros for a single player linear game… who would have guessed right? lol)
3. Wtf is up with Valve’s crazy prices? Hell, wtf is up with every DD and the crazy prices? I pay to get the game without a box or extras. Just whatever is in the digital Version. That’s what? Half as expensive to them than shipping the copies out? Why do I pay the same price as retail if not more? Why do I pay 40 euros, the brit 40 pounds and the american 40 dollars? What’s the real price on the damn thing ffs?
On the flipside
1. Sales allow people to buy lots of games for a price that either suits their wallet better or what they think the said game was worth.
2. Games they would probably not bother with actually do get checked out… unless you buy them and let them sit there 😛
3. I can actually buy non-valve games on steam without feeling like someone is mugging me!
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PS: Publishers need to make Digital Distribution cheaper and retail version premium. Pretty much like the Witcher 2. You get a lot of goodies in the retail version. The digital one, you still get them but they are DIY aka YWDIY(You Won’t Do It Yourself).
I see where he’s going with that, but I agree with Alfon that it is ultimately the fault of the gamer making the purchase, not Valve making the sale.