The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

You can create badges to get steam xp to get more friend slots (you usually have enough though) and to get showcases of cheeves, badges etc. (e-penis stuff.)
Alternatively you can sell that shit for steam wallet money.

 

Sell them now before the value tanks. They'll be 5 cents by the end of the sale.

 

Refunds are something a business should do, but I do wonder if they are adding this to try to moderate the ammount of negative reviews which say "OMG GAME IS SHIT BECAUSE IT WONT START" without realizing you just need to download a patch or change a little line here and there in the .ini file. It should motivate devs to worry about optimizing their products, but we all know even AAA devs can't optimize anything even if their lives depended on that.

Other than that, indie devs should read a book or two about economy, especially anything related to supply and demand.

 

Sell on the market for money. Use money to preorder FO4.

 

Yeah, i am inclined to agree with people that say this, since it make sense. People should buy more now, so in reality we should see an increase in sales. Of course it wont apply to buggy games, or mobile ports or really bad games.

 

HOWEVER...

 

Maybe this will drive prices up with the net effect that devs will make the same amount of money they always did but peoples steam accounts wont be loaded with garbage they never play.

 

The only big negative (positive for buyer) effect is that people with no impulse control are more likely to return their games after a big steam sale after they wake up the next day with a strong sense of disgust and self loathing at having spent another hundred dollars on videogames to add to their backlog.

I don't understand why indie devs mark their games down so low furing sales. Selling a 10 dollar game for 5 dollars isn't going to bump up sales to make up for the profit lost unless your sales double what they would have been had you just set it to something like 90%. Devaluing your product like that is never good. Humble bundle and pay-what-you-want stuff is also economic suicide (unless it was already free to begin with).

 

On Steam Dev forums, i saw 50-50%. some have received a boost, for some nothing changed and others indeed reached 70% refunds while having a positive rating.

But, like many said here we need more than a few days to get an idea, we dont have all the info, even if Ziggurat has a very positive rating and seems like a decent game. At least a few weeks, better, a month.

 

Well, huge reduction of the price works only on Steam, and only on sale seasons, so is worth it if you do it properly, as for bundles, yes they are all pretty bad, besides Humble Bundle and maybe another one, because they sell a lot on each bundle.

Of course, the thing is to do it after 6-12 months, not in the first week...

 

The stuff clogging up my Steam account wouldn't qualify for a refund, anyway. It's not called "bundle fodder" for nothing.

I usually have the intention to keep games that I buy directly on Steam.

 

It seems you can only apply to refunds for purchases made in the Steam store. Activated keys don't count.

 

"Devs" you mean.

 

We c-can't be held responsible for the quality of our p-products

 

People are idling for cards then refunding the games.

 

If you know what you're doing (and believe you me, a lot of indie devs apparently don't), the benefits of having a deep sale are manifold. And it all lies in the basic issue that indies have - lack of recognition. A deep sale can land you on the front page of Steam, which is basically the best advertising currently in the industry, which will skyrocket sales and the cost outlay is laughably cheaper than a good tv spot. Second, you will (again, if you know what you are doing) have probably captured most of the people you were going to get at your high price point, so lowering will net you purchases that you wouldn't get any other way. Third, every person who plays your game is a potential influencer on others, who likely would otherwise never hear of you (because again, indie recognition issues). And finally, if you plan to stay in the industry and your game has any worth at all, every person who plays it is a potential convert to your company who is now ready to pay full price for your next game.

 

^ That. See, e.g., Klei. They started small (also somewhat under the thumb of EA). When they started to branch out they would sell 'early access' to their games for cheap giving you two copies for the price of one. This gets more people playing and more people talking about them. Then comes launch. Then they have normal prices for a bit, then they do the standard price slashing, bundles, etc. It all feeds future business.

If Klei said they were making a game that would take two years to make but were selling it the discount price of $10 I'd put my money down without thinking twice. They've earned the benefit of the doubt from me.

Unless it was RTwP in that case fuck 'em.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/335430/

Cleve lost

 

^

Is that the Quake 2 engine?

Oh hey, MMX + DLC is for sale. Was it good enough to try?

 

Damn, Vogel has something good to say for once in a while. His comments start at 22:22.

 

Apparently Valve made a new game!

 

steam lags like fuck stop can't do shit stop managed to start session stop looks like you don't have to play stop

 

Yeah, last year it only took like 30 minutes for the servers to get unfucked. Now it's still kinda screwy after 1h20 lol.

 

The whole community/profile part of steam works like shit even on normal day, but now it's ridiculous. Wanted to craft badges to level 100, but shit just doesn't work.